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Windows Phone 8 SDK — By Appointment Only
mikejuk writes "Developers worried about the changes that might be waiting for them in the new Windows Phone 8 API are going to have to wait even longer to find out. Microsoft has just announced that the SDK will be available soon, but only to the developers it approves. If you already have a published app, then you can apply to be part of the program. The announcement says, 'But I do want to set your expectations that program access will be limited.' The public SDK will be made available 'later this year,' which is behind the timetable that developers were led to expect. As you can imagine, the developer community, judging by the comment stream, is less than happy. What makes this whole development even stranger is that the announcement was made on the day Nokia previewed a range of WP8 devices. The Nokia launch got most of the publicity, so perhaps the idea was that a little negative news wouldn't be noticed. The real question is: why the limited availability?"
I think this is right choice from Microsoft. They know what's best for us developers. Hell, they made the best IDE on planet - Visual Studio - too!
I'm thinking that we need a new moderation: "-1 Shill"
It's obvious: WP8 isn't really ready yet. They gave a sneak preview a while back that only contained a few features, they've been coy about when the damn thing will be released, they only showed off a couple additional features at the Lumia event, and they still won't tell us when they'll be showing off the rest of the features (BUILD 2012? who knows?), when phones are being released, which carriers will be getting them etc. Look, I like WP, and I like developing for WP, and WP8 will be my next OS, but this is getting beyond stupid.