Month: February 2011

Update Feb. 26, 2011: Crash logger code has been modified to provide more details, including the OS version, current culture, current XAML page, and whether the app is obscured or locked.

Recently I found Andy Pennell’s LittleWatson Class, which is designed to log and report any unexpected crashes in your WP7 app. This can provide extremely useful data about problems your users have experienced and, if you tend to run your app without debugging enabled, crashes that occur during development.

Andy’s code is designed to send error reports via e-mail, but I’d prefer something a bit less intrusive. For Remote, I decided to write a class similar to LittleWatson that would submit the error reports to a script running on my web server.
Continue reading WP7 Application Crash Reporter

When I first started developing Remote, Microsoft had not yet provided a way for developers to see how many downloads their apps were getting. Microsoft now provides app download statistics via the App Hub, but the data is delayed by 6 days and only shows new installations – app upgrade statistics are not available. With this in mind, I decided to create a simple installation tracking system to monitor how well my app was doing in real time.

Looking through the App Hub Forums, I found a few other sales tracking systems. This one, based on Google AppEngine, tracks not only installations but usage activity and phone model and manufacturer information. This one is based on the Silverlight Analytics framework and uses Google Analytics for reporting.

My tracking code is much simpler and does not require any third-party frameworks, but it only reports new installations and upgrades. If you need to track feature usage information, you might be better off using one of the other solutions rather than trying to modify this code to your needs. Also, it’s worth noting that retrieving device manufacturer and model information requires an additional capability listing (“phone identity”) which may deter customers from wanting to try your app.
Continue reading Simple Installation Tracking for WP7 Apps