Learn how to develop for Windows Phone 8
With the recent launch of the Windows Phone 8 devices, a lot of customers are asking about what does it take to develop to the new devices. There’s a lot of blog articles and individual sessions throughout Channel 9; however, two that I would recommend are the Windows Phone 8 Training Kit and Windows Phone 8 Jumpstart Videos with Andy Wigley and Rob Tiffany.
Windows Phone 8 Training Kit
Just like the other training kits we’ve produced, the Windows Phone 8 Training Kit includes Powerpoint decks and Hands-On Labs that help you learn the most important parts of developing for Windows Phone 8.
It’s about a 158MB download and you will need to be on Windows 8 in order to develop Windows Phone 8 apps. You will also need the Windows Phone 8 SDK. One thing to mention about the Windows Phone 8 SDK is that it’s not just for developing apps and games for Windows Phone 8 but also for the Windows Phone 7.5 devices.
You can download the Windows Phone 8 Training Kit here.
Windows Phone 8 Jumpstart Videos
I have always been a visual learner so it’s great to have some videos to watch to get familiar with the technology. The Windows Phone 8 Jumpstart series is available through Channel 9 and through the Microsoft Virtual Academy. This series has 21 video modules each approximately 60 minutes in length. Here’s a full outline of the modules:
- Mod 01a: Introducing Windows Phone 8 Development Part 1
- Mod 01b: Introducing Windows Phone 8 Development Part 2
- Mod 02: Designing Windows Phone 8 Apps
- Mod 03: Building Windows Phone 8 Apps
- Mod 04: Files and Storage on Windows Phone 8
- Mod 05: Windows Phone 8 Application Lifecycle
- Mod 06: Background Agents
- Mod 07: Tiles and Lock Screen Notifications
- Mod 08: Push Notifications
- Mod 09: Using Phone Resources in Windows Phone 8
- Mod 10: App to App Communication in Windows Phone 8
- Mod 11: Network Communication in Windows Phone 8
- Mod 12: Proximity Sensors and Bluetooth in Windows Phone 8
- Mod 13: Speech Input in Windows Phone 8
- Mod 14: Maps and Location in Windows Phone 8
- Mod 15: Wallet Support
- Mod 16: In-App Purchasing
- Mod 17: The Windows Phone Store
- Mod 18: Enterprise App Architecture
- Mod 19: Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 Cross Platform Development
- Mod 20: Mobile Web
If you follow the links from the outline above, they will take you directly the Channel 9 videos. If you want to track your progress and accumulate points as you take part in the learning, I recommend you take do it through the Microsoft Virtual Academy. There are a ton of different topics that you learn at the Virtual Academy and the more you learn, the more points you earn (bragging rights). If you haven’t heard of the Virtual Academy, check out the main web and check out all the topics you can learn about.
Excelsior!