Editorial: Build awesome Windows Phone apps with no coding...and other lies

Being a developer is tough, and every developer will agree.  If they don't, they're in denial. We have long hours, we get no sleep, we spend hours tweaking things that 90% of users will never notice (much like designers), and often get no recognition for any of this.  You don't just wake up one day and are suddenly a coder, it takes work.

I used to lecture Microsoft technologies at a University and the number one reason students gave as to why they were studying programming was: "I heard there was lots of money in it". Surprisingly, those were the same people that now work at McDonalds (and make amazing burgers I might add!).  And as far as I can work out, it's also these types of people that make 5 minute apps.

There are lots of generalizations in this post, so I apologize if you get offended.

Back near the beginning of Windows Phone's life a service called AppMakr added support for WP7.  This service allowed a user to create an app in a few clicks with absolutely no coding, and no prior knowledge of the platform.  This sounds great in theory. But in practice, it just produces thousands of cloned apps that each look at an RSS feed and spit out the result.  I had presumed that one of the Microsoft blogs had posted an example RSS reader and people hadn't bothered to change anything bar the URL it looks at.  I was wrong, and later discovered the source.  This all wouldn't be too bad if the app that was generated was mildly attractive, but the results are pretty shocking (for the most part).

For an example of one of these apps, look no further than "wpcentral".  No, not our official app, but this one (opens in new tab).

Okay, so looking past the garish color scheme, it is still a really horrid app to use.  It adds nothing to the mobile site.  In fact, our mobile site has a comment system, which the app doesn't.  Plus, it reflects badly on WPCentral because some unlucky sod has no-doubt downloaded this by mistake.

This isn't just a problem for us though, it's just a good example.  Head over to the marketplace and search for any reputable news site and there will be at least one (but usually multiple) of these "RSS Reader" crapps.

Here are some examples, for your enjoyment!CNNBBCCNETGizmodoEngadget

One particular gem, pointed out by Dan (opens in new tab), is the fine developer named "rrrrgarg (opens in new tab)".  He/she has spent countless seconds generating 53 unique and exciting apps for Windows Phone users to enjoy.  And they must know how much we hate diversity, because almost all of those point to just 3 particular outlets.  There are 21 BBC apps, 20 CNN apps, and 10 Virginia Tech apps.  Hey, on the bright side, most of them are made with probably the least horrible of all the crapp generators, Follow My Feed (opens in new tab).

Scumbag spammer or not, with that many apps, they much be making an absolute killing with all the adverts being served!  Well, except that they're not.  If I look at one of my apps (opens in new tab) that has a pretty terrible user-to-review ratio (meaning that lots of users only equals a few reviews) - it show that per 100 downloads, it only gets one review.  Now counting up the reviews from rrrrgarg's apps, and then multiplying that with 100 we can see they have probably had about 100 users.  Considering that serving 1000 adverts can net you less than a single dollar sometimes, it looks like this isn't such a great money making scheme after all.

Keep in mind that the above is probably as inaccurate as saying that Google never strays from their motto.  One problem is that for my App I am using the number of reviews from all marketplace regions (not just US), but not for rrrrgarg's.  So although it's not scientific, I think you get the gist.

Besides Follow My Feed, there are other generators that seem popular.  One of the oldest ones is AppMakr (opens in new tab) - and this is what the unofficial WPCentral app was made with.  To get a full understanding of what creating an app entails, checkout the following video:

Despite the confusing UI of AppMakr, it takes just a minute or two to make something marketplace ready.  Please note that I said marketplace ready, not marketplace worthy.

Next up is Conduit (opens in new tab).  When I saw this particular name pop-up recently I was especially excited.  No, not because I'm lazy, but because I thought it may be a version of The Conduit (opens in new tab) for WP7, which was a surprisingly enjoyable Wii game.  Alas, it was all a conspiracy (see what I did there?).

The UI of Conduit is a little better than AppMakr, and doesn't look like a Web 1.0 yahoo page, but it's still rather confusing.  Oh, and there were some glaring problems which made me want to smash my beautiful LCD, like it randomly refreshing the page half-way through and losing all progress.  And when I needed to login (yes, I had registered and activated my account beforehand) to save, it went into an endless cycle of hate.  I did eventually get it to save, but only after much gnashing of teeth.  I guess that could actually count as a point in Conduit's favor - I have been looking for a reason to use the word gnashing in an article.

Here is the video of my Conduit experience:

Now before the pitchforks come out, and we get nasty emails from the aforementioned companies let me point out that these services do actually have a worthy place in life.  There is a small percent of people that need a simple app for their website, but do not have the resources or knowledge to get one made or to make one themselves.  These are the people that own smaller low-income websites.  And because they have an invested interest in the app (because it reflects on their site), they will take care in generating it.  With enough time put into Conduit or Follow My Feed, it would actually be possibly to make a semi-descent app.  Of course it wont compare to a lovingly hand-crafted app, but at least it won't count as spam.

But then you get the dark side of the story.  And the thing that still puzzles me is WHY.  Why do these people feel the need to spam the marketplace?  If there was a chance in hell of them making money then I would understand it, but for the 99%, I just don't see how that is possible.  It's actually surprising how few of these apps are paid.  If a person is scummy enough to create 53 cloned spam apps, then I would expect that they are scummy enough to also charge for the app and have no trial - to sucker in a few innocent marketplace browsers.

So is there a solution?  YES!  If you are the owner of a site that has a bunch of illegitimate apps trying to make money off your name, then report it to Microsoft.  There is a small chance that claiming copyright on your brand can get these scumbags out.  And in an ideal world, their AppHub accounts would be disabled and tossed into Mount Doom.  Although, due to geographic issues, I don't see this happening.

To close, let me reiterate:  It is not that these services are terrible.  They provide something that a few people may find really useful, and may help some small-business owners to get their business into the mobile space.  It isn't them that's the problem, it's the pesky people that think it's alright to create reams of crappy RSS reader apps for websites that they are not affiliated with.  Although, I guess it needs to be said that if these services weren't around, there would be no problem at all.  It also isn't Microsoft's fault.  There is no way that they could create certification requirements that would be able to weed out the spam from the bacon. This isn't just a problem on the Windows Phone Marketplace either - it's every mobile platform.  Oh, and don't even get me started on e-book apps...

If you are a legit business owner that is looking to get into the mobile space, then I wish you the best of luck.  If you are looking to create a better experience than these can provide, then the best places to start are our forums (opens in new tab) and create.msdn.com.  Microsoft has made it really easy to get going, and the tools are free and fantastic.  If you are a scumbag spammer (as Dan puts it), my pitchfork is looking for you.

EDIT: One of our users, whatisvisceral, has pointed out a developer by the name of "Scace (opens in new tab)". They have managed to publish 6 individual apps, all of which do nothing but display a single color on the screen. My mind is blown.

WC Staff
23 Comments
  • Totally agree !!
  • I actually laughed out loud! "Gnashing of teeth" is a grossly underutilized phrase. I even showed my wife, but because of omission of context she just looked at me strangely and shook her head. Great editorial RogueCode! I'm not a dev, but I now feel like I have a reason to share in your frustration.
    Keep up the great work!
  • Couldn't agree more great article! We don't get the credit we deserve as developers. And then people just complain about problem after problem, not realizing the work behind it. We do it because we love it, but we do it mainly for the app users and want them to enjoy using the app. Why else would we develop!?
  • Yeah, most users really don't understand what goes into it. My favorite is the people who leave a one star review because your app doesn't have some specific feature that they wanted. Somehow that makes the entire app a piece of crap.
  • Let me say what this article wanted to say: These services are terrible. They provide nothing useful.
      If you are a small business looking for a mobile app and this is what you choose to do you're only making your business look amateurish and unprofessional. Better not to have an app at all.
  • Well written editorial.
  • I totally agree, these apps are annoying as hell. And I am also confused as to why these people are spamming the market when they are obviously not getting filthy rich off it.
    And I think developer 'Scace' should get an honorable mention for making 6 apps that all display a solid color on the screen. Because apparently making 1 app that displays a color selected by the user on the screen was too difficult to make.
  • Oh my. Words cannot describe... I have added in a note about this at the bottom of the article. Thanks!
  • Awesome :)
    I don't mean to be overly harsh, but if you are developing apps which are the equivalent of loading a completely purple JPEG on your phone, I think you should take a good hard look at what you are doing with your life and whether you should be an 'app developer' or not.
  • was slightly disappointed that the developer decided not to create a black screen app....
    /s
  • What I seriously don't get is IM+ was rejected for having an MSN Messenger client in it yet these colour applications that have no purpose or functionality what-so-ever get through the floodgates.
  • Not to be a jerk, but do you have permission to use the Family Guy image?
     
  • Search for "How_Much_lucky_Am_I_today" They are 3 identical apps by 3 different people, Theres just....so much wrong with them, starting with the name.
  • Wow, the paid (ad-free) version of my app just got rejected for using the same icon and screenshots as the standard version of my app, yet those three actual duplicate apps glide right through because they have different icons and are from different accounts. 
  • Just getting into app developing.  I have no coding experience other than with html and mildly php.  I can find my way around through coding, so I'm not averse to learning.
     
    What coding languages do you suggest I learn to develop an app?
  • For WP7 development definitely C#. Click the link near the end of the article to create.msdn.com where you can find some great videos.
  • Visual Studio Express does about 40~50% of the work for you if you learn to use it properly, and ya use C# so we can have you as a comrade :P
  • Can anyone tell me how to report Crap Apps from Marketplace. E.g. MobileSecuritySoftware http://www.windowsphone.com/en-SG/apps/986b6826-ae71-4e0e-a8cc-2c136bea9626
    It'd be nice to have a website listing all those craps, especially if they are paid apps.
  • I have thought about starting a site that 'reviews' crappy apps for a while now. I think it would be great if you could see which apps to avoid and in some ways it would be a very hilarious website too.
    But because I work for an company that develops software for several mobile platforms, I'll leave it to someone else. I don't need my thrashing of other 'developers' to reflect badly on my employer.
    If someone does start one though, I would gladly submit some really crappy apps ;)
  • I have always liked to thank devs when they announce new apps on the forums, even if I have no interest in getting the app.  Just as a thanks for supporting WP.  I will look a little closer in the future.
  • Agreed x 100.  As a user, all the crapps make the platform look bad, and makes browing through some parts the Marketplace depressing (although at least Microsoft does a decent job of letting the good apps float to the top).
    As a developer who has spent months on an app (sneak peek: http://gregstoll.dyndns.org/flightpredictor.wp7/ ), they're infuriating. I just hope users can tell the difference between an app crafted with care vs. one made in 5 minutes...
  • Totally agree. Except for the part about anyone being able to make an amazing burger at McDonald's. There is no way to make a McDonald's burger amazing. ;)
  • These words deserves to be law.