You can turn off the XBox tile. By default, it's lower on the list that phone, etc. No need to buy into xbox. I don't have an xbox, but all games are under the xbox tile. I do have a few games that I play on the phone. If I did have an xbox, I could connect some games from phone to xbox, use my xbox avitar, etc. No biggie. How many PCs have you bought that came with "ads" for other things? It's far easier to remove the xbox tile that to get the crapware off a PC.

WinPhone development is fun and simple. The SDK is free as are the Express edition of the tools



The animated tiles are called Live tiles. They give lots of information. If I have an email, a voice mail, Facebook updates, twitter updates, etc. Your app can have it's own live tile.


The Windows Phone app store is easy to use.

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>>>>And Nokia is just getting into the game. Isn't that news enough?
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>>>Nokia? You mean that company from 15 years ago?
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>>>Every Windows Mobile Phone I've seen has an Xbox Live ad on its front screen.
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>>>You want to see the time, your Windows Phone can do that. And then tell you which of their video games to buy.
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>>>Want to make a call? Grab your phone and look at an ad for Xbox first.
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>>>Absolutely disgusting if you ask me.
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>>>I have an Android app with 14K+ downloads. I also collect some revenue from it.
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>>>The development was simple and fun (the android SDK is open source and written in JAVA).
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>>>Deployment to the Android Market was easy and Google Checkout takes care of the finances.
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>>>I'm also now on the Amazon App Store and support the upcoming Kindle Fire.
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>>>(Does Microsoft have a simple and pain free app store?)
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>>>That said, I still get requests all the time for iOS versions.
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>>>Android and iOS *are* the smart phone market.
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>>>That anyone would waste one second of time or one penny with the Xbox Live commercial for your pocket , or Windows Mobile or whatever they call it, is a testament to the power of routine by Microsoft loyalists.