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Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

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21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#21
I wish more people your age would teach themselves something like this in the summer. I remember tearing down and rebuilding computers and teaching myself Linux in the summers when I was your age. I wouldn't have picked up those skills in school otherwise.

Keep up the good work, passion and initiative like this will take you far.

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#22
post #9
post #6

It looks cool! Well done! :) As others have commented, in my opinion Windows Phone will have a negligible influence on the mobile market going forward. I think it would be a much better investment of your time to start developing on either iOS/Android (or both!) as early as possible. Good luck!

The future of Windows Phone is solely dependent on how Microsoft executes its universal app strategy. If they successfully launch a way of running the same app on Windows (desktop/laptop), Phone and Tablet (non-x86) then it may be able to come back from the dead. Unfortunately Microsoft have almost no experience at doing such a thing, they have always lived in their [big] Windows eco-system bubble and that may very w…

It is currently possible to share 90% of the code between a Windows Phone and a Windows 8 app. Heck, it is even possible to write the UI of an app once and make it work on both platforms. The binaries are now the same on Windows Phone and Windows 8 (I think you can submit a single one for both apps), and universal apps are already a thing (you can buy it once and get the app on Windows 8 and Windows Phone).

It's a matter of time before people realize they can use Xamarin to port a Windows app to iOS/Android in a matter of days.

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#23
post #4

I am quite ignorant when it comes to Windows Phone development, mainly because it never took off how Microsoft wanted it too. Would you mind sharing the tools and technologies used to develop your app? If not here then a blog post would be fantastic, describing the process from start to end, issues you had with the tools/processes, etc. One small bit of feedback on the UI, make the background for the "Type or tap des…

Professional Windows Phone developer here. Here are the tools/processes usually used in WP8 app development: IDE: Visual Studio Language: C# or F# UI: XAML (WPF) and Visual Designer Deployment: Windows Phone simulator (really good) or Device Architecture: MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) with Two-Binding If you do it right, you should be able to reuse 80-90% of the code in a Windows 8 app. With Xamarin, you can reuse 50-7…

Thank you for such a detailed reply!

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#25
post #4

I am quite ignorant when it comes to Windows Phone development, mainly because it never took off how Microsoft wanted it too. Would you mind sharing the tools and technologies used to develop your app? If not here then a blog post would be fantastic, describing the process from start to end, issues you had with the tools/processes, etc. One small bit of feedback on the UI, make the background for the "Type or tap des…

Thanks for your feedback! Yeah, I wanted to have it "Type or tap", but I couldn't get the search feature to work quite correctly. The Search Query can't handle too vague, yet vital searches (ie. Jefferson St) or it simply returns null :( Definitely a priority upgrade at the moment!

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#26
post #4

I am quite ignorant when it comes to Windows Phone development, mainly because it never took off how Microsoft wanted it too. Would you mind sharing the tools and technologies used to develop your app? If not here then a blog post would be fantastic, describing the process from start to end, issues you had with the tools/processes, etc. One small bit of feedback on the UI, make the background for the "Type or tap des…

Professional Windows Phone developer here. Here are the tools/processes usually used in WP8 app development: IDE: Visual Studio Language: C# or F# UI: XAML (WPF) and Visual Designer Deployment: Windows Phone simulator (really good) or Device Architecture: MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) with Two-Binding If you do it right, you should be able to reuse 80-90% of the code in a Windows 8 app. With Xamarin, you can reuse 50-7…

Thanks for your comment! Yup, I used VS2012 in C# and XAML

Definitely got a lot of feedback from my friends to get it on iOS and Android. Haha, and yeah, Android Studio is quite the hassle compared to Visual Studio, but will definitely get through it :)

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#27

Don't worry too much about what platform you initially develop your app for -- if you can validate your concept then it shouldn't be hard to find assistance porting it to other platforms. Too many people get tied up on "what platform should I develop for?" when they could be spending that time getting an MVP up on _something_, validating it and getting the ball moving.

Haha, thanks!

I just happen to own a Windows Phone, and commuted a lot, while in the process, missed quite a few stops due to tiredness and overall school stress.

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#28

Don't worry too much about what platform you initially develop your app for -- if you can validate your concept then it shouldn't be hard to find assistance porting it to other platforms. Too many people get tied up on "what platform should I develop for?" when they could be spending that time getting an MVP up on _something_, validating it and getting the ball moving.

I believe he made the right decision in starting with Windows Phone. Not only is it easier to build an app on this platform, but once he validate the idea, he can easily port the app to iOS and Android with Xamarin and share at least 50% of his code with all platforms. The opposite (porting an iOS/Android app to Windows Phone) is much less trivial.

Lol, I didn't do much thinking into which device to start with I'll take a look into Xamarin, I actually never heard of it before. Thanks for your advice!

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#29
post #6

It looks cool! Well done! :) As others have commented, in my opinion Windows Phone will have a negligible influence on the mobile market going forward. I think it would be a much better investment of your time to start developing on either iOS/Android (or both!) as early as possible. Good luck!

Thanks for your advice!

Already starting on Android devices :)

Re: Show HN: My first app – The minimalist distance-based transit alarm

#30
post #6

It looks cool! Well done! :) As others have commented, in my opinion Windows Phone will have a negligible influence on the mobile market going forward. I think it would be a much better investment of your time to start developing on either iOS/Android (or both!) as early as possible. Good luck!

Thanks for your advice!

Already starting on Android devices :)

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