Building Apps for Windows Phone 8
It’s a very exciting time for developers! Last week, we launched Windows 8 and Surface. On Monday, we launched Windows Phone 8 and introduced some awesome new smartphone devices. Today, we’re kicking off the Build conference, where we’ll join with thousands of developers in person, and with hundreds of thousands virtually, to explore the opportunities available with Microsoft platforms and tools. And now, in conjunction with yesterday’s Windows Phone 8 news and with our goal of having tools available on the same cadence as the platforms, I’m very excited to share that the Windows Phone SDK 8.0, including Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Phone, is now available for download.
With Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Windows Azure, developers using Visual Studio 2012 can build experiences that span the Windows ecosystem, from desktops to laptops to tablets to smartphones to the cloud. And with that in mind, today’s release of the Windows Phone SDK 8.0 enables some exciting new capabilities for developers, such as using C++ and DirectX to build stunning experiences, enabling in-app purchases to sell virtual and digital good within apps, helping developers to streamline their efforts with the advances we’ve made in Visual Studio 2012 and .NET, and more.
The Windows Phone SDK 8.0 works with the Visual Studio 2012 and enables you to get started today building great apps for both Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.x. It includes emulators for both environments, including the ability to validate for multiple chassis, and support for simulating various network conditions (e.g. ‘2G’, ‘3G’). It includes new templates for developing Windows Phone apps, such as for building apps with Direct3D, and it sports enhanced diagnostics for analyzing apps, such as power and network profiling and responsiveness monitoring. It enables building native apps as well as building managed apps that consume native libraries. It enables much easier portability between Windows 8 apps and Windows Phone 8 apps. It includes .NET portable library support, so you can write your libraries once and reuse them across all your apps. The list goes on.
As an avid user of Windows Phone, I’m looking forward to downloading and using the stellar apps you all create.
For a more in-depth tour through what’s new for developers in the Windows Phone SDK 8.0, see the Visual Studio team, .NET team, and Blend team blogs.
Namaste!
Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/ssomasegar.
Comments
Anonymous
October 30, 2012
How can you force to use windows 8 only to develop windows 8 phone apps? t's not going to happen.Anonymous
October 30, 2012
Trick or Treat? TRICK!!!! The only thing the SDK did was waste an hour of my life!!! realworldsa.blogspot.com/.../windows-phone-8-sdk-what-big-time-flop.htmlAnonymous
October 30, 2012
The comment has been removedAnonymous
October 30, 2012
We are required to have Win 8 pro and SLAT to run emulator? One more fail by you, msft :)Anonymous
October 30, 2012
No offence lads, its been said before, screen 1 is just ugly.Anonymous
November 01, 2012
If you don't have anything constructive or rational to comment, please keep it to yourselves.Anonymous
November 01, 2012
The comment has been removedAnonymous
November 01, 2012
These comments always amaze me. They aren't really commenting on MS product quality their commenting on the fact that they aren't getting what they want, how they want it. If you don't give the children what they want they throw a tantrum. I only hope MS continues to cater to grownups.Anonymous
November 02, 2012
S, When will the Visual Studio 2012 update the help files to include WP8 documents?Anonymous
November 04, 2012
The market share will show who is right :)Anonymous
November 05, 2012
@ Obvious There are a lot of children who are not getting what they want on MS platform but they ARE GETTING IT on other platforms. Isn't it quite childish to label EVERYONE as children who don't use or are complaining about MS products? It doesn't matter whether the product is good or bad. It if doesn't sell its useless.Anonymous
November 06, 2012
I hope that we are allowed to upgrade to WP8 without having to buy a new phone. I recently purchased a Lumia 710 with WP7. However, I am still using my iPAQs with WM6 because some programs don't run in WP7/8 at all... I hope that the new native support would enable the authors of those utilities to port them to WP7/8, so I can use them, for example, with SkyDrive.Anonymous
November 07, 2012
I was expecting Vanakkam from Soma rather than Namaste :)Anonymous
November 07, 2012
Sri - Vanakkam :).Anonymous
November 12, 2012
The comment has been removedAnonymous
November 13, 2012
This is a big failure platform with ugly boxes.Anonymous
November 15, 2012
The comment has been removedAnonymous
December 15, 2012
Wow, I have to upgrade from Windows 7 to start coding for Windows Phone 8? Seriously?!? MS is trying to force me into installing a tablet OS on my desktop PC just so I can start coding for their platform and even charges me for that? And this is how you guys wanna pull away developers from Apple and Android and attrack them to your platform by making the developer kit available to almost nobody?!? I'm shocked! It seems MS people have finally completely decoupled from reality.Anonymous
January 07, 2013
Can we develop windows phone 8 application on windows 7 OS?Anonymous
January 07, 2013
@Dhaval: No, you'll need Windows 8.Anonymous
January 15, 2013
why are we forced to have to upgrade our windows machines to windows 8 to develop apps for windows phone 8???Anonymous
March 04, 2013
SLAT dependency is not coming from WP8 SDK. its coming from Windows 8 Hyper-V.Anonymous
March 22, 2013
Its really not good that even with Windows 8 developer preview you can't make win8 phone app whereas you can make a windows store app. I don't really understand why windows 8 is required for windows phone 8sdk. Microsoft's strategy is very bad for developers. I should rather focus on android app.Anonymous
May 13, 2013
I have a Window 7 (32 Bit) machine and Windows 8 Mobile. How can I build apps for Windos 8 mobile. I am not able to install Windows Phone SDK 8.0 on my machine.Anonymous
May 14, 2013
@Kundan Sinha: You need to be developing on Windows 8 to build apps for Windows Phone 8.Anonymous
June 17, 2013
The comment has been removedAnonymous
September 10, 2013
UNBELIEVABLE !!!!!! WP 8 SDK can be run only in Windows 8. What kind of stupidity is this!!!