Over the past few days, some friends and I have been working nonstop on a windows phone application for the intern Windows Phone app competition. Tirelessly programming Saturday through Monday, we have created a pretty darn good RSS reader application, Headliner. I personally coded for 42 hours straight from Sunday morning until Monday night.

A few highlights:

  • Headliner is an RSS newsreader that helps you keep up to date with your favorite news and blogs
  • It can import feeds from and sync with your Google Reader account
  • Allows searching for and subscribing to feeds by keyword
  • Has a special OOBE screen that guides the user to get started quickly in one of 3 modes
  • Stores downloaded feeds and articles in IsoStore for offline viewing
  • Showcases a slick Metro UI with the Panorama and Pivot controls
  • Shows a “What’s New” panel with the latest news
  • Allows you to view feeds by category, and articles by category or feed
  • Displays unread count for each category and feed, as well as coloring article list items based on if they have been read yet
  • Uses familiar styling for article lists (looks like email app) and category/feeds lists (looks like contacts app)
  • Has two modes for viewing articles:
    • Summary mode: displays the article summary or content and a supporting image (if found). This is the faster view.
    • Embedded browser mode: displays the source article within an embedded IE control. This view, while slower, can be more complete.
  • Allows you to send articles via Email or SMS
  • Allows you to share articles via Twitter