Windows Phone 7 “Neurons” App

Justin
Angel

Hi Folks,

I’d like to share some general specifics around my latest endeavour: the Windows Phone 7 app “Neurons”.

What is “Neurons” all about? What does it actually do?

"Neurons" streams TED Talks, The RSA (and RSA Animate), FORA.tv and Science Dump to your Windows Phone 7. You can view the latest talks from each of these knowledgeable sources or Search for more talks. Feel free to share talks you liked via Facebook, Twitter or email.

I got distracted, show me some pretty pictures!

Neurons Panorama

In-app video player

Search Page and Facebook Share

OK, Now show me a cool video!

Live preview of the “Neurons” Youtube video: (In Silverlight)

[SimpleVideo:source=http://justinangel.net/storage/NeuronsVideoProject3.wmv|width=800|height=480]

“That’s hot, post the codez? ;)”

Announcing here for the first time, I’m open sourcing Neurons under the Ms-PL license.
Go to http://Neurons.codeplex.com and get the latest source code.

There are some minor differences between the source code that shipped with Neurons V1.0 on the Windows Phone marketplace and the source code on codeplex. Mostly owing to my own wish to avoid violating some terms-of-usage by sharing out my private developer key. More on that on the codeplex website.

What did you learn from this project?

I’ll share technical specifics in a later blog post. I’ve started working on that one and it’s 30+ pages long.

My most important takeaway is that it is possible to develop an entire production level app in a single weekend. Neurons’ first line of code was written on Friday afternoon and it went out to beta testers on Monday morning.

Why did you develop this project?

My primary mobile device is changing from an iPhone to a WP7 device. That was a tough decision for me to make since I do use my iPhone quite often and use it to it’s fullest extent.

4 iPhone apps I frequently use were exclusively used to view these type of inspiring and educational videos.

The prospect of leaving these apps behind when migrating to WP7 convinced me to be proactive and assure that this content will be available on WP7.
I also wanted to provide a consistent meaningful experience instead of the fragmented subpar experience on the iPhone.
I’m very lucky that WP7 development is simple enough to have been able to achieve both of these goals in a single weekend.

Thank You!

First and foremost, I’d like to thank the content providers who unbeknownst to them helped make this app a reality.
The whole goal of this app is to show content from these great sources of knowledge and learning, and just get out of the way.