Microsoft is injecting new energy into the smart phone marketplace with the sophisticated Windows Phone 7. This new energy equates to new opportunities for you, the mobile developer. Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development has been written specifically to help you seize these opportunities and begin creating applications for this exciting new mobile device platform.

Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and setting up the right development tools, including Visual Studio, Expression Blend, Silverlight SDK, and Windows Phone SDK. The book then takes you step-by-step though the development process as you build and deploy a complete application with a highly sophisticated user interface. Finally, you'll receive step-by-step instructions on selling your applications through the Microsoft Phone Marketplace.

What you'll learn

• Create effective networked applications
• Leverage your phones GPS capabilities from within your application
• Interact with the phones built-in functionality (camera, contacts, maps, accelerometer, video and web browser to name but a few)
• Construct highly graphical and responsive user interfaces quickly and easily using the features that Microsoft has provided for you
• How to package and distribute your applications both for personal distribution and through the Windows Phone Marketplace

Who this book is for


This book is for anyone interested in developing applications for the Windows Phone 7. You might be an existing .NET developer looking for a new creative angle or perhaps an iPhone or Android developer looking for a new opportunity.

If you have an understanding of basic .NET coding practices then this book if for you.

Customer Reviews & Comments
Beginning Windows Phone 7 Development by Lee and Chuvyrov is aimed at developers new to the Windows Phone 7 platform (which is probably most of us). This book expects a basic understanding of C#, the .NET Framework and XAML so if you have no prior programming experience, an introductory text is a pre-requisite. .NET developers without Silverlight or WPF experience shouldn't find the content too challenging as it is either explained sufficiently by the authors or fairly easy to grasp in its own right. Part 1, The Essentials of Windows Phone 7 Application Development, starts with a high level introduction to the Windows Phone 7 platform and then drills into some examples ranging from the obligatory Hello World through to a thorough Windows Azure-based cloud services end-to-end scenario. There are plenty of step-by-step instructions and loads of screenshots in these five introductory chapters making them a easy read. Part 2, Using Windows Phone 7 Technologies, comprises the remaining fourteen chapters and the vast majority of the book. The meat of the book is in these chapters and provides a reasonable grounding for developers looking to discover the breadth of the Windows Phone 7 platform without getting bogged down in too much detail. The book is organised reasonably well and covers the material well enough for someone new to the platform to become productive relatively quickly. The tone of the book is light without trying too hard to be humourous, which I was thankful for. However, I have two complaints to make, resulting in a less than perfect score. First, there are a number of inconsistencies in the example code printed in the book. For example, in Chapter 2, the book refers to a TextBlock called textBlock1 in the description of the subsequent code but then goes on to use a TextBox called txtMessage in the actual code listing. There are plenty of similar errors in this section. Its easy enough to understand where the book has gone wrong and correct for it but it may be frustrating for beginners. Secondly, and far more annoying for me, was the volume of grammatical errors. The authors' command of English is obviously good but between the frequent errors, odd turns of phrase, and some repetitive wording, I found the writing to be a distraction (there's something about code being referred to as codes that really irritates me). Thankfully I perservered through to Part 2 of the book where either the writing improved or I became too desensitised to care anymore. The book is fine as a survey of the important areas of Windows Phone 7 which will likely require your attention as a developer. If you don't mind the occasional superficial inconsistencies in code examples or if the quality of the writing doesn't get in your way, you could do far worse. Some work by the editors at Apress should result in a much improved second edition as it really only needs polishing rather than a rewrite.

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