Developers can expect regular hangouts about the +Platform every Wednesday at 2:30PM EST (that’s 11:30 PST for you Silicon Valleyers). So far, the excitement seems unanimous among the comments on the inaugural post on the Developers page. So far, it seems like lots of people – developers, I presume – are anxious to get more information about the Google+ API.

This follows the recent launch of the Android Developers Google+ page at the end of last month, which should give software developers plenty of fodder for their news feeds. If anything, for you developers out there interested in following this type of news, the creation of the Google+ Developers page should allow you to consolidate or eliminate several of the subscriptions you follow for all your developer news needs. Now, all you need is this Goolge+ page to get your fix.

Facebook will be getting rid of the old sponsored story creative types on May 1.

“Prior to this change Sponsored Stories were defined by choosing the correct Ad Creative type for the specific Sponsored Story type,” explains Jonathan Dean in a post on the Facebook Developer Blog. “E.g. a page like sponsored story was type 9, a page post like sponsored story was type 17 etc. This made it complicated for developers to incorporate new Sponsored Story types as each Sponsored Story required different fields per story type.”

“By defining Sponsored Stories via Action Specs we are making it easier for new Sponsored Story types to be integrated into Ad Tool apps as they will all make use of the same standard fields,” he says.

In the post, he runs through a couple of examples of the differences, but he also shares the following table illustrating each action spec for its corresponding legacy creative type.

Facebook sponsored stories, or “Featured Stories” if you will, are becoming harder for brands to ignore as it gets harder for messages to gain visibility in the Facebook News Feed organically. More on that here.

Using SSO, developers are able to save their users time and frustration of logging in to their apps repeatedly. The developers also have access to the Graph API to build in-app social experiences.

Facebook recommends the following 4 Pro-Tips for developers:

Pro-tip 1: Include Facebook Login at User RegistrationApps will often only use SSO and Facebook Login when asking the user to enable Facebook features in the app. You should also include Facebook Login anywhere you prompt the user to Register for your app, often times when users launch your app for the first time. Users can enjoy a simplified registration process, and you can request the same information, such as e-mail address, that you would normally collect manually from the user.

Pro-tip 2: Store the user’s session in your appAfter your user authenticates for the first time, you should immediately store the authentication result locally. This way, you can keep the user logged-in to your app without having the user re-authenticate each time.

Pro-tip 3: Request only the permissions your app needsWe have streamlined the SSO permissions dialog, along with all permission dialogs in our recently announced Improved Auth Dialog. You should only request the permissions you need to get the user registered and using your app’s social features.
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve privacy protections for Facebook users, we’ve deprecated the ‘offline_access’ permission. Instead, you now have the option to extend the expiration of existing, valid access tokens for a limited amount of time without requiring the user to login again. Learn more about upgrading access tokens. Also, many apps incorrectly ask for ‘publish_stream’ when using our Feed Dialog. Your app only needs ‘publish_stream’ if it will be publishing to the user’s feed programmatically with the Graph API.

Pro-tip 4: Complete all iOS and Android Fields in your App SettingsBe sure to fill out every field related to your app in your app settings in the Native iOS App and the Native Android App fields. You can access these app settings for your app here. On iOS, If these fields are not configured, we will not be able to drive traffic to your app or the iOS App Store. In addition, we use the iOS Bundle ID to streamline authentication for users who have already authenticated your app.

A couple of fairly publicized complaints (at least within the developer community, courtesy of Hacker News) have drawn some response from Facebook. One, called “The Facebook Platform is a Trainwreck, Example #871” talks about how “there are few APIs more painful to work with than the Facebook API”.

“The problem is not that the API is buggy and inconsistent. The problem is that Facebook doesn’t care if the API is buggy and inconsistent,” the author charges. It talks specifically about the Javascript SDK.

The other post was “Facebook deleted their python-sdk repository without warning”.

“Facebook has some sort of policy that they give 90 days’ notice for breaking API changes,” the author of that post writes. “I guess this doesn’t count? There’s a developer response where they basically say “We don’t have this anymore” with no explanation.”

Emil Protalinski, writing for ZDNet’s Friending Facebook blog, shares some response he got from Facebook’s director of developer relations. “In short, he offered his apologies, cleared up some confusion, and promised Facebook still cares about developers,” writes Protalinksi. “Is that true? You be the judge.”

“We absolutely do care about our API,” FB director fo devloper relations Douglas Purdy is quoted as saying. “We are working as hard as we can to make our API less buggy and more stable.”

Facebook put out its latest “Operation Developer Love” list of platform updates. Here are some changes that Facebook developers can expect to go into effect on January 1, from the list:

• Deprecating the FB.Data.* JS SDK APIs. This will be no longer supported and will not be available to new apps.
• Deprecating FB.Canvas.setAutoResize. We have renamed FB.Canvas.setAutoResize to FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow so that the method more accurately represents its function. Fb.Canvas.setAutoResize will be removed.
• Deprecating FBML FBML will no longer be supported as of January 1, 2012. Aside from security and privacy related bugs, we will not fix any bugs related to FBML after January 1, 2012. On June 1, 2012 FBML endpoints will be removed from Platform
• All apps will be opted into “Upgrade to Requests 2.0″ and “Requests 2.0 Efficient” Existing apps will be opted into “Requests 2.0 Efficient” and “Upgrade to Requests 2.0″ migrations and all developers must ensure that they are using the correct request_id format and deleting requests appropriately. Details in this blog post
• Enforcing Credits Policy We have added a new policy to the Facebook Credits Terms that prohibits routing Credits from one app to another app without our prior authorization.

According to Facebook’s post, 197 bugs were reported in the last week-long period (12/21-12/27). 45 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed). 21 bugs were by design. 20 were fixed. 173 were duplicate, invalid, or need more information.

Protalinski concludes that Facebook has a “serious communication problem” with developers. In Facebook’s report, it says there were 75 questions asked on facebook.stackoverflow.com over the weeek. Only 18 of them were answered, a 24% answer rate.

“Though similar in appearance, the automatically generated App Profile Pages differ in features from traditional Facebook Pages, and over time the inconsistencies between the two, such as different Insights, APIs, and distribution channels, have become more apparent,” says Facebook’s Alan McConnell.

Admins will be prompted to transfer their Likes to the Facebook Page, and will be able to publish updates to those users.

“Please note that we will only transfer Likes, and not the content of these Pages,” says McConnell. “Before you go through the migration process, please ensure you have downloaded all photos, posts, Insights, and any other material that you want to keep. Once you hit the migrate button, the App Profile Page will be deleted.”

The migration process can take up to a week, and up to several hours before you even see any movement on the page. If the owner doesn’t do it before February 1, the app profile page will be deleted, and all of its traffic will be sent directly to the app.

Of course new apps will no longer automatically get app profile pages. They’ll simply be directed to create a Facebook Page.

The store will be available when Windows 8 Beta is released.

The company has laid out four basic principles that it wants the store to operate by, and for developers to be informed by: designed for discovery, flexible business models, transparent terms and best economics.

“Combining the broad reach of Windows, a new developer platform, best-in-class developer tools, a reimagined user experience, support for new chipsets, and a built-in Store with industry-leading business terms—Windows 8 is the largest developer opportunity, ever,” says Antoine Leblond, VP of Windows Web Services.

“We designed the landing page to push compelling apps to the surface,” says Microsoft’s Ted Dworkin. “We use categories to help organize the apps—the latest, most popular, and fast rising apps all have dedicated lists surfaced here. You’ll see personalized app recommendations and also topic pages that promote apps related to editorial themes, helping surface what would otherwise be hidden gems.”

The store’s catalog will be indexed by search engines, and the search results will point to web versions of app listings. These will be published based on the same content provided for the actual store listings.

Developers can promote apps from their sites with “available in the Windows Store” logos, as well as built-in promotion in IE10. Developers can add a line of markup to promote the with the app button within the browser that will be visible to anyone using IE10 on Windows 8.

The store will be available in 231 markets worldwide. “We’ll have a number of market-specific catalogs, tailored for those customers, and a ‘rest of world’ (ROW) catalog for all other markets,” says Dworkin. “Developers can choose the catalogs in which their app is listed, and we will continue to increase the number of market-specific catalogs and payment providers over time as we evolve the Store service.”

Developers can offer customers trials and in-app purchases through the platform. They can also keep third-party authentication and transaction systems in tact. They can also use whatever ad platform they prefer.

“We want to increase predictability and eliminate any capriciousness in app certification,” says Dworkin. “We do this by providing every developer with the technical certification assessments—the App Certification Kit —as part of the SDK. We also provide app acceptance guidance, in plain language, in our app certification policies.”

You can view those policies here.

It’s worth noting that there are over 1.25 billion Windows users on the planet, according to Microsoft. The company has sold over 500 million licenses for Windows 7. Those can all be upgraded to Windows 8 on the day it ships.

Microsoft is kicking things off with a “First Apps contest”. This gives developers a chance to have their apps featured in the Windows Store for Beta. More on that here.

It appears that we are getting closer to the official launch of the iTunes Match service, as Apple has just released another beta to developers.

iTunes Match, the $25-a-year subscription service from Apple that “matches” a user’s iTunes music with a high-quality version in the cloud (so that it’s accessible anywhere), was scheduled for a late October release – but has obviously been delayed.

MacRumors reports that Apple has released iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 to developers, and it contains stability improvements that are said to benefit the iTunes Match service.

From the beta update:

iTunes 10.5.1 beta 3 includes a number of important stability and performance improvements for iTunes Match, and is a required update for all subscribers to iTunes Match beta.

Backup regularly and do not delete the music you add to iCloud from your computer. Apple may periodically delete all iCloud libraries during the beta period. This will require you to scan, match, and upload songs again

Currently, these developers are the only users with access to iTunes Match. These developers have seen Apple delete their iTunes Match libraries on a number of occasions in order to facilitate the testing – and this update is no different. Apple reminds devs that their iTunes Match music is never really safe and that they should always have backups stored to their computers.

So it looks like stability is the big reason for the delay. These beta releases with “stability and performance” updates, as well as Apple’s wording in the announcement emails suggest that the iTunes Match launch shouldn’t be too far away.

Are you going to sign up for the service? Let us know in the comments.

Here’s what that rumor purported:

Currently, it only runs on the iPhone 4S, but Apple has given employees access to a special software version that incorporates Siri’s features on to older devices. Hackers and developers are currently working for a port, but if Apple releases this in a software update any time soon, they may not need to.

According to Apple, however, this simply isn’t happening.

This statement came in the form of a response to “a bug report, suggesting an optional build of iOS with Siri included, available as a paid upgrade.” Developer Michael Steeber provides Apple’s response:

Engineering has provided the following feedback regarding this issue:
Siri only works on iPhone 4S and we currently have no plans to support older devices.

So there you go. Apple says explicitly that they have no plans to give your iPhone 3GS the power of Siri. And although Apple has failed to be entirely truthful in the past on certain issues, this should probably put this one to bed.

As we mentioned while discussing the original rumor, it seems strange that Apple would even be considering this. With no real design changes, Siri is one of the main draws of the new iPhone 4S. Making it available on other iPhone models would devalue their new device.

It looks like you’re going to have to go it alone, without Apple’s help if you want your 3GS to run Siri:

“We rebuilt the Auth Dialog to make the authentication process easier for people to understand, so they’re more likely to install your app,” says Facebook’s Rushi Desai. “In addition to uploading a logo, all developers can now display a headline and description of their app in the new dialog. User permissions are now more clearly presented and organized. And we’ve introduced an in-line privacy selector for apps that request publishing permissions to provide users with more control over activity from apps.”

The new dialog supports Open Graph previews, which means users will be able to preview how their activity in the app will actually show up in their timeline.

Extended permissions will be displayed on a second screen, and there is a new area on that screen that lets you explain why you need the permissions in your app. If people know your intentions, they may be more likely to give you their permissions. Of course, on the other hand, depending on what your intentions are, they may be less likely.

Users will be able to grant only access to the extended permissions that they wish.

Developers can turn on the new Auth dialog by going to “advanced settings” in the Developer App.

You can then also turn on Authenticated referrals. “Authenticated Referrals streamlines the auth process for users and allows apps to receive a greater number of connected users,” explains Desai. “With the feature enabled, any link on Facebook to your app will prompt the user with an in-line Auth Dialog and ask them to authenticate before navigating to your app. The experience is fast, familiar, and happens while the user is still on Facebook. This way, apps that require Authenticated Referrals don’t need to redirect traffic to an separate login flow, and users can have a social experience the moment they arrive at your app.”

In Insights, Facebook will provide the number of dialog impressions and accepts, the sources of connected users, and privacy settings that people are selecting for your content.

“At Facebook, engineers don’t waste time before getting their hands dirty. Every new engineer spends his or her first six weeks in Bootcamp, the intensive onboarding program designed to immerse new engineers into our code base, learn the ins-and-outs of company culture and give them greater flexibility in choosing a project,” the company explains. “Between onboarding classes, coding tasks and mentoring sessions, everyone from software engineers right out of college to engineering directors with PhDs start the program right after orientation to begin building their foundation at Facebook.”

Facebook’s Pedram Keyani notes in a status update that the Bootcamp was the brainchild of FB Director of Engineering Andrew Bosworth.