Software​

• The Windows Developer Center is your base for all things Windows and Windows Phone related http://dev.windows.com http://dev.windowsphone.com
• FREE Download: Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows
• Visual Studio Express 2013 allows to develop apps for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1
• Developers using Visual Studio 2013 Professional or higher has to install Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 to add in Windows Phone 8.1 dev tools

PC (Hardware) Requirements​

Windows Developer Account

For starting development of app you do not need Developer Account. For publishing Windows Phone and/or Windows Store apps you need to get the Developer Account

To get a Developer Account: Included if you have an MSDN subscription Free to students who have a Dreamspark subscription $19 charge per annum for individual developers, $99 for Company accounts

There are three approaches to develop Windows Phone 8.1 apps XAML Apps. I like third 'Use Windows XAML platform' approach as most of the users upgrade WP8 to WP8.1.

• Dual-SIM works in Windows Phone 8.1 by splitting out the phone dialer and messaging into two separate Live Tiles.
• Decrease HW cost floor (support 8x26, Qualcomm Reference Design)
• Apps can be installed on microSD
• Apps to help you get more out of your data plan: DataSense 2.0, Wi-Fi Sense, Storage Sense, Battery Sense
• Virtual softkeys instead of capacitive keys.

For Users​

• Customize Start screen: Customize your Start screen background with a favourite picture or one of the supplied options. Users can configure three column start screen which is available on all phones. Start screen backup and restore feature is also available.

• PERSONAL Digital Assistant CORTANA: CORTANA learns about you and your interests Enables CORTANA to be proactive and helpful throughout the day

• Action center to quick launch settings and view notifications

• Fast typing with new Word Flow keyboard

• Buy app once: use on PC and on Phone

• App data can roam among devices

• App data backup

• Faster app updates

• Remote viewing of Phone screen

• Install apps to SD card

• New Skype app integrated with Phone dialer

• New Calendar app with new Week view

For Developers​

• Converged developer platform
• Converged app model
• Shared app identities + entitlement
• Unified push services (via WNS)
• Live tile improvements
• Action Center for smart notifications
• Internet Explorer 11 improvements
• Background execution + triggers
• Bluetooth-LE support for wearables + beacons

Microsoft Surface Pro 3 is a thin tablet which replaces your laptop, more productive, Beautiful screen, Faster than Surface Pro 2

Live webcast @ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/may14/05-20webcast.aspx

Thicknesses : 9.1 mm

Screen : 12.0"

Weight : 800g

Processor : Core i7 Fan less

Estimated price of Surface Pro 3:

• 4th gen Intel® Core™ i3, 64 GB and 4 GB of RAM - $799

• 4th gen Intel® Core™ i5, 128 GB and 4 GB of RAM - $999 4th gen Intel® Core™ i5, 256 GB and 8 GB of RAM - $1,299

• 4th gen Intel® Core™ i7, 256 GB and 8 GB of RAM - $1,549 4th gen Intel® Core™ i7, 512 GB and 8 GB of RAM - $1,949

If you have a Windows Phone 8 now and want to get the preview of Windows Phone 8.1:

• Go register free at http://appstudio.windowsphone.com.
• Then go to "Windows Phone Preview for Developers" and install the "Preview for Developers" app.
• Go to Settings, then System Update and update your phone.

NOTE:

• Warranty will break

- You CANNOT REVERT to a prior OS version once you have taken an update via this program

Microsoft Remote Desktop Preview now available for Windows Phone 8.1

If you install Windows Phone 8.1 preview for developers on your phone.

It's time to download and try 'Microsoft Remote Desktop Preview' app which is now available in WP Store

Features

• Rich multi-touch experience with Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and RemoteFX supporting Windows gestures
• Secure connection to your data and applications with breakthrough Network Level Authentication (NLA) technology
• Simple management of all remote connections from the connection center
• High quality video and sound streaming with improved compression and bandwidth usage

Release 8.1.1 includes the following updates:

• Pin desktop connections to the Start screen
• Support for word flow and predictive text
• Ability to disable thumbnails

Windows Phone App Studio Beta is awesome. It’s a great way to build your first app for Windows Phone. It lets you choose different design templates and styles, and lets you pull in different data sources, from RSS feeds, to YouTube, to Flicker or even Bing. In this post, we’ll talk about how to take an app that you created in App Studio go further by making it work on Windows 8 using the latest update to Windows Phone App Studio.

For More Info read this->

I had participated in Microsoft DevCamps for Windows Application Development @ Regenta One hosted by Microsoft -

I am the winner of 2nd prize for development of Windows 8.1 App - In Hackathon.

DevCamp

In a blog post, S. Somasegar, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Developer Division clearly mentioned that: “This is a targeted update, addressing some key areas of customer feedback since the Visual Studio 2013 release. For example, we heard your feedback about running Visual Studio in environments without IE10+, and have made several improvements to this experience in Update 1.” New features for developers include:

• IntelliTrace Viewer users should note that it's been updated to support Internet Explorer 9.
• A new version of Microsoft ASP.NET Web Frameworks and Tools (version 5.0.11213.0). It adds editing support for ASP.NET MVC 5.1 on top of all existing functionality from the Web Framework and Tools 5.0 release.
• A new version of Nuget, 2.7.2. It fixes a bug which caused certain packages to fail when running package restore, update or uninstall.
• Web tool, SignalR 2.0.1, which includes new item templates.

Download

• Download web installer of Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 (~1.1 MB)
• Download offline installer/ISO image of Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 (~245 MB)