esfuerza a Strava recorder and uploader for Windows Phone

9-23-2012
Inspired by a Lumia 800 that floated across my desk (thanks Jordan!) and the work by Ben Lowe on his WP Strava Viewer App I set out to create a Strava WP7 POC. The end goal was a legitimately recorded and uploaded activity, nothing more & nothing less. I should mention that I do Android for a company in the fitness tracking area, let's umm leave it at that. Needless to say, I am not a .NET guru by far.

I spent a good part of last weekend hoping for a smooth transition from emulator to device with some previous WP7 geo experimentation. Instead what I got was a complete failure. Apparently WP7 background agents are useless for Geo updates. In a real world test I also found that if your app is navigated from you will no longer get geo updates (!!!). For me it was switching to the camera, but it's not hard to figure out why there aren't that many GPS recording Apps for Mango. According to the internets this may be addressed in WP8, but I didn't get the EA SDK so I can't say for sure.

Fast forward to this weekend, motivated to see my original goals through I adjusted my code and set out for another test. I spent way too much time trying to get Strava to recognize the device as anything other than an iPhone, but restsharp overrides the User-Agent which is where this information is groked. Eventually, I needed to go to the bank, grab a donut, drop off something at post office and stop by the bar. It was time to test...Goal Accomplished!.

At this point I am going to continue to refine and improve the app in hopes that WP8 will become a viable solution. I am uncertain of how much of the 'activity & segment browsing' I am actually motivated to do for a few reasons:
  • WP7s IE works on strava.com reasonably well
  • It's tedious and I'm lazy
  • Compared to what the next (yet to be released) versions of the iPhone & Android are going looking like, the task of bootstrapping even a partially comprable WP8 version is daunting

    That being said, if anybody out there has can provide some design or asset help it would be great. Look at this page, it is obvious I have no eye for aesthetics.
    Some screenshots just to keep this in semi-vaporware status.

    Contact me for whatever (except help matching segments): wp AT 1618.org

    Disclaimer: This app and site are not affiliated with, supported or endorsed by Strava