ChevronWP7 Labs–Authorized Windows Phone Unlocking Coming
Oh those Chevron guys have been talking to Microsoft about putting together an approved unlocking tool that will provide for the ability to sideload apps directly to your Windows Phone. Here’s their announcement:
It’s been a while since we posted something. Between fixing state machines and avoiding the paparazzi, we have been busy tinkering with Microsoft behind the scenes.
As you may remember, one of our goals was to make Windows Phone development more accessible. Plans have recently solidified and we can now reveal a solution we’ve been working on.
As announced on the Windows Phone Dev Podcast, we will soon be launching an approved Windows Phone unlocking service as part of ChevronWP7 Labs. This will be available to developers across all skill levels and all regions.
The service will require a small fee — currently via PayPal — to offset costs but we assure you it will be more affordable than the App Hub. Those who wish to write and immediately publish apps are recommended to sign up to the App Hub instead.
We’re excited to be making this service available to users with the support of the Windows Phone team.
Follow us on @ChevronWP7 to know the moment we launch.
Awesome…this will make a nice community project and start to get closet developers and tinkerers back in the game. It sounds like an approved Cydia or secondary app market of sorts. Exciting stuff for a Friday afternoon.
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And once again the Windows Phone team shows how to collaborate with the homebrew community. Not locked down like iOS and not the wild west of Android, the nice middle ground. I like it alot. Downloaded the dev tools and about to start learning how to code. Nice timing.
Nice. Will give more users the ability to tinker a little and get their live tiles working again.
Damnit Murani, so I’m reading your bullshit, I’m about to say something on topic and poignant, then you fucking go ahead and type “alot” like a fucking six year old and completely derail me in order to correct you. Stop that. Do I need to make you fucking flash cards? Anybody got a magic marker and some index cards?
The middle ground is a pussy move that doesn’t always work, a shining example being Windows Phone. You got a group of people that want it this way, another big group that wants it that way, another group that does what their child/coworker persuaded them to do and you know what you don’t really have? Another group that’s tried it this way and that way, and, estranged by the cons they found on both sides of the aisle, wants to try something in the middle, you know what you call that group?
Team Single Digit.
You and calling Android the digital Wild West and how horrible that is. While I’d argue that it’s not that wild, still fitting that you’d feel that way, scared of it, you phone pussy. Need to be protected by your blanky, your pacifier and your locked bootloaders.
@Doug Simmons. You do realize that the majority of people out there, developer or otherwise have no desire to tinker with their phones, don’t you? They just want a stable platform and, in the case of devs, the ability to write their own apps that are for personal use or company use without the need to publish to the marketplace. I personally am a big fan of the middle ground and commend what MS and Chevron have managed to put together in a relatively short amount of time. I really don’t understand your statement that the middle ground “doesn’t always work, a shining example being Windows Phone” (unnecessary potty mouth removed). WP has been out less then 10 months. I don’t think they qualify as a shining example of anything except maybe a new wave of innovation that the industry needed. Take your venom over to the iPhone/Android blogs.
Right, the industry really needed a wave of innovation, fruity tiles, faster booting, sort of no multitasking, great, who cares.
Windows Phone is barely a ripple let alone a wave of anything. I disagree with you that a year or so is way too little to identify something as a failure, or at least not a success, and also to use its persistently declining market share and share of new smartphone owners as an indicator of what’s to come. How long is long enough for you?
As for venom, this place is a cesspool of a cocktail of Microsoft kool-aid and anti-Apple and Google venom (but not anti-RIM, they give RIM a pass). I’m here in part to return fire. I’d say if you don’t like me hedging the WP obsession take it to WMPU but I’m becoming more active there too so how about you take your first name over to wpcentral or some shit. I’m staying.
But yeah you’re right, that’s some Neil Armstrong shit MS and Team Chevron have accomplished since the advent of NoDo. What is this about? Sanctioned sideloading for a group of people that already knew how to sideload? Really? Well shit, I didn’t realize this was a game changer expose, my apologies for intruding.
@Doug Simmons
Do you even listen to your self? Yea you’re right, innovation and faster starting cell phones are stupid, I want a slow one. Who cares about innovation? Hopefully alot of people.
Don’t mind @Doug Simmons, he sees the real challenger awaking from a long slumber and he feels like a jilted lover having to watch their lost love beng named Man of the Year. Nokia is arguably the biggest brand name in the europe and asian market and only an idiot would deny the opportunity Nokia andMicrosoft have to quickly gain marketshare. In fact its the success outside the U.S. that will ultimately allow Microsoft to not panic and continue to grow the platform in the U.S.
Give me a Nokia flagship phone running Mango complete with a Carl Zeiss lense thats on the N8 and i’ll put the phone up against anything Android or Apple produces this fall/winter.
Yeah, Doug, why do you want to sh$t on everybody who loves MangoMetro? Even if it never sells well, which I doubt actually, why does it matter so much? If the OS is clean and innovative and its users tend to love it, what’s the need to sh$t on it? BlackBerry I get because it is an outdated piece of crap.
“Yeah, Doug, why do you want to sh$t on everybody who loves MangoMetro?”
Because he’s a Google twat. I’ve said here half a dozen times, but Android is shit. I could put up a long list, but why bother. We all know why, well, except for David of course. When new Android phones launch without the newest version of Android, that tells you all you need to know. You know, like that Droid to that’s not Gingerbread ready. I heard that update is 103 MB? LOL! Are you kidding me? How long will that take to update. Jeez!
Wow I never thought about it that way, that’s some insightful shit Joe, thank you.
Question, unrelated: I heard that less than half of iPhone owners ever tether up to their computer. Now given how many of these folks came from the iPod and are more likely than any other group using any other music management software or whatever, only less than half for a step that was /but no longer is/ necessary to update their software (kind of like Android, no need to tether for anything, even 103MB firmware updates), what percentage of WP users out there do you picture having installed and tethered up to their Zune to install even the NoDo update?
My guess, under 20%.
But that’s not big a deal (talking about fragmentation) because it turned out that nodo didn’t do shit, let alone bring such a dramatic change that would trip up developers like you think Android’s system does. However, Mango, all I hear about it is that it will be the game changer, it will put WP in the lead and crush the present heavyweights and so on, five hundred features or whatever, so I’m thinking well maybe this time developers will need either to code for non-Mango phones or only Mango phones to take advantage of all this new stuff or they’ll have to code twice to reach what will surely be, and for a long time, an overwhelming majority of users who didn’t update to (or buy a new phone with) Mango.
To me at least that makes your crowd, the one that spends just about the same amount of energy talking about how great WP is and how fragmented Android is and how WP is not and never will be fragmented,… well whatever I won’t jump on it because this alleged fragmentation never affected me and I don’t picture it affecting you.
Just saying though, it would be a good idea for Microsoft to copy what Apple’s copying, cutting the cord and letting people update over the air. Wouldn’t it?
Regarding the size of Android and also boot times and whatever, ever think that it might have to do with Android allowing its users to do more stuff out of the box? And who’s doing all this rebooting for that to matter? Not all Android updates are just little Windows Update patches, they’re actually OS updates (like from Windows XP to Windows Vista). They’re different operating systems. Just because Google doesn’t start a new operating system with the version number seven, changing the number for a copy and paste update, doesn’t mean Google also feels like they have to get creative with misleading version numbering.
The list I wish you’d bother to put up is how, given how horrible you say incessantly Android is and how God-like WP is, WP flopped and Android did not flop. That’s a good question right there. To get a few out of the way for you and to warm you up, market timing, AT&T retail fail, Ballmer in general, not dishing out the platform to anyone with a POS phone for free etc. Anything else make them flop that is changeable at this point?
You’re such a bitch, Joe. Go have some bitch juice, you bitch.
By the way, not surprisingly, a lot of you people are confusing no longer not being able to sideload with rooting. This is not rooting.
Meaning whatever you run won’t suddenly enable you to change your ringtones, unless the only thing preventing you from changing your ringtones wasn’t some sort of filesystem or registry thing but it was Microsoft rejecting any sort of ringtone-changing application. This doesn’t mean that you can, with Microsoft’s approval, start tethering because you were able to sideload some XAP after buying this official software or make wifi hotspots or spoof mac addresses or install Windows 3.1 or do anything outside of your sandbox.
What this is good for however is lurking a lot more on XDA trying new things that haven’t made their way to your market yet or won’t for whatever reason without Walshing your phone or whatever — but correct me if I’m wrong. Also from what I’ve read, and I’m not saying any of you would do such a thing, but this does not open the warez floodgates any more than they already are for paid apps, however free XAPs or whatever may start getting redistributed by random sources, like cabs, which means developers may lose stats. Of course I could be mistaken.
Doug.
Stop being jealous of Wp7. You are scared because you know MS is better than all the rest. And with mango all the other corp. little phones are nothing and they will never be as good as ms. Ms learned from the mistakes of others and now they are going to be better than the rest. And now that ms is unlocking the devices for those who wish to. The phones are wide open and everyone else will fall. and by your comments you make ios and android look scared and they should be. Look out there is a new sheriff in town. yehaaaaaaa.