7in7 – A Summary

Yup!  It’s official, I am just a little bit nuts.

I decided a little while ago to try a little experiment.  I wanted to
see if I could do 7 Windows Phone apps in 7 days.  The rules were simple, I had to create a new app each day.  It couldn’t
be something that I had already done, it couldn’t be something that I had been thinking about for a while.  I had to wake up,
come up with an app, create it and post it to Marketplace before midnight that day.  I had to do this while still taking care of my daughter, going to work every day, sleeping as much as I normally do and also seeing my friends.  In short, I had to live my life and still manage to make 7 whole applications for the new mobile platform.

Posting it before midnight was the first thing to go.  I found that no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the graphics, icons and screenshots all ready before midnight after writing and testing my app.  I modified this rule slightly to accommodate this fact and decided that I had to post them before I went to bed.

I really enjoyed this exercise… I had built a few apps before, but the tight deadlines meant that I had to be efficient and effective with the research, planning and deployment of my apps.

It also prove to me that I could get apps done even faster than I previously thought.  I have always said that the tools were fantastic, easy to use and the most complete I had ever seen for a mobile platform.  This exercise just proved that without a doubt.

I tried to choose a range of technologies for the phone as well.  I used at one time or another, Isolated Storage, Audio Recording, Bing Maps, Geocoding, XNA and even Telerik controls.  I created contact list making tools, converters, mapping tools, recorders, goofy science/art experiment and even a game!

I am sure that there will be little tweaks to do to each one of them, (with my OCD there always is), but every single one made it onto the marketplace within a day or two of being released!  Click some of the links in this posting to see them for yourself!

As you can see if you go back through my blog, I have posted actual code from some of these apps to showcase some of the technologies I used in my apps.  I am not done yet, so check back often.

As a funny aside, I also half created 4 other apps during those seven days that are still not finished, I will post here when they are done!!!