The Daily App: TouchStudio For Windows Phone 7

One of the early keys to Microsoft's success in the early days of the PC industry was its work in courting developers and doing what it could to make it easier for ISVs to write applications.

Now Microsoft's mobile platform is far behind rival platforms iOS and Android in just about every meaningful measurement, but it may be trying to repeat some of its earlier success by making it easy for just about everyone to write code for it.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant has released a new app into beta – TouchStudio – that aims to let anyone write simple apps for their Windows Phone 7 devices. A free download from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, TouchStudio provides a series of script templates for everything from classing algorithms to automating URL bookmarks to creating simple games.

Navigate to individual templates by simply pressing brightly colored buttons for

One pretty big caveat: You'll need at least a moderate understanding of coding or scripting to even edit one of the templates. In the hands of someone who doesn't know what he or she is doing, it could turn into a little bit of a mess. While it's simplified, it's not that simplified.

Still, TouchStudio could offer nifty, on-device capabilities for customization that Android and iOS don't quite offer.