New Countenance of Windows Phone SDK 8.0

Lock Screen Notifications

The good news in Windows Phone SDK 8.0 is that your apps are now capable of displaying notifications on the lock screen. The user can choose to customize this area in the lock screen notifications. Your app will have support of the lock screen notifications and background images and etc. by updating the app manifest file. All these new features have been grouped with the name of Live Apps, that refers to applications that, other than using live tiles, are able to interact with the lock screen.

New Maps Control and Navigation

Windows Phone 8 comes with a new Maps APIs that is different from available Maps APIs with Windows Phone 7.1. Using the new Map control of Windows Phone 8, the developer can integrate more advanced features such as displaying custom layers, routes and directions in the application.



The new Map control is available through the following namespaces:

using Microsoft.Phone.Maps;
using Microsoft.Phone.Maps.Controls;
using Microsoft.Phone.Maps.Services;

The Maps control brings many new features like Zoom feature, pitch property, CartographicMode, LandmarksEnabled, PedestrianFeaturesEnabled, etc.

New Location APIs

In the Windows Phone 8 a new set of Location APIs is provided for getting the phone's current location. With the new location APIs it is easier to track the user location continuously and even track the phone's location in the background also. The location data the phone provides comes from multiple sources including GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular. This enables scenarios like run tracking and turn-by-turn navigation apps.

Speech

Windows Phone 8 also comes with new speech recognition and text-to-speech APIs that allows the user to interact with your app using their voice. The new version extends the speech functionality by adding a new feature called speech commands which enable developers to easily allow users to interact with their apps using speech.

There are three speech components that you can integrate with your app:

1. Voice Commands : Now can now register voice commands that could either wake up the app or be used from within the app. It is based on special XML files, called VCD files, that stores for every information command all the required information, like the keyword to activate it and the navigation command to issue.
   
2. Speech Recognition : Speech recognition conceptually seems very similar to the voice command feature, but is developed in a different way,
   
3. Text-to-speech (TTS) : TTS was possible in previous versions of Windows Phone but it took a lot of work to setup and it required a network connection. Now Text-to-speech (TTS) is built into Windows Phone 8.

Wallet for Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone 8 introduces the Wallet that brings new and exciting opportunities for developers to provide users with a richer experience by integrating with their Wallet items.

Using the functionality provided through the Wallet users can collect coupons, credit cards, memberships, loyalty cards, and can create, read, write, and delete Wallet items from your app. Through the Windows Phone 8 Wallet experience, you can keep items up-to-date by using agents, and interact with the user through status messages and custom fields. In addition, the Wallet APIs allow developers to work with deals, memberships and payment instruments.

Background Agents and Payment Instruments are the very interesting features available in the Windows Phone 8 Wallet.

Background Agent helps refresh data in wallet items, receive activations/deactivations of the NFC secure element associated with the wallet item, and action any payment changes made in the wallet item. The Payment Instrument maintains a balance on an account maintained by your backend.

Support for Multiple Resolutions

The earlier Windows OS 7.1 only supports phones that have WVGA resolution, but in the new Windows Phone SDK 8.0 now supports WVGA, WXGA, and 720p resolutions.

The following are a list of resolutions that are supported in Windows Phone 8.

Resolution	Aspect ratio	Scaled	Resolution
WVGA	480 * 800	15:9	480 * 800
WVGA	768 * 1280	15:9	480 * 800
720p	720 * 1280	16:9	480 * 853

The following image shows how a screen appears in phones (published by Microsoft):

Direct3D and games

In the Windows Phone 8.0 one extensive functionality introduced to native development is Direct3D. Direct3D App refers to apps that are written entirely in native code, and which use only Direct3D for their UI.

There are other types of apps referred to as "Managed Apps" but this type of app uses a completely different app model than managed apps, and can't use many of the features of managed apps, such as live Tiles and push notifications. But, Direct3D Apps also provide several new features like software keyboard input support, device theme, and screen resolution detection and many more. In addition Direct3D graphics also support to Microsoft Media Foundation APIs for playback and capturing audio and video.

In Visual Studio 2012 you can create a "Windows Phone Direct3D Application" which uses these new features.

Camera and Photos

Microsoft recognized that many smartphones are often more camera than phone today. This Windows Phone 8.0 new release includes advanced enhancements for working with photos. It includes advanced capture APIs that provide the ability to auto-upload photos to a web service, new ways to extend the photos experience etc.

This includes the following new features.

1. Lenses for Windows Phone 8
   
   Windows Phone 8 provides a new feature called a lens that appears in the Windows Phone built-in camera app. It launches right into a viewfinder experience to help the user capture the moment. A lens provides the user a consistent entry point into the viewfinder of your app. It provides a unique experience for viewing or editing photography using a rich media lenses.
   
   The lens feature is a type of extensibility available to apps that provide unique camera functionality via the camera APIs.
   
2. Auto upload Apps
   
   By registering your app as an auto-upload app, your app is able to automatically upload photos to a photo storage service using a background agent. Unlike other background agents, resource-intensive agents for auto-upload apps do not expire.
   
3. Advanced capture APIs
   
   Windows Phone Runtime includes advanced capture APIs from the Windows.Phone.Media.Capture namespace. Use theWindows.Phone.Media.Capture.PhotoCaptureDevice class to control photo properties such as ISO, white balance,
   
4. Device Information
   
   Using the new Windows Phone 8 CameraDevice APIs it's possible to get additional information on photo and video camera settings. Information such as supported resolution, focus area, white balance, ISO, shutter sounds, and more are all available through this new API.

Media

When we talking about Music Media Library in Windows Phone 8, we found that Windows Phone 8 provides the facility to easily add and remove music files from our music collection by using SaveSong and Delete methods, these methods belongs to MediaLibrary class. This API is the Mirosoft.XXne.Framework.Media.PhoneExtensions namespace in the Microsoft.Xna.Framework.MediaLibraryExtensions.dll assembly.

Now we are moving to the pictures media library in Windows Phone 8. In Windows Phone 8 when we save a picture then two thumbnail images are automatically created for each picture. The first one is a small thumbnail image which can be retrieved using the GetThumbnail method of the Picture class. The second one is a preview image which has the same dimensions as the phone's screen, which can be retrieved using the GetPriewMethod method of the Picture class.

User Interface

In the Windows Phone tree are some new controls which are following:

1. LongListSelector
2. Pivot
3. Panorama
4. WebBrowser
5. ProgressBar

LongListSelector

It belongs to the Microsoft.Phone.Controles Namespace in the Microsoft.Phone Assembly. It is used to group, display and scroll through the long list of data.

Pivot

It belongs to the Microsoft.Phone.Controles Namespace in the Microsoft.Phone Assembly, and provides a quick way to manage the navigation of views within an application. This Control has been removed from the SDK and are now present in the phone's read only memory.

Panorama

Creates a panoramic view of items that can be panned side-to-side. This control also has been removed from the SDK and is now present in the phone's read only memory.

WebBrowser

It is based on Internet Explorer 10 and allows HTML rendering and navigation functionality to be embedded in an application.

ProgressBar

The ProgressBar represents a control that indicates the progress of an operation with improved performance.

Launchers

Launchers are used to perform common tasks in Windwos Phone 8. The following Launchers are new in Windows Phone 8:

• SaveAppointmentTask
• MapDownloaderTask
• MapsTask
• MapsDirectionsTask
• ShareMediaTask

Communication

1. VoIP : In Windows Phone 8 we can create an app that is implemented over IP. When any other users install this app, the app shows up in the app list of users like another app. It allows developers to implement a VoIP App and integrate it with the platform, to implement a VoIP App several components are available:
   
   
   • Foreground App
   • VoipHttpIncomingCallTask
   • VoipForegroundLifetimeAgent
   • VoipCallInProgressAgent
   • VoipKeepAliveTask
   • Windows Phone Runtime assembly
   • VoIP cloud service
     
2. Bluetooth : It is a technology that allows us to wirelessly communicate within a 10 meter range. In Windows 8 Phone we can create an app using the API that communicates with other devices using Bluetooth. Some API are:
   
   • PeerFinder
   • PeerInformation
   • StreamSocket
   • ConnectionRequestedEventArgs

   PeerFinder

   Create a socket connection between these peer apps. A peer app is another instance of an app running on another device.

   PeerInformation
   
   Contains info that identifies a peer app or device.

   StreamSocket

   Supports network communication using a TCP stream socket.

   ConnectionRequestedEventArgs

   Contains properties that are passed to an app by the ConnectionRequested event.
   

3. Proximity : It is a set of classes and supports connection between devices. Using this API we can create an app for sending data between devices using NFC, use a phone to interact with NFC tags and make a wireless connection between apps on approximate devices.

Data and extensibility

1. Custom contact store: In Windows Phone 8 we can create a Custom Contact Store. We can create a custom property for a contact that is saved in the Custom Contact Store.
   
2. Search extensibility: The goal of Search extensibility is to save user's time. Users that search the web with the Search button can launch a relevant page in your app directly from Bing search results and quick cards.
   
3. File and URI associations: You can use file and URI associations in Windows Phone 8 to automatically launch your app when another app launches a specific file type or URI scheme.

Windows Phone Store

In-App purchase

In Windows Phone 8 an In-App purchase is a new way for you to earn more money with your apps. Through In-App purchase you can sell digital content in your app using IAP (in-app purchase), Like new game level, magazines, and movies or "consumable" goods such as game food and temporary access to content (e.g. renting a movie). Now an In-App purchase is fully integrated with the new Windows Phone Dev Center (the old AppHub), so that you'll be able to create new items to purchase, choose the price and differentiate it according to the market, exactly like you do with a regular application.

Conclusion

These new features sound good and cool to play. Guys install the SDK and play with the new emulator. If you have any existing applications you may want to try them with this newer version.

Thanks to reading my article. I look forward to see your comments below.