Part 1. Introducing Windows Phone

Welcome to Windows Phone 8 in Action, where you’ll learn all about building applications for Microsoft’s newest mobile operating system. This book is divided into three parts; part 1 introduces you to the Windows Phone and the Windows Phone SDK and walks you through creating your first application.

In chapter 1 you’ll discover why Microsoft scrapped the Windows Mobile operating system in favor of a completely new smartphone platform. We compare Windows Phone to Android and iOS development and introduce you to Visual Studio and the other tools in the Windows Phone SDK you’ll use when building applications.

In chapter 2 you’ll build your first Windows Phone project, which is a traditional Hello World application. We use the Hello World application to introduce you to touch events, application tiles, the application bar, and the Windows Phone navigation model. You’ll also learn tricks to style common controls to match the Windows Phone design and how to control the software keyboard. Finally, we introduce you to the Windows Phone Toolkit, a CodePlex project from Microsoft that includes additional user interface controls.