Windows Phone 8 Development Internals

Chapter 5. Phone and media services

For app developers, a key feature of a smartphone—beyond the ability to make and receive cellular calls, of course—is the degree to which you can integrate your app with the built-in phone and media services. Windows Phone provides a set of Launchers and Choosers, which is the way that the app platform repurposes built-in apps, such as the browser, search, calendar, email, and so on. You can take advantage of these features within your own apps.

The platform also provides extensive support for media services, including audio and video playback. You can choose from several different sets of media-related application programming interfaces (APIs), depending on the specific requirements of your app. If you have ...