In the spirit of keeping you up-to-date on mobile industry news and changes, we’ve rounded up a few items you may have missed over the last week or so. This round-up includes an update on the games network OpenFeint, details about Sencha Touch 1.1’s release, the latest numbers for the Windows Phone 7 platform and a new, open source Bing Maps SDK.
Let us know if you would like round-ups like these to be a more regular feature here on ReadWriteMobile.
OpenFeint Update: 215 Games Ported to Android Since November
Mobile social games network OpenFeint released an update on its progress in porting games from the iOS to the Android platform. Since November 2010, the company has ported 215 titles to Android, for a grand total of 315. According OpenFeint’s VP of Marketing, Eros Resmini, developers originally chose Apple’s platform because it was the easiest way to distribute games. But now, more developers are becoming interested in Android.
The company also highlighted its other recent moves in the mobile gaming industry, including the partnership with AT&T to bring OpenFeint to AT&T’s Android devices announced in February. The partnership brings OpenFeint’s Game Channel product to Android phones, allowing users to discover new games, set up profiles, friend other users, track scores and achievements and more.
In March, OpenFeint also announced a partnership with Chinese gaming company The9 and the Chinese-based $100 million Fund9 development fund to help iOS developers port games to Android. The fund is specifically designed to help smaller development shops that may not have the resources to build apps for multiple platforms. Together, OpenFeint and The9 will review and select the best games to receive funding for Android ports.
OpenFeint currently has 73 million users in 214 countries, the largest being North America. However, its Asian presence is now growing, the company says.
Sencha Touch Updated to Version 1.1, Now Supports BlackBerry 6
Sencha Touch, the framework for creating Web apps for touchscreen phones and tablet computers, was update to version 1.1 in late March. The new software now allows developers to build applications for BlackBerry 6, the OS powering the BlackBerry Torch, plus apps for the QNX OS running on the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
RIM promoted Sencha’s update with a contest where the first 10 developers adopting the Sencha Touch framework will receive a free BlackBerry Torch 9800.
Version 1.1 also introduced the first official plugins to the framework: “pull to refresh” and “pagination.” Developers can add these features with just a few lines of code, says Sencha. Other optimizations for Android and iOS have been added too. You can read more detail about the update here on Sencha’s blog post.
Windows Phone 7 Numbers Released
At the end of March, Microsoft released more numbers related to its Windows Phone 7 platform, but not, as everyone hoped, how many devices have been sold. However, the numbers show that there is strong developer interest in the platform, which is promising.
According to Microsoft, its Windows Phone Developer Tools (Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone, Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone) have been downloaded over 1.5 million times. 36,000 developers have joined the AppHub online community, which offers tools, support and educational resources for a $99/year annual subscription. There are 1,200 new developers registering for AppHub each week. 40% of the registered developers have published an app.
There are now 11,500 Windows Phone 7 applications, which Microsoft’s says is not an inflated number created by counting things like “wallpapers” as a category or counting “lite”/trial apps.
7,500 apps are paid with 44% offering a Trial version. On Windows Phone 7, trial apps are not listed separately, users can simply choose to download a Trial version before purchasing. Windows Phone 7 customers download 12 apps each month, Microsoft says.
Also, apps are approved within 1.8 days and 62% pass certification on their first attempt.
Bing Maps Android SDK
In other Microsoft-related news, a company called InKnowledge has launched an open-source Bing Maps SDK for Android, which allows developers to create mapping applications using Bing Maps, LiveSide reported in April.
The SDK offers JavaScript wrapped with native Java calls, which means Android developers can use this control without having to know JavaScript code, InKnowledge explains. It also created libraries for accessing Bing Spatial Data Services and Bing Maps REST services. The libraries are put together in a sample app that can be used either as your base app or as a guide.
The SDK is available here on Codeplex.
Image credit, lead photo: flickr user antiguadailyphoto.com
