Good and bad news for Nokia app developers

Rating: WP7 SDK is here but developer forum has been hacked

This week has seen some very good news for developers hoping to create apps for Nokia phones. The good news is that Microsoft has just published the latest version of the Windows Phone SDK 7.1. All current publishers of Windows Phone are being asked to use this latest SDK to update their current apps and resubmit them to take advantage of new Window Phone capabilities. Which is great if you’re planning to develop for Nokia’s WP7 handsets. The bad news is that on Monday [August 22nd 2011] the developer.nokia.com forums discussion website suffered a security breach. The site contains a database of developer forum members’ email addresses and, for around 7 per cent of those members who chose to provide them – birth dates. But, Nokia account passwords, credit card data or similarly sensitive information was not accessed during this attack. So that good news as well, really.Well, Microsoft has added new Profilers and Marketplace test kits to the Release Candidate version of the SDK and says that the time to complete technical certificate testing will be accelerated as a result.

This Release Candidate also delivers the finalised APIs as well as the ‘Go Live’ license which will enable developers to submit their apps to Windows Marketplace.

There’s more information in the Windows Phone section of the Nokia Developer site here.

Nokia points out that since the announcement of the Microsoft and Nokia alliance, the number of registrations to Nokia’s Launchpad developer programs have increased by 55 per cent.

Better still, those Launchpad members as well as our PRO members of Nokia Developer programs are eligible for free registration to Microsoft App Hub.

Microsoft experts will be providing training for Silverlight and how to create cool UI’s with Microsoft Metro.

Dates for hands-on training sessions for Windows Phone have also been announced for Italy, UK, Spain, France and Germany. If you want to attend then you have to register your interest here.

Those attending will be shown how to take their content into the Windows Marketplace for the forthcoming Nokia with Windows Phones. Super.