Inside Windows Phone (HD) - Channel 9

Carmella Ryen Macababbad designed and developed the Password Protector app for the military to efficiently meet the secure access guidelines of the organization and empower the personnel with an easy-to-use app. She talks about her approach and Windows 8.1 in this video.

In Windows Phone 8.1 we delivered broader developer integration endpoints in the operating system. Developers can now deliver applications that plug into several aspects of the People Hub. In this short video, Cliff and I walked through the three new specific extensibility points. Here are some links for more detail: Cliff's blog on Social Extensibility in Windows Phone 8.1 Official Documentation on Social Extensibility in Windows Phone: Integrating with the Me card in a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 appImplementing contact bindings in a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 appImplementing online media extensibility in a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 appJeff Wilcox's source for a stub application to register an existing app as a Me card integration target (github) Please let us know if you have any questions! LL @larryalieberman

This week we've got Matt Hidinger, Program Manager for the Live Tile Platform on Windows, to chat with us about the new features of Live Tiles in Windows and Windows Phone, and What Developers Need To Know (TM). Here are some related resources you may be interested in: Matt's talk from Build 2014 Tile Template Catalog Great Official Live Tile Samples from Microsoft: (1) App Tiles and Badges, (2) Secondary Tiles, (3) Periodic Background Agent for Tiles and Toasts, (4) Pinned Site Comprehensive overview of Tiles, Notifications, and Action Center in Windows Phone, from the Windows Phone 8.1 Jumpstart Training. Please let us know if you have any questions! LL @larryalieberman

This week, Lead Program Manager Tim Heuer joined us to talk about all the announcements from Build 2014 with regard to Windows Runtime XAML, (as well as the unified Windows platform in general) As you more than likely know, XAML is the specific schema of XML leveraged by several different Microsoft programming languages and frameworks for declaratively creating user experiences. Tim was behind an enormous amount of work that took place to drive this release of the universal XAML for Windows Runtime framework in this last release of Windows Phone, (8.1), as well as the current version of Windows (8.1 update) for PCs, laptops and tablets. In this interview, he walks us through an awesome demo he prepared for the Build 2014 keynote that presents exactly how to utilize Windows Runtime XAML to deliver a compelling experience across device types, using universal projects in Visual Studio 2013 update 2, (the release candidate unveiled at Build). Here are some links to related materials for more information. David Tredwell's keynote announcement at Build 2014 with regard to universal windows apps (at 1h,8m,5s)Kevin Gallo's demonstration of universal windows projects in Visual Studio 2013 update 2Tim's talk on universal XAML for Windows Runtime apps at Build 2014Download the new tools!Please let me know if you have any feedback! LL @larryalieberman

The most compelling mobile applications take advantage of notification services in order to dynamically update based on external criteria. On Windows Phone, Live Tiles are perhaps one of the most distinct features that drive app adoption, so its critical to understand these how these services work, and how you can use them to drive these dynamic experiences. Thomas took time from his extremely busy schedule to walk through some of the most exciting new aspects of the Windows Notification Platform that were announced at Build this month, and demonstrate some of the newly supported developer scenarios. Here are some links to relevant related material touched on in the conversation: Thomas's full session from Build 2014 on the Windows Notification PlatformGet Windows Phone 8.1 for Windows Phone developers, using the Windows Phone Preview Program for DevelopersThomas's samples from Build (1) WNS Notifications for universal apps and (2) WNS Website for Windows AzureUsing WNS in the official Windows developer documentationManaging Action Center in the official Windows developer documentationThe long awaited Project My Screen app for Windows Phone 8.1Additionally: if you are currently working on an app for Windows, make sure and check out our //Publish events coming up in May, to over 60 cities world wide. These are sort of like hackathons, however, you bring your in-progress code, and windows development experts are on hand to help you polish your app and get it as good as possible for publication. For those who submit their apps for publication and register by June 1st, there are opportunities to win all sorts of cool prizes. Check out all the details at http://publishwindows.com! Let us know if you have any feedback! Larry Lieberman @larryalieberman

At Build 2014 we announced the ability to build universal app projects in Visual Studio that can be leveraged to easily deliver apps for both Windows Phone and Windows PC/Laptop/Tablet. This new offering makes it easier than ever to share your business logic, and also does a few interesting things to help you with tailoring your UI as well... but there is still more you might want to do to maximize your users' experience in your application. Peter Torr gave a great talk about this topic at Build 2014, where he asserted, "we shouldn't be talking about DPI or resolution anymore, but rather about _effective_ resolution". Today we met with Peter to get more detail on what he meant by that, as well as his advice on some basic techniques that *you* can use to easily deliver form factor optimized applications from a single code base. Now, layout rules like this don't ship "in the box" at this point, but Peter's put together a great sample that demonstrates exactly how you could build out layout rules that could be wired to Visual States in order to achieve this automatic re-layout behavior based on the exact viewable space available to the app, regardless of the specific device the user is using. Here are some links to related material: Build 2014 sessions onlinePeter's session at Build 2014Peter's "Layout Rules" code sampleFor even more detail on supporting resolutions, including more on the backstory, check out Peter's blog post from last year, that was specifically focused on leveraging the extra space on larger phones.Please let us know if you have any questions! Larry Lieberman @larryalieberman

This week we talked about publishing applications for Windows Phone for the Enterprise. There are a few different possibilities to start distributing your applications to your users. In the video we talked about three different possibilities: Through the store As a beta Private distribution Through the storeWhen distributing application through the store the process is exactly the same as apps for consumers. You build your app and submit it so Microsoft can certify the application. If you access corporate data you need to make sure Microsoft has access to a test account which they need to validate the application. Testing is the same as any other application and you need to fulfill all store policies. You can choose to publish the application hidden so it can only be installed when users have the deep link to the app. Best practice is to secure your corporate data with an login because when other people get access to the deeplink they can all install the application. Beta appsThe 2nd way is to distribute the application as a beta app in the store. You need to provide all live id of your users and send them the link to the store. The advantage of beta is they don't expire anymore. If you want to remove access to the application for your users you need to build in a mechanism yourself. You can't force the apps to be removed from the phone once the users have the app installed. The check if the user is allowed to the beta is only performed during install Private distributionThe last option is to side load applications. This can be done through an MDM solution like intune or you can sideload apps through email or website. Let's get into a little bit more detail how you can privately distribute your applications. First step is you need to create a developer account at http://dev.windowsphone.com/. You need to make sure you create a company account and not an individual developer account. Part of this process is Microsoft asks for some proof if you are really the company

This week we are meeting again with our big friend Rob Tiffany. This time we talk about NoSQL. It's an easy way to store your data offline on your phone. During this conversation Rob explains what NoSQL is, why you would use it and what the challenges are. Below are the code samples how to perform the CRUD operations on your in memory classes. Define Table schema (Entity)

publicsealedclassCustomer

{

publicint CustomerId { get; set; }

publicstring FirstName { get; set; }

publicstring LastName { get; set; }

}

Define Table (Generic List to hold collection of Customer objects)

publicstaticList Customers { get; set; }

Create Table

Customers = newList();

Save Table

publicstaticasyncTask SaveChanges(T collection, String tableName)

{

var file = awaitApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.CreateFileAsync(tableName, CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting);

var outStream = await file.OpenStreamForWriteAsync();

var serializer = newDataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T));

serializer.WriteObject(outStream, collection);

await outStream.FlushAsync();

outStream.Dispose();

}

Calling the Save Table Method

await SaveChanges>(Customers, "Customer");

Load Table

publicstaticasyncTask LoadTable(string tableName)

{

StorageFile file = awaitApplicationData.Current.LocalFolder.GetFileAsync(tableName);

Stream stream = await file.OpenStreamForReadAsync();

DataContractJsonSerializer serializer = newDataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T));

T table = (T)serializer.ReadObject(stream);

stream.Dispose();

return table;

}

Calling the Load Table Method

Customers = await LoadTable>("Customer");

Insert Customers

Customers.Add(newCustomer

{

CustomerId = 1,

FirstName = "Andy",

LastName = "Wigley"

});

Update Customers

foreach (var item

This we week we meet again with Rob Tiffany. This time we talk about MEAP. We discussed what a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform consists off and how it maps to Microsoft products. As always, when you want to get started on Windows Phone in the Enterprise the Windows for Business is the right place to start. Rob wrote some interesting articles on his blog about MEAP Building Microsoft MEAP: IntroductionBuilding Microsoft MEAP: AdaptersBuilding Microsoft MEAP: Scaling Out SQL Server 2012We did talk about a lot of different technologies in a few different products. SQL Server Integration ServicesInternet Information Services (IIS)Microsoft AppFabric CachingSQL Server ReplicationWindows AzureSQL Server Data ToolsSome other interesting related content from Tech Ed North America 2014 Rob Tiffany on Windows Phone Enterprise Development, (The Phone That Has Everything the Enterprise Needs: Windows Phone 8).Alan Meeus on Windows Phone Security, (Mobile Security in the Enterprise: Windows Phone 8 Answers the Call)Rob Tiffany on Large Scale Enterprise Apps, (Developing Large-Scale Enterprise Mobile Apps for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Tablets).Robert Hoover on App Management, (Manage Windows Phone Enterprise Apps)From the official developer documentation Security for Windows PhoneCompany App Distribution for Windows PhoneValidation of Company Accounts Tweet to @robtiffany or @mahoekst

Today we were joined by Rob Tiffany, who gave us the overview of what Mobile Management in the Enterprise means. First a shout-out to the Hour of Code we mentioned in our video. We talked about EMM, MDM, MAM, MIM and MCM. Here are links to some resources that go more in depth on the topics we discussed. Please let us know if you have any questions or comments! The Windows Phone for "Business" page Microsoft Mobility Management (EMM) is Here blog post from Rob Tiffany From Tech Ed North America 2014 Rob Tiffany on Windows Phone Enterprise Development, (The Phone That Has Everything the Enterprise Needs: Windows Phone 8).Alan Meeus on Windows Phone Security, (Mobile Security in the Enterprise: Windows Phone 8 Answers the Call)Rob Tiffany on Large Scale Enterprise Apps, (Developing Large-Scale Enterprise Mobile Apps for Windows Phone 8 and Windows Tablets).Robert Hoover on App Management, (Manage Windows Phone Enterprise Apps)From the official developer documentation Security for Windows PhoneCompany App Distribution for Windows PhoneValidation of Company Accounts Tweet to @robtiffany or @mahoekst