Seven useful tips and tools for Windows Phone 7 developers

• In order to develop a Windows Phone 7 app you need to understand some design tips – definitely download the UI Design and Interaction Guide for Windows Phone 7 – before you start building you can also mock up the screens with Photoshop using the Design templates for Windows Phone 7
• To easily make screenshots of your Windows Phone 7 application you can download this nifty Windows Phone Screenshot tool from Cory Smith.
• You don’t want to build all of the controls for your Windows Phone 7 app from scratch – definitely with looking at the Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit (Latest version is the February 2011 edition) – an interesting article to read about it is written in Microsoft .Net magazine (Dutch only) Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 Toolkit – maakt het bouwen van applicaties een stuk eenvoudiger)
• Build an app which is going to use geo data is a little bit more tricky if you are just using the emulator – there is a work around though – check out Simulate Geo Location in Windows Phone 7 emulator
• Must see episode of Silverlight TV: Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Performance Tips
• Releasing a successful app is not only about having great programming skills – broaden your horizon and check out these articles – 5 Pitfalls to avoid when developing a successful mobile app as well as  5 musts for Mobile App Marketing, 4 legal considerations for building a mobile app, What makes a WP7 app successful – there is probably more non-techie stuff you should know – leave a link if you think something is worthwhile knowing.
• Don’t forget to look at the code samples on MSDN – check out Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango release) code samples on MSDN (pre release version) or  download the Windows Phone 7.0 documentation

If you think I left something out – do not hesitate to leave a comment.

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