Dev Platform
Welcome to the Windows Phone Developer Feedback site
This forum focuses on the developer platform (APIs, runtimes, and controls) that you use to build great app experiences for Windows Phone. Additional WPDev forums are available using the links along the right of the page. Consumer features suggestions should be submitted to the Windows Phone Suggestion Box site (http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/).
Suggestions provided via the WPDev UserVoice forum will be reviewed and read by the Windows Phone developer platform team, providing feedback to help with planning ideas and to better understand how developers are using the development platform, and all suggestions will be considered.
Two important notes about this site: (a) List items (and item rankings) represent community interest in features, and does not represent an actual priority list for the product team; and (b) Suggestions made using this forum will be moderated if they do not actually represent a feature request.
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SMS Access API
Please, provide a way to backup the texts.
Or, at least, provide a API access to the texts to allow developers to implement an application for SMS backing up.7,436 votesWith the WP8 release, the team did add the capability for consumers to have the device backup texts (which has been added within the WP8 OS), but the platform still doesn’t have an API to do this.
As such, I’m marking this as ‘Under Review’. The team is aware of the ask and it is something that is being considered.
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Bluetooth Data Transfer APIs
Please provide developer platform support for bluetooth data transfer via SSP (Serial Port Profile). There are many bluetooth devices (e.g., medical devices, automotive, etc.) that we need to connect to.
5,494 votesWith Windows Phone 8.0 developer platform, apps that utilize SPP (Serial Port Profile) can now be implemented on Windows Phone 8, although it requires use of RFCOMM.
Using RFCOMM, a developer should be able to get a socket via peerfinder and build an SPP implementation on top of that. This was done for a couple demos (e.g., Tim Laverty built an SPP implementation in his Build 2012 networking talk).
Moving forward, (a) the WP team is planning on providing some deeper sample code, and (b) there are a couple community projects that are implementing SPP on top of the platform and publishing it.
So while there isn’t a native SPP API set on the developer platform, WP8 makes it possible for a developer to implement take advantage of Serial Port Profiles on WP. As such, I’m marking this as ‘Started’ with WP8, and we’ll revisit the status with…
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VPN Support
My country has banned facebook and twitter, which means i need use vpn 2 connect facebook.
2,344 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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API to create emails with an attachment
Modify the email launcher API to add an attachement
2,149 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release as an API, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Orientation lock
Having an orientation lock is a must have for the next update. Something so simple. Why it was not included when WP launched is beyond me. The phone is frustrating to use in bed or on laying on the lounge.
2,042 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Extend the API to query phone volume and vibration settings, maybe even set them.
Currently, when developing a alarm clock app, there is no way to tell if the user has his phone set to vibrate only, so a soundeffect set by the user is played even if he has set his phone to vibrate. I find this very confusing, even though the builtin alarm clock behaves the same way.
This would also be good to have for games, so when you launch a game in a quiet environment not all heads turn the user's way :)1,738 votesThank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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API for change and delete calendar appointments
It is great that you now can write to the calendar database but there is not any API for change or delete an appointment?
1,461 votesThank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary. We did not add this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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Universal Plug and Play Framework - UPnP / DLNA
Please add full support for UPnP 1.1 / DLNA for third-party applications - perhaps even DPWS for potential future devices. The phone as a media / device controller is growing in popularity (ex: Sonos controllers).
1,458 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. While we have made progress on this front in the 8.0 developer platform, this suggestion is still not fully implemented. That being said, know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Allow 3rd party apps to publish to People hub / messaging
It would be beneficial to allow other messenger apps and social apps to come on board and allow their updates to show up in the people hub and messages to show up in the integrated messaging system. This would be great for any 3rd party app that has any social or messaging means to be able to leverage that kind of interconnectivity, example another IM provider (ex: Yahoo), social network provider, even apps for forum postings.
1,005 votesThank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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avi,mkv,flv,rmvb... support
We need to see more media formats supported......
952 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. While not all of the requested formats in this suggestion have been added in the 8.0 release, AVI support was added. That being said, please know that this is also definitely on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Enable Offline Storage for Maps Control Tiles
The TileSource class enables developers to provide custom tile sources for the Bing Maps control (such as OpenStreetMap), but requires an absolute URI to provide tiles. Given the frequently disconnected nature of WP7 applications, it would be better if it was possible to provide tiles from isolated storage to enable map downloading and access to maps when offline.
863 votesThanks folks for the commentary.
I’m marking this as ‘Under Review’ and changing the title to better reflect the commentary in the thread (which differs from the title of the suggestion).
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Support intercepting incoming calls and message
It would be great if we will get some support for intercepting incoming calls and smss
848 votesThank you for the suggestion and additional comments. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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Enable Databindable ApplicationBar (buttons and menuitems)
Right now it's not easy to enable DataBinding on the ApplicationBar buttons and menuitems.
- When created in Xaml there's no way to get a reference to them, should be different.
- Should be easily bound to a command, same as for icon and text should be bindable.714 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. While we are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, there are currently a variety of community projects out there (see the comments for some suggestions). Please know that this is also definitely on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Support File Explorer with transfer to PC option for developers
Sometimes it's usefull to explore and tranfer back files generated in app that's running on phone/emulator back to the developer PC, without additional coding.
699 votesThank you for the commentary thus far. We are not adding this capability into the WPSDK 8.0 tooling release, but know that it is on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
As mentioned in the comments, there are a variety of ways of accomplishing access via the included Isolated Storage Explorer and a variety of community tools. Marking this as ‘under review’ to keep it on the tools team radar for improving this experience in the future.
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Add a GrantAccountAccessTask for obtaining temporary access to social media accounts
Social networking APIs, like Facebook, are constantly adding new features. Proving access to the authentication directly (even if it were temporary) would allow applications to use the most up-to-date social networking SDK to provide better features for their users.
A "GrantAccountAccessTask" could, for example, ask the user for temporary access (including what permissions are needed). If the user did not have an account configured for that provider, they could be given the chance to create one (or simply redirected to the social network providers website).
698 votesThank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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Add HTTP accept-encoding gzip header support in WebClient
As of now, it's not possible to set the accept-encoding header : it would be so usefull to be able to set gzip compression to save bandwidth especially on 3G !
643 votesThank you for the suggestion and commentary. While we have not fully implemented this capability in the 8.0 release, the team tells me that it is possible to set this for GETs in this release. That being said, please know that this is also definitely on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Bluetooth 4/ Bluetooth Low Energy API support.
Please add support for Bluetooth Low Energy and Bluetooth 4. This will allow the development of applications that can support existing standard accessories and solutions across platforms. iOS and Android supports BLE. The WP8 hardware supports Bluetooth 4, but the software on WP8 does not allow the use of BLE.
601 votesThank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary. We did not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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Please - allow readonly access to Call History and Text History
For creating more contact centric views of contacts
472 votesThank you for the suggestion. We are not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
Keep those suggestions and votes coming!
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Provide low-level NFC API for NDEF formatting and (un)locking tags
Currently Windows Phone 8 supports only NDEF formatted NFC tags. It's not possible to NDEF format blank tags, lock or unlock existing tags.
I bought once pack of NFC tags on eBay, but they were not NDEF formatted, so I had to find a way how to format them. I found on Twitter a guy with NFC equipped Android phone and he formatted these tags for me. Windows Phones should be able to do this as well.461 votesThank you for the suggestion and the spirited commentary. We did not adding this capability in the 8.0 release, but know that it is high on the consideration list for future Windows Phone releases.
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appointment categories
Bring back categories for Outlook integration. Including Tasks, appointments and contacts
403 votes
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