Getting your App published on Windows Phone Marketplace

 

“Congratulations Ian Walker of Web Services UK! Drums & Bass has successfully passed certification for Windows Phone Marketplace!”

Following application submittal to  http://create.msdn.com and ‘ingestion’ (where Microsoft test and certify your app) this is the message you receive on a successful submission   It means your app is live (if you elected to auto publish) or is ready to publish (if you selected manual publication)

I submitted a number of applications last night (I am in the UK) finally finishing the process around 1:30 am this morning:

I had the bright idea (no pun intended) of publishing a very simple app as my first submission – I wanted something that would pass and give me a little confidence in the process (and myself I guess).  So last night I put together an empty project, put some simple (and I do mean simple) graphics together and posted it – I made the background white (irrespective of theme) and called it ‘Torch’ (that’s what we call a Flashlight  in the UK).   

So here is my top tip for getting your app published in the marketplace: keep it simple!

Irrespective of this I was impressed with the turnaround, my understanding is that thousands of developers were uploading their apps to test the new process that went live last night, so it looks like it passed with flying colours.  Kudos to the guys at MS.

Tip 2 – don’t use Black or White on transparent backgrounds for your marketplace icons – fine on the phone but marketplace doesn’t like them! (example here – the graphic is white on transparent!)

Tip 3 – Try and get it right first time as even the smallest mistake means you will need to repeat the whole submission process (suspect this might change in the future)

Tip 4 – Don’t use ‘washed out’ colours for your marketplace background image (example here)

Tip 5 – Don’t use formatting in your marketplace descriptions (example here)

Tip 6 – When it comes to fixing (even minor) errors remember to increment your version number, or your app will fail ingestion and you will need to re-upload your XAP.

Tip 7 – Watch out for colours & gradients in the Application Bar! (example here).

Tip 8 – When resubmitting open up another instance of create.msdn.com on your original submission to enable you to copy over any details that have not changed*.

* I am including this tip as you may, like me, have some concerns that opening up another instance might impact your re-submission – this does not appear to be the case.

Related links:

”Marketplace and the App Hub” (Great overview of the marketplace by Andy Beaulieu)

“Anatomy of a WP7 submission (Marketplace walk through by Peter Henry)

~ by Ian on October 12, 2010.