How To Shake Your Phone App

There are more than a few very successful applications that use the accelerometer as the main user input on Windows Phone 7. The accelerometer in mobile devices is a very powerful tool that is most commonly used in driving or flying simulation games, but there are other applications and games that also use it.

Every Windows Phone has a built in accelerometer that's accessible via the Microsoft.Devices.Sensors namespace. Using the Accelerometer API is easy; however, the sensor output contains raw information, and it's up to the developer to figure out what to do with it.

The Accelerometer Helper Library, which we're using in the Shake Gesture Library, is very helpful, but it's still up to the developer to interpret the input vectors’ meaning. That's why we created the Shake Gesture Library.

You can use the Shake Gesture Library to register for “shake gesture” events in your applications. You can configure how strong you want your end user to shake, for how long, and in which direction to generate shake events.

Getting Started with Windows Phone 7

Tools are free. Get started on Windows Phone 7 or XBox at App Hub.

See the free developer training course for Windows Phone 7 on Channel 9.

Windows Phone 7 in 7 tutorials on MSDEV. Each short, to-the-point video in this series highlights a feature of Windows Phone 7 in less than 7 minutes. This is a series for developers who want to pick up the basics quickly with brief explanations and hands-on examples. Demonstrations and code samples are based on the beta release of the Windows Phone 7 Developer.

Join Microsoft Platform Ready for free assistance in developing and marketing your Windows Phone 7 applications.

ISV Videos on Windows Phone 7

For videos on how other ISVs got started developing for Windows Phone 7, see:

• Talking with Karmak.com about business applications on Windows Phone 7
• BinaryDads talk about building applications for Windows Phone 7
• Game Design and Development in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7
• Credit Card Processing for Windows Phone 7 on Windows Azure
• Crowd-Sourcing Public Sector App for Windows Phone, Azure
• Teenager Makes Money Writing Windows Phone 7 Apps with AdCenter

Bruce D. KyleISV Architect Evangelist | Microsoft Corporation