Microsoft WP7 Meetup in Budapest

Today I drove to Budapest to attend a meetup with Microsoft Hungary, WP7.Hu and a number of talented WP7 developers and enthusiasts from the country. While it was fun (free snacks raise morale anywhere), not much has been said that I didn't already know. Still, it was great to meet in person with the WP7 guys at Microsoft Hungary, the staff of WP7.Hu and the teams behind such notable apps as SurfCube and AppFlow.


One interesting momentum was when Andras Velvart launched the new, free version of SurfCube as a part of his presentation. I thought it was pretty cool of him to do this live, "on stage", but he accidentally let us see the royalties to date of the SurfCube app. It was obvious that he didn't intend us to see it, so I'm not going to share it here. But he was not fast enough and I'm sure most of us got a convenient glimpse at their royalties. Now, it could have been the royalties of only the free version of the app in case they've launched it previously in other markets, because it wasn't that big of a deal - I'd have expected more from the full version app that's been up there in the Windows Phone Marketplace for an entire year. Granted, we're talking about a young marketplace and practically nobody is using the OS and the phone yet. Considering these facts, it was a pretty nice sum. But still by far not enough to make a living or work with the app full-time.

We also got a sneak peek at a new Windows 8 information hub in the works (independent from Microsoft) that will launch soon at into8.hu. I liked the site's design a lot, and if that is any indication of what Windows 8 is going to be like, then I'm going to be an early adopter. I don't know much about Win 8 in general, and I haven't been following up on the latest Windows 8 news, but having the ability to synch my entire desktop profile into Azure and access it from any desktop is a pretty big deal to me. This is what iCloud should have been.

Either way, here are the pictures I took with my WP7 HTC Mozart. I saw a Google Maps car on the way there which I thought was pretty cool, although it was not actually taking pictures. And I need to note that I originally wanted to write this post on an iPad (didn't feel like starting up a computer as I was rather tired by the time I got home). Somehow the blasted thing lost my text and wasn't able to insert my SkyDrive pictures. Eventually it crashed the BlogPress app (it is now unable to launch and I had to remove it). I love my iPad, but it can be a b!tch sometimes... If only there was a WP7 app for Blogger.. :) I guess my wife's Android would probably do a good job at this, but too little too late - she's changing to a Radar this month.

So, yes, the photos: