Nelson Carrillo doesn’t develop apps for a living; it’s something he does in his spare-time. But, if you install and begin to use the Nokia Conversations app, you might be fooled into thinking that it’s all he does all day long, day in, day out. It’s sleek, beautiful and smooth. We got in touch with him to find out the full story.
Why build a Nokia Conversations app?
“I’ve been a regular reader of this site for a little over a year now, since the announcement that Nokia was going to use Windows Phone as its smartphone platform. I’m now a big fan.”
“I wanted to be able to keep up with the site using something that felt naturally integrated into the platform. I’m passionate about Nokia and Windows Phone. Any opportunity to tie both together into a beautiful experience was a no brainer.”
Building an app doesn’t take as long as you may think, once you’ve got the desire and the appropriate software.
“I’ve written the app in C# and XAML. I encourage anyone who wants to write apps to get started now. There’s immense opportunity on Windows Phone. I’d say as a whole it took about two weeks of solid development to get an initial release.”
“The dev tools are free and accessible to anyone and it’s very easy to get started. Both Microsoft and Nokia offer a lot in terms of developer support. The developer relations’ people are really world class. Besides that, the app itself doesn’t have to be complex. Mine certainly isn’t.”
“Differentiate and innovate on design. If you set out with some key scenarios you want to enable, everything else just falls into place.”
Project design
If you take your time, plan out what needs to be done and be creative, you can create a functional, yet beautiful app or game from the get-go.
“This is my first project. I’ve been working the technologies at the heart of the platform for a long time now. It’s been a pretty amazing experience from the start. I couldn’t think of a better app to start with.”
“I thought about how best to let people interact with your data. Using the large imagery on the landing page lets people just reach out and touch the article. The Metro paradigm lends itself very well to surfacing information in a very rich way.”
“The comments tab is interesting because I didn’t imagine people’s would take to it much. However people have fallen in love with the design. It just feels so natural and familiar.”
Any major challenges encountered in developing this app?
“Nothing really major. There is really such a wealth of information out there with regards to documentation, samples, and articles.”
“The platform is rock solid and my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. There have certainly been some interesting challenges, but that’s half of the fun.”
Maintaining an app in its life cycle
“While I’ve had lots of positive feedback on the app already, there are always ways to improve something. The first major update was just released which improved things greatly and added a host of new features. The next update is currently in development. I intend to fill out the feature set gradually and quickly, gathering input along the way. Posting comments from the app is something I want to address soon so you can look for that in the next update.”
And after…
“I’ve already started working on another app. It’s gorgeous and I really can’t wait to be able to show it off. Beyond that, it’s just a matter of getting a good idea and acting on it.”
Download the Nokia Conversations app today. It’s available for the Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900.
What do you think of the app? Let us know.