A Microsoft developer evangelist has posted links to a series of Microsoft guides for porting existing mobile apps from other platforms, including the iPad, to Windows 8. These guides should be interesting to any developer thinking about, or examining, Microsoft’s platform of the future.
“Developers are excited about Metro app development, but say that the hardest part is coming up with an app idea,” Microsoft’s Jennifer Marsman writes in her MSDN blog. “Some folks want to walk through converting an existing app to Metro as a learning exercise. There are other folks who have very successful websites or apps that they would like to make available on Windows 8 too.”
Marsman offers up the following resources:
Porting an iPad app to a Metro app – Focused on design, this article explains how to transition between the iPad and Metro user experiences.
Rethinking a web site as a Metro app – This article is also focused on design, but shows the process of redesigning a web site as a Metro app.
Migrating a web app to Metro app – This one is focused on the development and conversion of a web app to a Metro app using HTML and JavaScript.
Migrating a web site to Metro app – Another short article, this one discusses issues you’ll run into around communication, streaming, security, client package deployment, data sharing, and syndication while migrating a web site to Metro.
Migrating a Windows Phone 7 app to XAML Metro app – This article examines how one can port a Silverlight Windows Phone 7 app to a Metro app that is written with XAML. It discusses the differences between the WP7/Silverlight and Windows RT namespaces and provides a useful list of the differences in the UI capabilities of each.
Migrating a Windows Phone 7 app to JavaScript Metro app – This article examines porting a Windows Silverlight-based Phone 7 app to a Metro app that is written in HTML and JavaScript.
Good stuff. I’ve been examining Windows 8/Windows RT/Metro software development lately myself and should have a useful high-level look at this stuff soon along with a related list of good resources for those who want to learn more. Speaking of which, if you have any excellent Windows 8 developer links you’d like to share, please do so. :)