Preface

Nowadays, there are various types of devices available on the market, such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops. You can use them every day to perform common tasks, such as browsing the Internet, sending e-mail messages, recording movies, sharing photos using social media, and playing games. It is not unusual to use even more than one device, for instance, a smartphone, which we carry in our pockets almost all the time, a tablet that we use to perform various tasks at home, and a desktop at work. Of course, these devices can differ significantly from each other not only in terms of screen resolution, but also about available sensors and performance. However, does it mean that you cannot develop your own application for all of them in a simple way? Do you need to create a separate application from scratch for smartphones, tablets, and desktops?

If such devices use the Windows 10 operating system, the answer to both these questions is no! This platform allows you to develop a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application that can be run on various device families. Such a task is really simplified because you can use the same programming language, technologies, as well as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Despite supporting a wide range of devices, the UWP applications can be equipped with an attractive User Interface (UI) created using the Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML). With the availability of a set of predefined controls and animations, your work can be significantly reduced. What is more, you can take advantage of the Model - View - ViewModel (MVVM) design pattern  and data binding to improve quality of the code and make its maintenance easier. The UWP applications can also use multimedia, read data from built-in sensors, and store data in various ways. Internet-based scenarios are supported and you can also download a file or get data from an Application Programming Interface (API). Many devices allow obtaining the current Global Positioning System (GPS) location, which can be used to show a marker in a suitable place on the map or to launch the GPS-based navigation. When the solution is developed, it can be submitted to the Windows Store. Thus, it can be downloaded and used by people all over the world!

Are you ready to learn how to develop an application for Windows 10-based smartphones, tablets, and desktops? If so, let’s start reading and writing the code!