In my travels across the mobile developer community landscape, one topic tends to spark more debate than any other – HTML5 or Native? If you have an opinion, here’s your chance to weigh in and win some great prizes.

Vision Mobile (not affiliated with me or Microsoft) just announced their annual “Developer Economics survey”. This is a quick 10-minute online survey in which  you can share your thoughts on developer platforms, trends, app monetization as well as where you stand on HTML5 vs. Native.

In addition to having your say, you also have a chance to win some great prizes as well.

Take the 10-minutes and share your thoughts.

Windows Phone 8 offers up some exciting new features and opportunities for developers. The customer base is getting larger with new form factors and low-memory devices. Is your app ready? Are you ready to add the new Windows Phone 8 features to your existing 7.x app? Do you understand the key scenarios to make your app shine on Windows Phone 8 and bring nothing but 5-star reviews? The Windows Phone Evangelism team at Microsoft is hosting a Windows Phone 7.x Upgrade Lab to help you make your app shine on Windows Phone 8.

What is a Windows Phone Upgrade Lab?

The Windows Phone Upgrade Lab is a free, fun, no-fluff workshop for Windows Phone Developers by Windows Phone Developers. Our Technical Evangelist team will introduce you to the new features in Windows Phone 8 and what you, as a Windows Phone Developer, need to do to take advantage as these features. We will also guide you along the path of making your app work great across the new form factors and low memory devices coming from the many Windows Phone manufactures.

The Windows Phone Upgrade Lab is a working lab. This means, bring your development machine and your source code and be ready to submit your Windows Phone 8 updates by the end of the day. We will start off the day by discussing the new developer features of the Windows Phone 8 SDK. Following this, our technical experts will be on-hand to assist you in bringing some of these features to life in your app. We will help identify what features would be best utilized in your app, help you implement those features, and assist you in submitting your app into the store by days end. We will cap off the day by introducing you to strategies for bringing your app to Windows 8 and opening up your app to a whole new world of new customers!

Some of the features we’ll be discussing, include…

• New Windows Phone 8 Features
• What is the Windows Phone Runtime?
• What’s new in Tiles and Notifications
• Handling Multiple Resolutions
• Understanding the required artwork
• New Proximity Scenarios with Bluetooth and NFC
• New Mapping technology from Nokia
• Lock Screen integration
• How to start thinking of bringing your app to Windows

Notes:
1. Download and Install the Windows Phone 8 SDK at http://aka.ms/Phone8Tools

2. The Windows Phone 8 SDK Emulator requires your machine to support SLAT (Second Level Address Translation). You can verify if your machine supports SLAT by running the CoreInfo tool. More information can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj863509(v=vs.105).aspx.

If your machine does not support SLAT, you can still use the SDK and test against a physical Windows Phone Device. If you don’t have a Windows Phone 8 device, we will have some on hand during the workshop to test with.

3. You can get a jump start on the workshop by working through the tutorials in the Windows Phone 8 Training Kit or playing around with the many Windows Phone Code Samples.

In addition to registering for this Workshop, be sure to take advantage of great resources such as access to free expert guidance, app and game frameworks, as well as free storage and tools with Generation App! Sign up at http://aka.ms/AppFor8.

Join myself, Clark Sell, Adam Hoffman and Greg Levenhagen as we guide you to building Windows 8 Apps with HTML/JavaScript.

In partnership with GOTO Chicago, we’ll be bringing this *free* hand-on workshop to the Drake hotel in Chicago on Thursday, April 25th.

This hands-on workshop will focus on the fundamentals of building modern Windows 8 applications with HTML and JavaScript. In this workshop, we will cover topics including:

· Async programming patterns

· Patterns for composing a Windows 8 App

· Managing App Lifecycle

· Page Navigation

· Integrating your App with the OS

· Working with Tiles

· Performance tips

· Testing and Deploying your App to the Windows Store

You will leave this workshop armed and ready to take advantage of the opportunities starting to explode with the Windows 8 Store. As The Next Web asserts, “We may see a gold rush of sorts as the Windows Store grows up overnight.” It’s time to stake your claim now!

Windows 8 Workshop / GOTO Chicago
Thursday, April 25th, 2013, 09:00-16:00
Register with promo code: windows8free

If you would like to attend all the amazing sessions at GOTO Chicago, you can register with promo code ‘bost150’ and save $150 off of registration!

Are you ready to bring your Unity game to Windows and Windows Phone? Do you want to learn more about the recently announced Unity support for Windows and Windows Phone?

Unity and Microsoft are holding a free, two-day training event designed to help you bring your Unity games to the Windows Platforms. Although this event is taking place in Mountain View, CA, those great folks at Channel9 will be broadcasting the Main Event on Tuesday, April 9th.

Main Event Agenda:

• Introduction to the Windows 8 Platform and the Windows Store.
• End-to-End: Develop, debug and deploy a Unity game for the Windows Store.
• Deep dive: Tips & tricks for porting games from other platforms to Windows 8.
• Differentiate: Integrate your game with Windows 8 platform features (such as contracts, notifications, and live tiles).
• Sharing code: Learn how to reuse all this new knowledge on the Windows Phone platform.
• Partner sessions: Hear the lessons learned from those that have already done it.

Building Games with Unity
Tuesday, April 9-10 (Pre-event training on April 8th)
Register to attend in-person

Channel9 Broadcast

In my job as a Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, I work with a lot of iOS and Android developers to help them bring their apps and ideas to the Windows Platform. I wanted to make sure for those of you that I don’t get the pleasure of working with in person knew about some great resources to help in your app porting efforts.

First… if you love your Mac but want to fire up some great Windows apps, don’t fret. You’ll want to check out Installing Windows and the dev tools on your Mac.

For you iOS developers, you’ll want to check out the Resources for iOS developers.

For you Android developers, we have similar guidance with Resources for Android developers (Windows Store apps).

Each collection of resources provides guidance and API Mappings to help you understand how each technology translates to the Windows SDKs.

If you need a little extra guidance, feel free to schedule office hours with me or one of my colleagues and we’ll be happy to help you in your efforts.

In addition, be sure to sign up with our expert-guided 30-day app development program.