Windows (R) Phone 8 Unleashed is the definitive guide to Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 platform for intermediate to advanced developers. Written by Microsoft MVP and leading Windows Phone and WPF innovator Daniel Vaughan, this full-color guide covers everything developers need to rapidly build highly competitive Windows Phone 8 mobile apps. Vaughan teaches through complete sample apps-leveraging the MVVM pattern-illuminating each key concept with fully explained code and real-world context. He presents best practices for building highly functional, maintainable, and attractive mobile interfaces; integrating touch, rich media, and data; testing; profiling; and more. Expanded and updated, Vaughan shares expert insights available in no other book, drawing on his exceptional access to the Windows Phone development team through the elite Microsoft Silverlight and WPF Insiders group. Along the way, he presents exceptionally practical and thorough coverage of many powerful new Windows Phone 8 platform enhancements, including full chapters on voice commands and speech synthesis, incorporating speech-driven experiences, Wallet integration, new Live Tile capabilities, the Nokia Maps control, launching apps via file and protocol associations, and much more. Detailed information on how to... * Get started quickly with Windows Phone XAML development in Visual Studio * Master the Capabilities Model, threading, and the Execution Model * Create attractive mobile interfaces using Windows Phone's rich set of controls, including the Windows Phone Toolkit * Make the most of the application bar and other interface elements * Enhance user experience with advanced support for touch, gestures, and sensors * Build location-aware apps that use Nokia Maps and location services * Incorporate speech-driven experiences * Quickly internationalize apps for global markets * Leverage Windows Phone 8's improved camera support * Connect apps to online services via SOAP, REST, and OData * Validate user input on the client side or via WCF services * Use Windows Phone 8's powerful local database support * Implement background actions, file transfers, and audio playback * Automatically launch your app using file and protocol associations * Unit test to find defects earlier, saving time and money

Author Biography

Daniel Vaughan is cofounder of Outcoder, a Swiss software and consulting company dedicated to creating best-of-breed connected user experiences and leading-edge back-end solutions, using the Microsoft stack of technologies-in particular WPF, Windows 8, WinRT, Silverlight, and Windows Phone. Daniel is a Microsoft MVP for Client Application Development, with commercial experience across a wide range of industries, including finance, e-commerce, and multimedia. Daniel is a Silverlight and WPF Insider, a member of the elite WPF Disciples group, a three-time CodeProject MVP, and is a member of the Microsoft Developer Guidance Advisory Council. He is a technical advisory board member of PebbleAge, a Swiss finance company specializing in business process management. He also is the creator of a number of open source projects, including Calcium and Clog. Daniel blogs at http://danielvaughan.org, where he publishes articles and software prototypes. You also can catch Daniel on Twitter at @dbvaughan. Daniel has a degree in Computer Science from UNE, where he received various awards, including twice the annual School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Prize, and the Thomas Arnold Burr Memorial Prize in Mathematics. With his wife, Daniel runs the Windows Phone Experts group on LinkedIn at http://linkd.in/jnFoqE. Originally from Australia and the UK, Daniel is based in Zurich, Switzerland, where he lives with his wife, Katka, and son Bertie.