As some of our readers may already know, Windows Phone allows for the execution of both managed and unmanaged code, with the latter requiring special sign off by Microsoft. (Or an unlocked phone.) It's always interesting, however, to keep track of who gets permission to publish apps onto the Marketplace with native code in place from both a security and enthusiast perspective.
Windows Phone blogger @tezawaly wrote us today, letting us know he ran a count of all the applications on the Marketplace containing a copy of the WMInteropManifest.xml file. (He did this, presumably, by downloading every single XAP and inspecting the contents of each.) This file is special in that, if present, acts as a flag to the operating system letting it know you're okay to use APIs on the phone that would otherwise be blocked. He counted 48 native applications ranging from carrier applications such as the HTC Hub to high visibility ISV applications such as NAVIGON USA.
You can check out the full app list on his blog.
Source: Nanapho.jp
