Alternatives to Windows Phone 8 Emulator - windows-8

I have a computer with Windows 8 Enterprise (Evaluation) and an Intel Q8300 CPU (which does not support SLAT as far as I know).
I also own a Samsung ATIV S - Windows Phone 8 smartphone.
I would like to develop Windows Phone 8 app(s) but the emulator won't run on my PC. What are my options? Can I plug the phone via the USB cable and debug the app on it? Or this will also require a developer account (which I hear is 100 US dollars per year)?

You have to unlock your phone to debug applications on it, and yes, you need a Windows Phone Developer account to do that. It costs 100$ per year.
MSDN: About deploying and running apps on a Windows Phone device
You have to meet the following prerequisites before you can deploy an
app to a Windows Phone device:
You must be a registered developer. For info about registering as a developer, see Registration info.
The phone must be registered. For more info, see How to register your phone for development.
And about Dev Account cost: Register for a Dev Center account
An annual Dev Center subscription is $99 USD plus any applicable tax.
For that, you’ll get to submit unlimited paid apps to Windows Phone
Store. You can also submit up to 100 free apps.

You do not need to pay for Windows Phone Developer account. All you need is a computer with Zune software running and a USB cable. The rest is mostly automated.

Depending on your app, if you can get 99% working on f.e. android, it might be an option to upload a winphone build to the Windows Phone Store and specify its a beta submission. To do this, yes, you need a developer account. But you dont need to unlock your phone.
Add yourself (and other devs) to the beta tester list and submit the app.
It will be available in ~1 hour, but it doesnt really appear in the store; you need to install it using a link sent to you by mail.
As for debugging, try Weinre.

Related

How to install Windows Phone app for beta testing without purchasing a certificate

I have a Windows Phone individual developer account and need to do a beta testing internally. I used Appaloosa and HockeyApp for this purpose. But, when I try to download the app and install it on my Windows Phone, it shows a message "Can't install company app" on both Appaloosa and HockeyApp.
I heard that one needs to have a Symantec certificate and an .aetx file in order to install Windows Phone app which costs $299.00.
I need to know if there is any other option so that I can install my developed app freely on some Windows Phone devices which are intended for testing. I might need to email my .xap file to the testers and let them download and install for testing purpose.
You can install your developed app on some Windows Phone devices from Windows Store. If you have development account, you can publish your app with limited access. You will get link on your app. Your app will access only for people, who have this link. Another people will not find your app in Windows Store.

Can I download and install apps that previously published for wp8.1 with a Windows 10 phone?

I have read many articles about the "forward compatibility" of WP apps stating an app targeting 8.0 can run on an 8.1 phone. But I have not verified this on WP Store.
I have published a universal app for WP 8.1 and some users have installed this app. Now I am investigating the various upgrading scenarios happen when Windows 10 Mobile comes out later this year.
Scenario 1: Can a user download and install the 8.1 app with a newly purchased Windows 10 phone? Will it show up in the new, unified Windows Store?
Scenario 2: Can a user who has already installed this app continue to receive updates to this app after he upgrade his phone to Windows 10 Mobile? I have no plan for a Win 10 release at this stage and I will update the 8.1 release in the months to come.
It will be helpful if you can provide me some links about the policies of the new, unified Windows Store.
Yes to both. Existing apps will show up and can be installed from the store. As with the existing stores, users will get the most relevant app for their device. Your existing Windows Phone 8.1 apps will run on and be available for Windows 10 mobile devices. You can update it and expect your users to receive the updates.
This is discussed in the store sessions from Build:
All That is New in the Windows Store and Store: Deep Dive on Publishing Universal Windows Apps
The blog entry Get ready for the Unified Dev Center dashboard preview and upcoming Store changes goes into detail on what you need to do to support various scenarios with the updated store.

Can I use a Windows Phone Developer Account with multiple devices?

Windows phone developer account works in a single mobile or multi mobiles?
You can have up to three windows phones developer unlocked, per developer (you can relock, and change these even if you no longer have access to the phones, or they are otherwise not working)

Deploy wp8 application on a wp7 smartphone

I have a windows smartphone , version 7.10. can i deploy it for applications developed with the wp8 sdk and will these applications work without any problems on wp8?
Since WP 8 and windows 8 will share common core, I think that we can say that such deployment will be possible with maybe minor tweaks regarding device resolution. Maybe you can think that you can use snapped view on tablet as a UI for phone.
It's not clear why you are referring to WP7, but Windows Phone 8 apps will not run on any Windows Phone 7.x device.
The biggest thing today is that Windows Phone 8 has a shared common
core with Windows 8," said Windows Phone Manager Joe Belfiore at the
Windows Phone Summit in San Francisco, which was webcast. "For us,
this is a huge release and a huge year.

Developing for WP8 with only WP7 device?

I don't understand from today's WP8 event: will I be able to develop apps working on both 7.5 and 8, having only one 7.5 (7.8) device for testing?
I don't like WP emulator, even though it's better than iOS/Android ones. I know that in Visual Studio 2012 it will become even better. But still!
Current devices running Windows Phone 7.X will be able to be upgraded to Windows Phone 7.8 but not Windows Phone 8.
If you want to use a feature that is specific to WP8 you'll either have to wait for hardware or use the eumlator (when available).
I don't like WP emulator
But you should. The emulator for Windows Phone 8 is a full featured Hyper-V emulator, that can even run unmanaged code.
As pointed out by Matt, you'll not be able to do any deployment of Windows Phone 8 apps to your Windows Phone 7 device, and as such you'll need a new device, or use the emulator.
And as the SDK is likely to be released before any devices, I'll strongly encourage you to do development in the emulator until the real devices are on the market.
You'll have to use Windows Phone 8 emulator, or cross your fingers that the equivalent to XDA-Developers for Windows Phone roots your model of phone and is able to get Windows 8 working(hint: unlikely)
The Windows Phone 8 emulator is really very nice though. The only big troubling thing about it is that it requires hardware Hyper-V support and Windows 8. This means you can't run the phone emulator inside of most virtualization technologies. However, I've been using VMWare 9 which appears to include an "unsupported" feature to allow Hyper-V to work though.. So your only choice for running the phone emulator is to either buy VMWare 9 or upgrade a physical machine to Windows 8