With more and more apps being developed for mobile devices, it is hard to find software engineers who are not interested in getting into the app development game. This was the case at the second quarter Gulf Coast .Net Users Group meeting where more than 14 local engineers and designers attended a presentation by Bryan Soltis, Senior Software Engineer at Bit-Wizards.

Bryan provided an in-depth overview of Windows Phone 7 development. He covered the entire development process, as well as provided helpful insight into several areas of Microsoft’s newest mobile platform. Bryan started the presentation with an overview of the mobile market, discussing Microsoft, Apple, and Google Android platforms and their respective shares of the mobile market. He gave an overview of the different mechanisms for application development and delivery, as well carriers and devices for each platform.

Bryan provided a play by play account of the entire development process for the Kentico Mobile Manager, a Windows Phone 7 application for managing Kentico CMS websites created by Bit-Wizards. He discussed many of the development tools provided by Microsoft for Windows Phone 7 development, the Zune software product, and covered the AppHub, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Developer Center, in detail. Each of these concepts is required for developing applications for Windows Phone 7 and Bryan demonstrated account creation, phone registration, and profile management in each. Attendees were very interested in creating a developer account within AppHub, application submission, and royalty management.

Continuing the presentation with an overview of the Kentico Mobile Manager application, Bryan demonstrated the use of new Windows Phone 7 project templates, including the Pivot and Panorama controls. He showed how Visual Studio 2010 can used for coding Windows Phone applications and how Expression Blend for Windows Phone can be used for layout and design. He presented real world coding examples and explained many areas of the development process, including handling “tombstoning” an application, web service integration, and layout and functionality.

Bryan concluded the presentation with an in-depth look at the application submission process for Windows Phone 7. He covered the importance of image dimensions and use, category selection, and certification testing. Bryan provided great insight in to how developers can avoid costly delays during the submissions process by researching and coding for all the appropriate scenarios to which Windows Phone 7 applications must adhere.