While digging through the Windows Phone 8 SDK docs, I noticed that the Location services seem to have changed to include an option for tracking the handsets location on a continuous basis. It is marked in the docs as new to WP8 so I thought I would share a sample.

Source is available here.

We start with the MainPage.xaml view:

 <phone:PhoneApplicationPage
    x:Class="ContinuousLocation.MainPage"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:phone="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Controls;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"
    xmlns:shell="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Phone.Shell;assembly=Microsoft.Phone"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    mc:Ignorable="d"
    FontFamily="{StaticResource PhoneFontFamilyNormal}"
    FontSize="{StaticResource PhoneFontSizeNormal}"
    Foreground="{StaticResource PhoneForegroundBrush}"
    SupportedOrientations="Portrait" Orientation="Portrait"
    shell:SystemTray.IsVisible="True">

    <!--LayoutRoot is the root grid where all page content is placed-->
    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="Transparent">
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
            <RowDefinition Height="*"/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>

        <!--TitlePanel contains the name of the application and page title-->
        <StackPanel x:Name="TitlePanel" Grid.Row="0" Margin="12,17,0,28">
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=LocalizedResources.ApplicationTitle, Source={StaticResource LocalizedStrings}}" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextNormalStyle}"/>
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding Path=LocalizedResources.PageTitle, Source={StaticResource LocalizedStrings}}" Margin="9,-7,0,0" Style="{StaticResource PhoneTextTitle1Style}"/>
        </StackPanel>

        <!--ContentPanel - place additional content here-->
        <Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0">
            <StackPanel>
                <Button x:Name="TrackLocationButton" Click="TrackLocation_Click" Content="track location"/>
                <TextBlock x:Name="LatitudeTextBlock"/>
                <TextBlock x:Name="LongitudeTextBlock"/>
                <TextBlock x:Name="StatusTextBlock"/>
            </StackPanel>
        </Grid>
   </Grid>
</phone:PhoneApplicationPage>

The following code is pulled almost directly the SDK documentation. I tested it in the emulator and found it works well.

using System.Windows;
using Microsoft.Phone.Controls;
using Windows.Devices.Geolocation;

namespace ContinuousLocation
{
    public partial class MainPage : PhoneApplicationPage
    {
        Geolocator geolocator = null;
        bool tracking = false;

        // Constructor
        public MainPage()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
        private void TrackLocation_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            if (!tracking)
            {
                geolocator = new Geolocator();
                geolocator.DesiredAccuracy = PositionAccuracy.High;
                geolocator.MovementThreshold = 100; // The units are meters.

                geolocator.StatusChanged += geolocator_StatusChanged;
                geolocator.PositionChanged += geolocator_PositionChanged;

                tracking = true;
                TrackLocationButton.Content = "stop tracking";
            }
            else
            {
                geolocator.PositionChanged -= geolocator_PositionChanged;
                geolocator.StatusChanged -= geolocator_StatusChanged;
                geolocator = null;

                tracking = false;
                TrackLocationButton.Content = "track location";
                StatusTextBlock.Text = "stopped";
            }
        }

        void geolocator_PositionChanged(Geolocator sender, PositionChangedEventArgs args)
        {
            Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
            {
                LatitudeTextBlock.Text = args.Position.Coordinate.Latitude.ToString(  "0.00000000");
                LongitudeTextBlock.Text = args.Position.Coordinate.Longitude.ToString("0.00000000");
            });
        }

        void geolocator_StatusChanged(Geolocator sender, StatusChangedEventArgs args)
        {
            string status = "";

            switch (args.Status)
            {
                case PositionStatus.Disabled:
                    // the application does not have the right capability or the location master switch is off
                    status = "location is disabled in phone settings";
                    break;
                case PositionStatus.Initializing:
                    // the geolocator started the tracking operation
                    status = "initializing";
                    break;
                case PositionStatus.NoData:
                    // the location service was not able to acquire the location
                    status = "no data";
                    break;
                case PositionStatus.Ready:
                    // the location service is generating geopositions as specified by the tracking parameters
                    status = "ready";
                    break;
                case PositionStatus.NotAvailable:
                    status = "not available";
                    // not used in WindowsPhone, Windows desktop uses this value to signal that there is no hardware capable to acquire location information
                    break;
                case PositionStatus.NotInitialized:
                    // the initial state of the geolocator, once the tracking operation is stopped by the user the geolocator moves back to this state

                    break;
            }

            Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
            {
                StatusTextBlock.Text = status;
            });
        }
    }
}

Now the final step is to enable thelocation capability in the WMAppManifest.xml file:

And now when you run it in the emulator, you click the button and the coordinates are displayed. Opening the Location tab of the tools and click on a map location, the app displays the new location in a moment.

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