Introduction

Authoring a book on mobile development with a title that starts with “Pro” is a daunting task. Put in too much introductory material, and you lose the knowledgeable developer looking to take his application to the next level. Breeze through key concepts, and the cross-platform professional mobile developer may struggle learning how to work with targeting a relatively new platform in Windows Phone.

Another challenge is culling down what to cover between Silverlight and the XNA Framework. Both are fabulous and interesting technologies so I strived to cover both in a single text, though this book is more geared toward Silverlight developers who are interesting in learning about the XNA Framework as well.

However, with the combination of Silverlight and XNA Framework rendering available in Windows Phone 7.5 and the Windows Phone OS 7.1 SDK, understanding XNA Framework development becomes even more relevant to Silverlight developers, and vice versa. Consider the airlines demo Microsoft showed off at MIX 11, where you can navigate a 3D rendering of the airplane to pick your seat, and you can see the amazing possibilities available with Shared Graphics Rendering.