So how do you go about developing Metro Style Apps for Windows 8?

‘Metro style’ apps are built for the new Metro touch interface for Windows 8, and will be able to run on any Windows 8 device, whether that’s full function PCs and laptops, or the different kind of Windows 8 slate devices running Intel or ARM chips. If you’re already testing the Windows 8 Release Preview, you’ll know that an Intel-based computer running Windows 8 can run all of your existing Windows software, plus the new Metro style apps.

Microsoft Surface http://www.surface.com  

Useful resources to building Windows 8 Metro Style apps

• MSDN Webcast series on developing Windows 8 Metro style apps
• Jennifer Marsman’s new series: Developing a Windows 8 Metro App
  • Part One: Why Would You Want to Develop a Metro Application for Windows 8?
  • Part Two: Getting Started
• Porting an iPad app to a Metro app – this article, focused on design, shows how to transition between these user experiences
• Rethinking a website as a Metro app – shows the design process of reimagining a food truck website as a Metro app
• Migrating a web app to a Metro style app – development and conversion of a front-end web app to a Metro app using HTML/JavaScript
• Migrating a website to a Metro style app – this short article is focused on development and discusses some back-end considerations like communication, streaming, security, client package deployment, data sharing, and syndication
• Migrate/port a Windows Phone 7 app to a Metro style app

Resources from TechEd Europe

A Selection of useful videos from Microsoft TechEd Europe 2012 on Metro Style App development

FREE Ebook

• The life story of a Metro Style App
• Quickstart
• App Anatomy and Page Navigation
• Controls, Control Styling, and Basic Data Binding

And the further 14 chapters will come out over the next few months. But if you’re interested in getting started, or you’ve got students that you know will want to have a go, then this is a good start.

You can either download it in PDF directly, or go and read a bit more about it on the Microsoft Press blog.

Here’s a long list of more free technical ebooks from Microsoft Press.