14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone 7, the next flavor of Microsoft's mobile operating system, was officially announced in February, during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, and detailed in mid-March at Microsoft's MIX2010 conference, but there are still a lot of things to be learned about the platform. Among them, one can count various details on the development of applications for Windows Phone 7, and the Redmond-based company seems set to share all the necessary details with developers at two events scheduled for May. According to the company, those interested in this area can attend the event for free.
The first of these events will take place in Microsoft's main campus in Redmond between May 18 and May 19, while the second is scheduled for May 25-May 26 in Hilton Santa Clara, CA. Those interested in learning more on the development of apps for Windows Phone 7 should come at the events with their own laptops (powered by Windows 7 or Windows Vista, except Starter Edition, with 2 GB of free disk space), on which they need to have a series of solutions installed, including Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP, Expression Blend 4 Beta, and Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone, and to view Windows Phone 7 session from MIX10.
“At these events, we’ll introduce all the basic topics required to start building Silverlight applications or XNA games. We’ll cover the Windows Phone 7 platform, the frameworks, and both designer and developer tooling. We’ll also cover the process for publishing your application or game to the Marketplace. These topics will be reinforced by hands-on-labs where you get to practice on your own laptops. This event will take a basic approach so, while it is not required to know Silverlight and .NET, it is highly recommended. The event will include technical content that is a few levels above the content shown during Mix. But with that said, developers new to the platform are welcome (encouraged, even!) to attend,” Yochay Kiriaty notes on the Windows Phone Developer Blog.
The topics discussed at these events include Windows Phone 7 introduction and design philosophy, platform Overview, Developer and Designer Tools Overview for Windows Phone 7, Silverlight, Building Silverlight Applications for Windows Phone 7, push notifications, Marketplace, XNA, Performance, and Hardware access (camera, accelerometer, touch, etc.). Those new to some of these technologies will learn a little more on the building of Silverlight or XNA applications during the free 2-day hands-on training events, which sounds like a great opportunity for the interested developers. Additional details are available here.
Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP can be downloaded from here. Expression Blend 4 Beta is available
here
Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone can be accessed here Videos of Windows Phone 7 session from MIX10 are available here.