Developing for Windows Phone 8.1

Premium community conference on Microsoft technologies itcampro@ itcamp14#
Developing for Windows
Phone 8.1
Dan Ardelean
MVP Client Development
Nokia Developer Champion
dan@xpresscode.eu
@danardelean

Huge thanks to our sponsors & partners!

• Windows Phone 8.1
• Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Platform
• New features for developers
• Getting Started
• Developer Choices
AGENDA

WINDOWS PHONE 8.1

Windows Phone 8: Momentum

Start screen: More tiles More personal

Cortana: Your PERSONAL Digital Assistant

Many New Features for Users

2014: Windows Phone 8.1 Hardware
Decrease HW cost floor (support 8x26, Qualcomm Reference Design)
Dual-SIM support
Apps to help you get more out of your data plan: DataSense 2.0, Wi-Fi Sense,
Storage Sense, Battery Sense

Getting Windows Phone 8.1
http://dev.windowsphone.com
http://appstudio.windowsphone.com

Windows Phone 8.1 Preview for Developers

WINDOWS PHONE 8.1 DEVELOPER
PLATFORM

One Windows
Apps come to life on Windows
• Live tile improvements
• Action Center for smart notifications
• Background execution + triggers
• Bluetooth-LE support for wearables
• Internet Explorer 11 improvements
Designed once; engaging everywhere
• Converged developer platform
• Converged app model
• Shared app identities + entitlement
• Unified push services (via WNS)

Convergence
Windows Phone 7.5 Windows Phone 8.0
Convergence Begins with IE
• WP 7.5 shipped with IE9
• Same rendering engine as
Windows
• Same JavaScript engine as
Windows
Converged Core (NT kernel)
• Common kernel & file
system
• Kernel mode driver
framework
• Secure boot & storage
encryption (BitLocker)
• Core networking stack
Developer Platform
• Partial API convergence
(focus on sensors & IAP)
• Native Code (C++) and
DirectX
• IE10
Converging the Dev Platform
• More skillset reuse
• More code reuse
• More seamless app
experiences
Aligning the Stores
• Shared dev registration
• Shared entitlement
Common Core Platform
• Proximity & Location
• Security & identity
• Task scheduler

API Convergence Windows Runtime (WinRT)
Dramatic convergence in 8.1
• Goal is 100% convergence for dev scenarios
• In 8.0, we had ~30% API convergence
• With 8.1, we move well past 90%+
convergence

Windows Developer Platform in 8.1
| |
Legend

Programming Models

BUILDING A SHARED WINDOWS
PHONE & STORE APP
DEMO

NEW FEATURES FOR DEVELOPERS
IN WINDOWS PHONE 8.1

Converged Windows XAML Apps
• One Visual Studio ‘Universal app’
project template for your app
• Shared dev and test tooling for both
platforms

Windows Phone app using JavaScript & HTML

Common canvas for Screen Diversity
10”
tablet
7” tablet
6”
5”
4.5”
Infinite virtual canvas
166 Logical DPI

View Pixels
12:38
width
height
“raw” pixels
12:38
width
height
“view” pixels
divide by
scale factor

Scale Factor
12:38
width (inch)
pixels
scale factor =
pixels / width x platform constant
scale factor minimum of 1.0, rounded to nearest 0.2
platform constant depends on viewing distance of device
(phone/tablet/PC)

View Pixels
12:38
540
960
5.5”
12:38
5.5”
720
1280
12:38
5.5”
1080
1920
450
800
“view” pixels

Emulator support

Converged Controls
80% exact same XAML 20% custom
Common Signature
Button
CheckBox
RadioButton ProgressBar
Slider
ToggleSwitch
Hub
Pivot
ListView
GridView

Tailoring UI to each platform
On Windows Phone 8.1 … and on Windows 8.1

Animations
Signature Phone animations built in
– Page Navigation
– PointerDown/Up (Tilt)
– Page Rotation
– Escalator for MenuFlyout (context menu)
– Readerboard
ThemeTransitions / ThemeAnimations
– Same API as on Windows
– Key animations updated to match Phone UX

Multitasking: Background tasks and Triggers
Task
TimeTrigger
PUSH
Notification
LocationTrigger
PushNotificationTrigger
MaintenanceTrigger
InternetAvailable NetworkStateChange
TimeZoneChange

Shared Tiles and Notification Services
Windows Notification Service (WNS)
• Shared push service for Windows + Phone
• Improved queuing to limit lost
notifications due to intermittent network
connectivity
Tile templates + toasts
• Shared tile templates (more!)
• Periodic tile updates
• Toasts

Action Center
Action Center
– Central location to surface missed
notifications
– Apps can intelligently manage
notifications
(silently add, update, and delete
notifications)

Data Roaming and Data Backup
Device B
WP 8.1 – PFN 12345
Roaming Local
Local
Cache
Temp
Device A
WP 8.1 App
Roaming Local
Local
Cache
Temp
Backup [Device A]
• Local
– Primary local store
– Can be backed up to users’
OneDrive
• Roaming
– Data roamed cross-device
– Limited to 100kb
• Temp
– Temporary storage
– Cleaned up in low storage
condition

Share Contract

Maps and Geofencing

Media, Media Editing and Background Audio

Bluetooth LE
Heart rate monitors and other sensors
Proximity detectors (Key finder)
Developers can use the Bluetooth GATT APIs to access Bluetooth LE services,
descriptors, and characteristics
Bluetooth RFComm
Connect, host, and communicate with Bluetooth RFCOMM device services
Devices using Serial Port Profile (SPP) are supported
Client and server Service Discovery Protocol (SDP)
Background Tasks and Triggers
App can receive Bluetooth data when its running in the background
Launch when a Bluetooth event occurs
Bluetooth

DEMO BLE – HEART RATE MONITOR

Enterprise Enhancements
Mobile device management (MDM)
More policy support
Client Certificate authentication
Convergence with Windows cryptography
APIs
Wi-Fi & VPN
S/MIME
Application management

Identity, identification, SSO
Microsoft Account SSO
Web Authentication Broker (WAB)
Authenticate to online service providers over Oauth
SSO mode enables user to completely bypass log-in page
Simple API
CredentialLocker
Windows.Security.Credentials APIs to store credentials (user name,
password) securely
Isolation: Apps can only access their own credentials
Credentials roam across trusted devices (works for WAB and IE too!)

Better HTML5 support
Ability to code pinning behavior
• Specify high-resolution site icons
• Live tiles using notifications
Professional quality video
• Adaptive streaming
• Secure viewing
• Accessibility improvements
WebGL support
Web spec based on OpenGL ES 2.0, to enable use of low-level
3D graphics APIs on web sites and HTML-based apps
Rich user interactions
• Screen + device orientation APIs
• Pre-fetch and pre-render

SDK Emulator improvments
Hyper-V based emulator improvements:
Network
Multi-touch emulation with mouse
SD card
Location improvements
Push simulation
Locally simulate push notifications
Save and load data samples

Windows Phone Power Tools
AppVerifier
Find resource leaks and vulnerabilities in
native apps
Performance Monitor
Real time diagnostics
Performance Recorder
ETW trace capturing

And more

GETTING STARTED

Windows Dev Center

The tools
http://dev.windows.com http://dev.windowsphone.com

PC Requirments
Supported operating systems Windows 8.1 (x86 or x64)
Hardware
4 GB of free disk space
1.5 GB of RAM (recommended)
64-bit (x64) motherboard
To use the Windows Phone
Emulators
Windows 8.1 Pro or higher (for Hyper-V) and
Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
Min 4GB RAM

Windows Developer Account

DEVELOPER CHOICES

Application Lifecycle: Silverlight vs WinRT
Tombstoned
Not running
Running
LaunchingClosing
DeactivatingActivating
Dormant
Not running
Running
OnLaunched
SuspendingResuming
Suspended

Choices
Approach Pros & Cons
Keep using Silverlight 7.x/8
(Windows Phone 8 platform)
Pros
 Will run on Windows Phone 8.1 (app compatibility), still runs
on earlier Windows Phone devices
Cons
 Will not take advantage of new platform capabilities
 Will not enable targeting of Windows
Use Silverlight 8.1
(Move Silverlight app into new
execution stack and app
package)
Pros
 Enables existing Silverlight apps to take advantage of nearly
all new APIs and platform capabilities
Cons
 Will not enable targeting of Windows
 Will not run on Windows Phone 8 devices
Use Windows XAML platform
Pros
 Enables targeting of Windows and Windows Phone
 Takes full advantage of new APIs and platform capabilities
 Better performance & reduced memory use
Cons  Will not run on Windows Phone 8 devices

Silverlight Only

Upgrade Silverlight 8.0 to 8.1

WINDOWS PHONE 8.1 PRINCIPLES
Primary features:
Existing Windows Phone 8 apps run flawlessly
Windows Runtime XAML platform and HTML/WinJS support brings convergence
with Windows 8.1, and is faster and uses less memory than Silverlight
The core of an app can be built once for Windows and Windows Phone; you can
share elements of UI, though it’s best to tailor the user experience for each
platform
Convergence is not just in the developer platform: it spans tools, store, commerce
Developer investment in the existing Silverlight platform is protected: Existing
Silverlight apps can be upgraded to access new Windows Phone 8.1 platform
capabilities

Q & A

Developing for Windows Phone 8.1

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Similar to Developing for Windows Phone 8.1 (20)

More from Dan Ardelean (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Developing for Windows Phone 8.1

Editor's Notes