Android
It’s been ages since I last dabbled with mobile application development. I can still remember creating various custom applications on a Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC that I used during my university days. How things have changed since then! With the emergence of powerful mobile programming technologies from the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and Palm as well as the increasing sophistication of mobile phones, it’ll be interesting how things play out over the next few years. While every Japanese cell phone has served me well, there has always been software that don’t work the way I want it to or functionality I wish it had. I guess this is where smart phones come in. Although I haven’t quite explored all the different technologies thoroughly (yet!), I have been impressed by what the Android platform by Google has to offer.
Watching the Android Developer videos and reading through the SDK, it sounds like Android will give a developer like me the power to create not just useful applications but interesting mash-ups using other applications. For instance, I quite enjoyed this video where a Google engineer is showing off his bar-code reader application. Another engineer than utilized the bar-code reader as part of his application which upon scanning books, the application would automatically retrieved book information off the internet and add it to a personal list complete with pictures and information. Additionally, the fact that the platform is open-source, customizable and applications are easily replaceable means I’ll be able to customize and fine-tune my smart phone to my specific needs. My dream is to have some kind of smart application that would not only transcribe voice calls but also analyze and parse the data accordingly, so that for example, it can automatically input a meeting in a calendar or a location on a map.
Before making any decisions though, the only thing holding me back are the Android phones out there. The Xperia X10 looks ideal but unfortunately a bit pricey at the moment. Rumor has it more phones will be released early next year so I shall wait and see. Until then, I may find myself playing around with the emulated developer kit on my desktop.
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