ArcGIS API for Windows Phone overview

Windows Phone development allows developers to create applications that integrate into Windows Phone devices. The ArcGIS API for Windows Phone enables you to integrate ArcGIS Server, Esri MapIt, and Bing Maps services and capabilities in a Windows Phone application. Based on the ArcGIS API for Silverlight, you can use the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone to create interactive applications that combine mapping resources—such as maps, locators, and geoprocessing models—and Windows Phone technologies and frameworks—such as the application bar, controls, and location.

What can you do with the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone?

The ArcGIS API for Windows Phone enables you to integrate interactive maps and tasks into your Windows Phone applications. For example, you can do the following:

• Create a map containing your data
• Display your data on an ArcGIS Online or Bing Maps basemap
• Add graphics and markup to a map interactively
• Search for features or attributes in your geographic information system (GIS) data and display the results
• Execute a GIS model using ArcGIS Server and display the results
• Locate addresses and display the results
• Calculate route and display graphic results and directions
• Edit feature geometry and attributes
• Change rendered content of raster data
• Create mashups (combining information from multiple web sources)

Note:

You can program with the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone without installing ArcGIS Server or MapIt on your machine if you have access to ArcGIS Server or MapIt via a URL. Esri offers several sample servers to use when getting familiar with creating Windows Phone applications. The samples provided for the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone use these sample servers.

What is included in the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone?

The ArcGIS API for Windows Phone provides the following resources for use in your Windows Phone applications:

• Maps—Support multiple map projections, dynamic and cached (tiled) map services from ArcGIS Server and Bing Maps services.
• Graphics—Enable users to draw graphics on a map.
• Tasks—Include the following components for common GIS tasks:
  • Querying
  • Locating addresses
  • Finding attributes
  • Identifying features
  • Geoprocessing
  • Geometric operations such as buffers, spatial relationships, and simplification
  • Routing and other network operations
• Toolkit—Includes a set of components to assist in rapid application development. The toolkit binary assembly is included with the product, while the source code for the toolkit is available on CodePlex. The library includes the following controls:
  • InfoWindow
  • Legend
  • MapProgressBar
  • ScaleLine

Access to Windows Phone technologies and framework

The libraries in the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone are built on the Silverlight platform and target Windows Phone devices. This allows the use of the Windows Phone framework, including controls, sensors, and location. To learn more about Windows Phone development, see Windows Phone developer resources or the developer documentation on MSDN.

Getting help

This help system includes beginner to advanced topics that explain how to use the ArcGIS API for Windows Phone.

• If you're new to Windows Phone development, see the Start coding for Windows Phone.
• To begin building your application, see the Getting started topic.
• ArcGIS API for Windows Phone samples available in the Interactive SDK and library reference topics will help you with your development.