Windows Phone Thoughts: Windows Mobile Team Blog: I'm Just A Feature

"In my spare time, I write a lot of little applications for my Windows Mobile devices. For instance, my son was learning his multiplication tables, so I wrote a Math Quiz app for him and handed my Smartphone over whenever we had time to kill. Part of the fun of being able to write apps for your phone is that you can say, "I wish I had this," and then make it happen. But the real fun is that writing quick little apps is nothing at all like real software development. I banged out a fully functional MathQuiz app in an hour and a half, tested it a bit, and then gave it to him to use. He suggested some things (you haven't lived until you've taken feature requests from your eight year old), I spent another hour adding the things he wanted, and that was that. Unfortunately, software development is rarely like this. The only reason I could get away with such a pain free development cycle is that my target audience was extremely small. Windows Mobile, on the other hand, has millions and millions of users. Developing something for one or two people is easy. Developing something for millions of people never is."

Mike Calligaro at the Windows Mobile Team Blog has written a great article about the pains and gains of Windows Mobile feature development. This is something we often rant about. Why doesn't Windows Media offer such and such? Why is Word Mobile a glorified notepad? Why doesn't the close button actually close?! Mike's comments may not apply in 100% of all cases. For example, you probably don't need to translate the close button into twenty-five languages. :lol: But for everything else, this article should answer your burning questions.