I am a Developer
I have been one from the moment I walked into my high school a long long long time ago and found out they had a computer. This was in the dark ages before any (mostly) had a computer at home. I worked hard at learning programming. Over the years I went HP/Basic to dBase to COBOL to Clipper to RPGII to Visual Basic to VB.NET to C# to Java Script. There are a few others tossed in for fun but those were the ones I remember the most or somebody paid me to work with. I wrote software. I wrote software that had great scope from corporate aircraft schedule software for NASA to medical/dental billing programs for specialist physicians. They programs were large and did much "stuff". Programs that did just one thing well were call "features".That all changed with the advent of smart phones and mobile apps. I didn't though in the beginning and perhaps many of you haven't either. Some developers have only know the quick and small app model. I envy them. There is nothing to unlearn. I used to scoff at "waste apps" like flashlights thinking that there is no art in it. Well, I was wrong.
I have had the fortunate luck to spend some time talking with Atley Hunter (@atleyhunter) and I learned a few things I have since proven with my own apps. The one single most important thing, and the topic of this post, is that the simpler, more single minded an app is, the more popular it is. People don't want to open an app to do a bunch of stuff. They want to open an app that does what they want and then goes away. The trick is to find what they want, build it and get it out the door. The other trick is to make something that might not be as simple as it looks, look really simple.
A Unique Bell


And it Applies to Most Categories
I have also written simple apps in the Camera category (Camera is hot hot hot in WP), GPS and games. Keep it simple. Let them be able to go in, have fun, then get on with their real life. The programs that are used for hours on end have their place but there is no reason why you can't start with small and easy. Let the users dictate the complexity.Windows Azure Mobile Services
Desk Bell - Look for the leaderboard update coming soon!
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