Today, i have downloaded and installed Windows Phone SDK 7.1.1, so what’s new? Well, here are the list of improvements included in the said SDK…

• The Visual Studio IDE is patched to enable selection from a list of emulators, and launching it (note that the WPSDK can only support connecting to one at a time, though)
• The Windows Phone [512 MB device] emulator image is updated to use build 8773
• A second, new emulator device image is included, allowing you to emulate running your app on a 256 MB device
• The Microsoft Advertising SDK is updated to the latest version (previously only available as a separate install), which fixes some issues devs were encountering at runtime
• IntelliSense now supports specifying the 512 MB device requirement in your manifest file, should you choose to opt your app out from running on the new 256 MB devices
• Language support is again consistent both in the IDE (the 7.1.1 Update supports all 10 of the WPSDK 7.1 languages) and in the emulator OS (Malay and Indonesian have been added)

 

So as you see, there are lots of great improvements from 64-bit Windows Phone emulator to the most up-to-date Assemblies for Windows Phone. Some of the updates are available to use on selected WP countries, but for those countries who AREN’T supported YET, you may still develop apps and submit it through Yalla Apps or any other Microsoft’s Global Publisher Program partners.

The Microsoft Windows Phone developer blog posted a neat set of instruction and guidelines to follow, you may want to read it here. Most of the instructions and updates are listed there, so i encourage you to read all of it, step by step and don’t just dive in, to get the most out of Windows Phone App development.

Enjoy developing Windows Phone 7 apps! 😀

You might find these links useful:

Optimizing Apps for Lower Cost Devices

Best practice tips for delivering apps to Windows Phone with 256 MB