Windows® Phone 7 Application Development 24-Hour Trainer

Chapter 1. Hello, Windows Phone 7

This lesson will introduce you to Windows Phone 7, its features, and its capabilities. I'll explain the programming language choices that you have for building your applications. Finally you'll get a peek at how you can market your applications via the Windows Phone Marketplace.

OVERVIEW OF WINDOWS PHONE 7

Say goodbye to Windows Mobile. After a long, bumpy, and often end-user-torturing road, it has finally been put out of its misery. Welcome the new and much (but not yet fully) improved Windows Phone 7. What, you may ask, is so great about Windows Phone 7 that it will make users forget all about fruit and robots? It's all about the user experience. "It's the best, Jerry, the best!"

With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has put in place tighter controls over both the hardware on which the system runs, and the applications that can be run on it. Mobile device manufacturers will be allowed to run the Windows Phone 7 operating system only on hardware that meets the following specifications:

• Capacitive, four-point multi-touch screen with WVGA (800 × 480) resolution

• 1 GHz ARM v7 Cortex/Scorpion or better processor

• DirectX 9 rendering–capable GPU

• 256 MB of RAM with at least 8 GB of Flash memory

• Accelerometer with compass, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, and Assisted GPS

• 5-megapixel camera with flash

• FM radio tuner

• Six dedicated hardware buttons: back, start, search, camera, power/sleep, and volume up and down

In addition to the more stringent hardware requirements, ...