Sports Score Apps for Canadians in WP7 Marketplace

When it comes to sports scores apps, unfortunately at this moment, the WP7 marketplace is "lacking"

And more importantly for us Canadians, if you want to get hockey scores, currently there are not a lot of choices. The CBC app only reports scores and some stats on hockey scores (which is important), however, it is very slow to get updates and the UI layout is strange and weird. It is currently the top free sports score app in the Canadian Marketplace (probably for the lack of alternatives).

There are couple of free apps that gives you just the scores for the major North American sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) but they currently do not provide any stats on the game (important for us hockey poolies). Don't even think about CFL scores.

So, while TSN, and Sportsnet hopefully are busy writing them as we speak (I hope they are), if you want your hockey fix, here's what you could do until the real apps comes out.

From your WP7 IE, go to m.tsn.ca and by default, it takes you to the hockey scores (TSN knows what we want). You can then hit the "..." to bring up more options and select "pin to start" and you are done. Next time you want your hockey scores just go to the start page and hit your TSN link.

I'd rather use this quick link to the tsn website rather than the slow cbc sports app.

The WP7 Marketplace is growing! *Update*

Been checking for new WP7 everyday since I got my phone 3 weeks ago. At first most are published by Microsoft Game Studios. Everyday, maybe 10 or so new apps (yes, including those bloody fart apps) are getting released on WP7M.

I just checked again this morning and I noticed popular games from the Apple App Stores are making their move. First up is Fruit Ninja (surprisely published by MGS - guess Microsoft do somehow have to pay some developers to make the more popular games for their platform) for a ok price of Cdn $3.49 (likely USD 2.99). The other popular title that made their move is Pocket God from ngcomo :) also for the price for Cdn$3.49. Both games are Xbox Live integrated and both can be tried.

The difference of purchase price is something...

Finally got my HTC Surround!!!

Finally got my HTC Surround!!! Since Telus' 3G network is a bit "iffy" (Telus does not have GSM network so if you are out of 3G coverage, you are pretty much screwed), I decided to get the HTC Surround off Telus off contract, get an unlock code from eBay.ca and use the phone on Fido instead.

Note that I am do not know the seller but I found them pretty quick to respond to my stupid questions (i.e. will the phone remain unlock after a WP7 update, etc - you iPhone users would know what i mean). They are very quick to respond and I got my unlock code pretty quickly from them.

The unlocking process was painless, the only thing I had to look up was Fido's APN connection information. Leave me a comment if you need this kind of information.

Now, onto my impression of the HTC Surround.

Damn it...

Turns out being a non-US resident will mean that I need to get some sort of US tax ID before I can submit apps and given Microsoft $99. At least MS is nice enough to stop me from paying them $99 since I don't have a US tax ID. Apple just took my $ and now I find that I do need a tax ID to submit Apple Apps as well.

For now, if you are a non-US resident like me (I am from Canada btw) and you are interested in finding out what you need to do to submit an App to the WP7 marketplace, i'd suggest that you start by visiting AppHub. It has a lot of information about how to build your first WP7 app and what you need to submit an App.

I'll try to update this blog of my process/progress of acquiring a US tax ID as a Canadian. Hope it's not too difficult to get this.

Submitting my first WP7 Application!

Pretty excited about this. Can't wait for the phone to come out in Canada.

I wrote a little application for it just for as I explore some of the WP7 features. I am hoping to submit more as I go.

I do like the Microsoft way of charging $19.99 for each free app people submits after 5 free apps. Hopefully that would reduce the number of crapware that plaques the Apple App Store.