[ejb222]

So I have this idea for an app for WP (or anyphone actually) that I think could be pretty cool. I would totally do it myself, but how hard is it? I've barely scraped the surface once in VB and C# a couple years ago, and am pretty confident that if I dedicated myself to it I would have no issues. But other than the VB11, what else would be needed to develope a WP app? Could I test it on my AT&T Lumia 900? In this case, I don't even know what I don't know More info the better please:D

[Dormage]

Well if your up for it realy depends on the complexity of your idea.
I would recomend going with C#. Its a nice language :)
To start Microsoft has lots of guides and tutorials that include the basic SDK installations.
You will need Visual Studio IDE, then the WP 7.1 SDK.
Having those two things installed is pritty much it, you can start coding right away.

Since its not a game your making you will be using Silverlight. Much of the UI building can be done with no coding at all, just placing componets! Their function however you will need to program.
I recomend you start easy by reading a few tutorials and going through the source code.
Once you've done that I strongly recomend that any questions you have, you post them at AppHub forum. You can try posting them here as well it woun't hurt !

For testing your app you can use the emulator that is built in the SDK. Offcourse you can also try the app on your phone once you have it developer unlocked.
You can even debug the app on the phone at runtime as long as your phone stays connected to the PC while debuging.

I wish you the very best of luck and I will folow this thread if you have any more questions.

P.S.
If your more of a visual guy you can look at the video tutorials like

[ejb222]

Thanks for your help. I'll keep you posted on how things go...and I'm sure I'll be back with plenty of questions.

[ejb222]

Quick question...if Apollo comes out in Oct(est) would it make more sense to develope Win8 App hoping it would run on Apollo? I guess the true question is how similar will Apollo for my phone and Win8 for tablets and PCs be. I have the Win8 consumer preview...not sure how they would run that on my Lumia Or since WP7 apps should all work on Win8 then should i not even worry about it?

[Dormage]

Much is not know about Appolo but the one thing that Microsoft stated officialy is that applications made for WP7 will also run on WP8.
I imagine the SDK will change but only to support more features. The features supported now will remain in the WP8 SDK as well.

To sum this up the answare is, you don't have to wait for WP8, your app will run on both versions.

P.S.
Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are not the same thing. I imagine apps from WP8 will be able to run in W8 as well but I don't know for sure.

[edgarness]

well done .