Friday, May 13, 2011

Windows Phone 7 Quickstarts for Windows Azure

Some new quickstart samples for Windows Phone 7 on Windows Azure are now available on codeplex at http://wp7azurequickstarts.codeplex.com/.

These quickstarts assume the use of the recently-released Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7. The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 is a great way to get started on phone + cloud development. One of its most valuable pieces is a demo app that you can get up and running on quickly as a starting point. A number of Windows Azure MVPs have collaborated to create an expanded set of samples derived from that demo app, which we’ve released today on codeplex.

There are currently 3 samples on the codeplex project site, with more to come. The apps are simple--no one will mistake them for polished commercial apps!--but if they coincide with a category of application you need to build they may give you a head start and help shorten your learning curve around combining Windows Phone 7 with Windows Azure.

Corporate Directory Viewer

A corporate directory viewer, with a list view and a photo view. You can call or email a person by clicking on the appropriate action button.

Windows Azure Table Storage holds the information for each person (last name, first name, phone, email, location, etc.).

Windows Azure Blob Storage holds the images for each person.

Contributor: David Pallmann (dpallmann), Neudesic, Windows Azure MVP


Next Event App for a User Group

This application provides information for members of a User Group to see what is coming up in their Next Meeting. This app demonstrates some Windows Phone techniques for integrating with Windows Azure Blob storage, without having other server-side infrastructure, and without requiring that Azure storage keys be available on the Windows Phone device. The blob storage is loaded (and cached) by the Windows Phone app, demonstrating how to access blob metadata from the phone through HTTP headers, caching data in isolated storage, and updating. The metadata and blob content retrieved are displayed in several ways, including in a web browser control that loads from isolated storage (in case you are offline), and an address provided through metadata is geocoded and shown on a Bing map.

Contributor: Bill Wilder (codingoutloud), Windows Azure MVP


Locator

An app for locating nearby items of interest. The sample implementation is for public restrooms, but you can adapt to any kind of location-based resource.

Windows Azure Table Storage holds the information for each item (in this case a public restroom).

Windows Azure Blob Storage holds the images for each public restroom.

Contributor: Michael S. Collier (mcollier), Neudesic, Windows Azure MVP

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