Announcing free, hands-on Windows Phone 7 developer workshops hitting the East Coast. The time for your app is now!

Overview

What has over 14,000+ applications, 38,000+ developers and over a 100+ new apps everyday?  The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace that’s what!  Who has mad Blend, C# and VB.Net skills?  You do (well I do too but only on Saturdays after 10pm)!  Who is ready to make some money off of their phone apps? We all are! I’ve spent the past few months engaged with developers on a 1:1 basis helping them build their own apps.  I’ve seen the hunger for real world phone experiences and the response I got when sharing my own story.  So it is with a happy heart I can share some good news.  My teammates and I are going to do another hands on tour and  we have phones to give away too! 

If we haven’t met yet and I don’t know about your Windows Phone 7 application this is the time for us to meet.

What is it?

Windows Phone Garage was an experiment teammates and I did last year.  Instead of just presenting on material why don’t we extend the day and actually sit down with developers to code?  These events wound up having some of the highest ratings of any events our team has done.  The message was clear you loved the ability to sit down with us and ask questions about your own apps.  You liked having time to work through self paced hands on labs and having people there to answer questions.  The apps that came out of the events prove that.  So we have decided to bring the event back but with more dedicated application time. That means only going 3 hours of presentation.

Just some of the WP7 apps that came out of Windows Phone Garage

The first hour will be for folks who want a general overview followed by 30 minutes on what’s new.  I will be doing the second 90 minutes and plan on going through the entire process of building a WP7 app.  This means we will break out Visual Studio/Blend, start from scratch and end up with a working app we could submit to the marketplace.  And, yes I will hand over my code to you so you can re-use it for your own apps!  Once the presentations are done you will have hours to sit down and discuss your apps with us, go through the self paced official wp7 training kit labs, or get assistance submitting your app to the marketplace.

The day will start at 9am end at 5pm and lunch will be served. 

Introduction to Windows Phone Development (60 minutes)

No experience with Windows Phone 7 development?  No problem.  During this optional session at the start of the day we will cover the fundamentals of Windows Phone Silverlight and XNA Development.  We'll explore the various core components and tools available, and leave you with some resources to take you to the next level.

What’s new for Windows Phone Developers (30 minutes)

This session will highlight some of the new developer features coming for Windows Phone Developers. We’ll also take a look at AppMaker, a new dynamic new tool that enables you to generate a simple Windows Phone application from one or more online data feeds.

Windows Phone Application Jumpstart (90 minutes)

To give you a jumpstart on app development, we’ll walk through in detail building an app, styling it, and adding advanced capabilities.  We’ll also cover submitting it to the marketplace and monetizing your app.

Windows Phone Garage Open Lab (4 hours)

Bring your laptop fully loaded with Visual Studio 2010 and the latest version of the Windows Phone Tools. Get some help with an app you are working on, or use the information from the Jumpstart to build an app around your favorite data feed. No ideas? No worries – we’ll have a few starter templates that you can build on.

Since these events are going to be BYOL (bring your own laptop) classroom style space is limited and will fill up fast.  Register today at the links below!

City Start Date Location
Register New York, NY 05/03/11 Microsoft New York Office
Register Cambridge,MA 05/09/11 NERD Conference Center
Register Alpharetta, GA 05/19/11 Microsoft Atlanta Office
Register Charlotte, NC 05/24/11 Microsoft Charlotte Office
Register Malvern, PA 05/24/11 Microsoft Malvern Office
Register Chevy Chase, MD 05/26/11 Microsoft Washington Office
Register Tampa, FL 05/26/11 Microsoft Tampa Office

* Events in bold are the venues I will be at.

Update May 26th, 2011 - You can grab all of my code, demos and slides from here. Enjoy! - Dave