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I was talking to another developer recently and we started to discuss Window Phone 7 development. Their thoughts, from what they had heard (i.e no hands on knowledge) was it was really just Silverlight development. My reaction was that I see a lot of posts these days regarding Silverlight that call out being for "Windows Phone 7" so there must be some distinctions between the two.

So what I'm wondering is what are the differences between developing for WP7 v. the browser plugin.

The things I can think of, but seem obvious are:

  • WP7 Silverlight version isn't the same SL 4.0 but more like SL 3.5+
  • the hardware is different (memory\cpu)
  • I assume there are some different controls
  • you need to take into account the form factor

Not discounting the above list, which are important, but what else is different when developing a Silverlight application for WP7 v. browser plugin?

Thanks

Gern Blanston
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    There is about a 50% overlap...these are the same types of questions that surfaced with WPF and SL. The key piece to remember is that they share an underlying philosophy and architecture for the most part but they are in there own right different; those differences however only matter at implementation time. If you are using the 50% overlap between the two then there are no differences other then the approach due to form factor but that unfortunately is not reality as most people want to take advantage of the platform specific components. This is fairly open ended... – Aaron McIver Feb 03 '11 at 17:15
  • For reference, DSIlverlight on the phone is v3.7 – Matt Lacey Feb 04 '11 at 09:29

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There are a lot of technical differences and sure there are plenty here who give you bullet list of these. However there are really just a few real differences that make a big difference to how you develop apps for WP7.

Its a touch interface people

Quite a few apps I've played with from the market place seem to have developers struggling to grasp the concept of a touch based interface. Its clear that many are still using the left mouse down event when they ought to be looking for a "Tap" gesture. This can be frustrating for users trying to "flick" and find they've "clicked" instead.

So make sure you are using a gesture based framework (toolkit has one) so you don't annoy the users.

Your app will tombstone

WP7 guards its resources jealously. At a moments notice your app may be deactivate as the search screen or start screen is invoked. Volatile state of your app will be lost. WP7 API includes a number of ways of keeping key small chunks of data when your app gets "tombstoned" so that when the user returns to it, it should be able to restore near enough the same state it had before. However this isn't done auto-magically you have to code for it.

Again some of the apps in the market place don't handle this well and when you have an Omnia 7 which has a seriously sensitive search button that can be really frustrating.

Network access and other services are intermittent

If you are developing a connected app you need to cope gracefully with changing network access or loss of access all together.

Read the manual

Whilst there are plenty of resources get devs up and running real quick the devil is always in the detail. I recommend you at least start with reading Fundamental Concepts for Windows Phone which will cover some of these issues.

AnthonyWJones
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TBH there are a lot. Some of them:

  • Touch input vs Mouse clicks

  • Sounds and music

    Silverlight 4.0 "/content/song.wma"

    Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 "content/song.wav" (mind the slash)

  • Navigation philosophy

  • WP7 SL has two threads by default. One (compositor thread) runs all animation, second (UI Thread) runs the rest.

  • Controls have very diffrent default behavior and look

  • and many other OS realated

Lukasz Madon
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Better than any explanation, you should refer to the official website.

Silverlight for WP has support for (according to the same doc):

Hardware acceleration for video and graphics
Accelerometer for motion sensing
Multi-touch
Camera and microphone
Location awareness
Push notifications
Native phone functionality

It doesn't have regular COM bindings and it has somewhat limited access to reflection, among all restrictions.

For a complete list of features supported in Silverlight for Windows Phone, read this document.

Den
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