How I Conceived A Simple WP7 App While Getting High – And Built It in 2 Hours

Boy, if that’s not an attention-grabbing headline, I don’t know what is. Thanks Randy Guthrie, I totally poached your idea for this post title.

About a week ago I was driving up to Snoqualmie Pass, elevation 3,022, in the Cascades for a little recreation. I didn’t have a GPS with me, but it occurred to me that it’d be cool to see my current (estimated) altitude from various places on the mountain. I didn’t want a fancy thing with maps and stuff, just access to the number, in feet or meters.

And thus, Simple Altimeter (Free) was born.

Here’s an example of an application that you can write in 1 hour and then spend another hour working on the supporting graphics. I literally finished this – from start to submission – in one day.

I also plugged an ad control in there so that I can get some ad revenue from it. People won’t mind it because it’s innocuous, and it lets me keep the app free.

Here’s a screenshot. It passed cert testing on the first try. It uses the “high” accuracy mode of the GPS chip (thanks Clint Rutkas for helping me figure that one out) and is only accurate as the phone’s GPS. But who cares? It’s free and reasonably useful.

You can do this too!

Don’t know where to start with WP7? Searching for ideas? Start simple. Use this as inspiration. Post your comments here when you’ve executed it

No drugs were consumed during the conception or development of this app, with the exception of Vitamin D and some fish oil.