Windows Phone 8 Field Guide is my gift to the Windows Phone community. I've been enthralled by Windows Phone since Microsoft announced the new platform in February 2010 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. I was so excited by this release, in fact, that I wrote the first-ever book about Windows Phone, called Windows Phone 7 Secrets, in the middle part of that year, before it even shipped to the public. In doing so, I was also one of the first people outside of Microsoft to obtain a prototype Windows Phone handset, and I took it to Europe that summer after writing the book and continued the conversation by blogging about my experiences. Since then, I've never stopped using or writing about Windows Phone. Few people have more experience with this platform than I do.