Are you an iOS developer considering Windows Phone? Here's what to expect from the new UI design patterns and development tools, and when porting your existing iOS apps. A presentation given at Microsoft (Mountain View) in March 2013.

1. Photo: phoneArena.com
Developing for Windows Phone:
a Guide for iOS Developers
MICROSOFT CAMPUS
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
MARCH 18, 2013
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

2. Hello!
Evan Kirchhoff, CTO
evan@qubop.com
Twitter: @theevank
www.qubop.com
Twitter: @qubopinc
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

3. About Qubop Inc.
Qubop is a mobile app design, development and consulting company, originally founded as a digital agency in
2002. Current clients include interactive agencies, consumer brands, healthcare firms, Fortune 500 companies
and early-stage startups. Company principals have worked in mobile for over 10 years, and have deep
knowledge of the industry and platform landscape.
Qubop has strong in-house native development teams for both iOS and Android. We have successfully
designed and shipped dozens of mobile apps, providing end-to-end solutions from the earliest discovery
phases to full application programming and maintenance.
Our own apps have been featured by Apple in the iTunes stores in the US, Canada and Japan, by Barnes &
Noble in the Nook Shop, and by Amazon in the Appstore for Android. We have also created apps for Windows
Phone, and are currently porting apps to BlackBerry 10.
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM
WWW.QUBOP.COM

4. Developing for Windows Phone:
a Guide for iOS Developers
1. Setting up your Mac
2. Configuring your environment
3. Porting iOS apps to Windows Phone
4. The Microsoft mobile toolchain
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

5. Possibly the best Windows laptop on the market*
X
(Difficult to run WP simulator)
✓
Use BootCamp:
Applications/Utilities/
Boot Camp Assistant.app
* Although not exactly the cheapest
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

6. As of last week, Windows 8 finally supported on Macs (Mountain Lion only)
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7. Dual-booting Windows on Mac: Recommended Setup
100GB
MINIMUM PARTITION SIZE
INSTALL UTILITIES FOR:
Reading foreign filesystems
Partition handling
OPTICAL Tweaking Mac hardware
behavior in Windows
DRIVE
MAKES LIFE EASIER Also join Microsoft’s
BizSpark Program!
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

8. Join BizSpark for free OS licenses and dev tools: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM (Must be less than 5 years old, less than $1M annual revenue)

9. Developing for Windows Phone:
a Guide for iOS Developers
1. Setting up your Mac
2. Configuring your environment
3. Porting iOS apps to Windows Phone
4. The Microsoft mobile toolchain
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

10. Recommended:
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-hfs-bundle/
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11. “Oops, I made my Windows partition too small!”
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/camptune/
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12. Recommended: install Trackpad++ http://trackpad.powerplan7.com
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM speed, multitouch gestures and Lion-style reverse scrolling in Windows on MacBook)
(Fix pointer

13. Remap Mac keyboard (in Windows mode)
to avoid motor-memory madness
SUGGESTION: SWAP ALT AND COMMAND KEYS IN WINDOWS,
SO (CMD-TAB) SWITCHES APPS ON BOTH PLATFORMS
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14. Or just go buy a dedicated
Windows PC for development
(They’re inexpensive!)
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

15. Developing for Windows Phone:
a Guide for iOS Developers
1. Setting up your Mac
2. Configuring your environment
3. Porting iOS apps to Windows Phone
4. The Microsoft mobile toolchain
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

16. MOBIPARK (IPHONE)
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17. MOBIPARK (WINDOWS PHONE)
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18. Replicating the iOS UIPickerView control (XAML portion)
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19. Replicating the iOS UIPickerView control (C# portion)
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20. MOBIMILEAGE (IPHONE)
(Popular, but could not port to WP7, due to requirement for constant background GPS updates)
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21. Now possible in Windows Phone 8!
MOBIMILEAGE (WINDOWS PHONE 8)
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22. Don’t replicate iOS/Android UI
FOURSQUARE (IOS) FOURSQUARE (ANDROID) FOURSQUARE (WINDOWS PHONE)
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23. The Panorama Control
24px “peek”
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24. Panorama = Tab Bar (iOS) or Action Bar (Android)
WINDOWS
PHONE IOS ANDROID
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25. Pivot = Segmented Control (iOS)
WINDOWS MAIL
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26. “Application Bar” = Toolbar (iOS) + Menu Button (Android)
+
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27. Don’t nest draggable elements inside a draggable screen
Top-level Drill-down
map is map responds
non-draggable, to drag, pinch/
only clickable: zoom gestures
Use hardware back button,
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM not in-app back navigation

28. Take the Back Button Seriously
DO NOT ADD YOUR OWN BACK BUTTONS WITHIN YOUR APP
USE HARDWARE BACK BUTTON TO CLOSE DIALOGS, DISMISS KEYBOARD
DO NOT USE THE BACK BUTTON TO MOVE SIDEWAYS IN PIVOT/PANORAMA
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

29. Remember that the platforms are divided differently
“PC” “MOBILE”
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

30. Developing for Windows Phone:
a Guide for iOS Developers
1. Setting up your Mac
2. Configuring your environment
3. Porting iOS apps to Windows Phone
4. The Microsoft mobile toolchain
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

31. What to expect if coming from iOS to Windows Phone
• More rapid development
Up to 4:1* advantage in time and code size vs. iOS
• Apps are prettier by default
Beautiful layouts & parallax scrolling built into stock templates
• Typically less custom UI work
Platform assumes high UI standardization across apps
* For apps where code is heavily UI-based
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM

32. 4500 LINES OF CODE 900 LINES OF CODE
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33. Visual Studio: project templates for Windows Phone design patterns
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34. Visual Studio: substantial code automatically generated with app templates
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35. WP8 = 3 screen sizes, WP7 = 1 screen size (“Emulator 7.1”)
Overall development experience: more like iOS than Android
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36. Thanks!
Evan Kirchhoff, CTO
evan@qubop.com
Twitter: @theevank
www.qubop.com
Twitter: @qubopinc
3.18.2013 - WWW.QUBOP.COM