Microsoft gives developers something to watch with official Channel 9 app for Windows Phone

If you’re a Windows Phone user, probably one of the cooler things you’re noticing these days are apps labeled as ‘Made for Windows Phones and Windows PCs. Is there anything more satisfying than having the same experience on your phone and PC? Today, Microsoft added another notch with the release of their Channel 9 app for Windows Phone. The app had been on Windows 8 for a while but now Phone users can get in on the action.

What’s Channel 9 (http://channel9.msdn.com), you ask? It’s Microsoft in-house broadcast channel. They mostly do developer series on how to better write apps, opportunities, and they even highlight new hardware releases for consumers. They’ve been around for 10 years already and were recently the hub for all of those online Build developer sessions.

Channel 9 Windows Phone app

Taking a look at the app, and it’s fairly basic, though well designed. You get a the main page with the latest videos and ‘Browse’ section with Tiles for subsections like Fresh, Top Rated and Shows. Tapping a video will give you a summary, user rating of the episode, ability to Share or add to a ‘watch it later’ queue.

Having a Phone app for Channel 9 is quite important, as the site’s videos are not on YouTube but rather use Microsoft’s Silverlight for streaming (last I checked). That can make watching videos on-the-go a bit troublesome. The app seems to work well, but I have had videos have some streaming errors on occasion, but overall it seems to be okay.

Are you a developer that enjoys Channel 9’s content? Head here to the Windows Phone Store to pick up the free app. Likewise, you can grab the Windows 8 Modern App here for your PC.

Thanks, Lance_WPCentral, for the tip!

QR: Channel 9

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.