Microsoft added more new features to its Windows Phone App Studio beta, in response to feedback from its user base, which has grown to 160,000 since its launch in August.

App Studio is a set of tools intended to make Windows Phone development easier, including for “first time developers”. More than 150,000 projects have now been created using the service, with 65,000 apps built.

Microsoft has improved the workflow of App Studio and improved the code and projects that can be created in the system. A cache implementation means developers can now access external data sources, such as dynamic data or RSS feeds, when devices are not connected.

In addition, it is now easier to integrate native phone functions into apps built in App Studio. Developers create a menu from which users can choose to open Nokia Maps, play music, make phone calls or user other native apps, from within the original program.

Microsoft has also provided access to the Windows Phone Ad SDK. Developers with pubCenter accounts wanting to provide ad control in their app need to add their pubCenter ID to their Visual Studio project and publish their app.

Other changes include the removal of external references when not being used to reduce project size and complexity; the addition of ‘FlipView’ to navigate between data source items more easily; and the ability integrate NFC into projects, allowing developers to share their app with other App Studio Beta users.

In order for developers to add the new features to their apps, they need to recreate their program in the Windows Phone App Studio dashboard.

Having reached 30,000 users just 48 hours after being launched, new tools, such as connections to additional external data sources like Flickr, were added to App Studio towards the end of August.