Do you want to know how to get started with Windows Phone app development? Follow the  steps to know the prerequisites for the app development. I will divide the steps into different categorize to make it more easy to understand.

Before you get started with it, you must know few things about Windows Phone which will be helpful to understand this article properly. At the beginning Windows Mobile was launched which eventually failed due to some reasons, later Microsoft came up with Windows Phone which soon caught the eyes of crowd using other smartphones or were thinking to buy one. There are three major versions of Windows Phone which you should remember if you are going to develop Windows Phone application.

  • Windows Phone 7– This was the first version of Windows Phone, which later exalted to Windows Phone 7.8, this is no longer used(used rarely) and the support for this phone is going to end soon. These phones can not be upgraded to higher version anymore.
  • Windows Phone 8– This version made numerous changes in the Phone with different architecture and new features including bluetooth and UI improvements. This version phones are still used and can be up gradable to higher versions phone.
  • Windows Phone 8.1– This version phone is currently the latest in Windows Phone world and consist many new features which helped to grow the market of Windows Phone tremendously.

We will be looking for the development of Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1

 Tools

You will require Visual Studio tool for the development. Few get confuse as which version to install as there exists many versions of Visual Studio in store. Let me help you with it, you can Download Visual Studio from this link http://dev.windows.com/en-us/develop/download-phone-sdk

I would recommend you to download the Visual Studio 2013 and Install it, if you face any issues while installing, post the screenshot of the same in comments below.

**Note**: Windows Phone SDK will install in any windows 8 but the emulator will work in only Windows 8(or 8.1) pro or Windows 8(or 8.1) evolution version due to the presence of Hyper-v which is required to run the emulator. But if you have Windows Phone then you can deploy the apps on your phone directly without using emulator.

Language

For the app development, we can develop with more than one languages like C#, HTML5 but we will be learning app development using C#(C sharp) because I personally feel it is preferable over any other languages when it comes to Windows Phone or Windows Store app development.

We will also learn XAML language which will be used for the UI design of the app. Till the time you download the Visual Studio and install it (Yahh! it’s big, and takes time- but don’t worry every good thing takes time to land up 😉 ) You can take course of C# fundamentals for absolute beginners and XAML deep dive. Trust me you will enjoy the course 😉

Ideas

What after the first two steps, the most important thing left is- IDEAS. Yes now whatever you do, whenever you do anything start thinking about ideas, start observing the surrounded areas and think what kind of app do you want to build for Windows Phone.

And so the journey begins, start developing the apps, start creating your own innovations.

Soon will publish next post regarding app development. Meanwhile don’t forget to take App development course from MVA.

Your thoughts on this post and suggestions are welcomed. Keep spreading words.

**Dream Big, Aim Big, Change Big**

-Regards

Sanket Ghorpade