Last week I was asked to present a quick informal piece about developing for Android to the Interactive Team of Global in London. Rather than a “Hello World” example it was to be a background to the platform, the languages you can use, and a bit about the applications we’ve released. I presented on Friday along with colleagues who spoke of iPhone and Symbian.
It went okay (it’s not like much can really go wrong is it), but I certainly have a hell of a lot of room for improvement. It was my first semi-proper presentation, and I can see myself enjoying presenting in future, but right now I get unaccountably nervous. I hope I get lots of opportunities to give informal presentations like this in the future, because that is what it’ll take to get better and begin to enjoy them.
Yet another post revolving around the world of Android. This time though I’m actually writing this post on my Nexus, and using a new type of keyboard which rather than tapping, you swipe across. Having just tried to write the word swipe I see how they are seemingly being quite cheeky in that they’d much rather you write swype, the name of the application.
So rather than picking out each character, you simply swipe your finger roughly across each of the letters you require. I say roughly as it is impressively clever at working out which word you were aiming for. Initially sceptical, in just writing this post I can already feel myself speeding up to the extent that I’m thinking I shall have to try this for an extended period of time, and see if I can get used to it.
If you have an Android phone you can sign up to join the beta here. However… it appears that right now the beta its closed due to “overwhelming demand”. It’s had a bit of press recently.
Alternatively, they’ve made some kind of arrangement with T-Mobile and HTC to have Swype pre-bundled on the MyTouch 3G, so you can find it on there (if you’re the kind of person who chooses their phone based on the keyboard).
BSkyB released a Sky News application for Android yesterday. It’s free, and boasts of its quick access to video content.
On the face of it, it’s quite an ugly application. They’ve said to hell with the Android default theme, and gone with something which shares aspects of their website design. The result is not pretty, and doesn’t provide an enjoyable user experience.
Citizen Journalism
One interesting feature in the application is an option called “Report” which sits at equal prominence to news and video. This is for citizen journalism. On selecting this, you are presented with fields to enter your name, phone number, location (not automatically detected unfortunately), comments, and even a photo, to send in to Sky News. I’m glad to see something of this nature so prominent. It’s not citizen journalism as I’d like it, because the information is not sent to and held in an openly accessible place, like it is when Twitter is involved for instance, but it certainly makes the submission of news, by citizens on the go, a breeze.
It does have decent access to video content, and it’s nice to see they’ve released the app for free, even though that does seem perhaps slightly at odds to what we’ve been hearing from the Murdoch camp in regards to free news recently.
Personally, despite missing out on the video content, I’d still rather use the BBC news website and the news & weather app that comes with the Nexus. That’s of course until the BBC’s Android app is released, which will surely be great.
Whenever I want to quickly show off the capabilities of my Android phone to someone, I whip out Sky Map. It’s visually impressive, and one can see easily that it has a practical application in the world.
I don’t know if it counts as true augmented reality, as it doesn’t use the camera. I think it probably does because it is still merging the real-life environment with computer generated imagery (correct me if I’m wrong). With that in mind… it’s clearly the best example of augmented reality implemented in a phone that I’ve come across so far. It puts many of the available sensors (AGPS, Compass, Accelerometer) to great use.
I’ve included a link to Layar, another great example of AR, which allows the community to create their own maps.
Google are touring the world giving out free Nexus One phones. I was lucky enough to be given one at the Android Developer Labs event in London.
Is this proof that Nexus just isn’t selling as well as they hoped? Or was handing out free Ones always the plan? (I could technically use a capital there). The Nexus, like Google claim about many of their products, is supposed to be a demonstration of what can be done, rather than necessarily being a money maker. Certainly an aim of the Nexus is to promote Android as a platform. With that, handing out free ones at Android events is certainly going to create buzz and excitement around the platform. (That’s buzz without a capital).
Hero
I bought an HTC Hero shortly before confirmation that the Nexus would be available. The Hero is a very good phone. It lacks Android 2.x Eclair w00t (disappointingly coming with Cupcake), but really it is a very well built phone, and the Cupcake OS is not much lacking to its younger baked sibling.
Decisions
Lumbered with the Hero, I was very tempted to buy the Nexus, but having one delivered to the office for development, a quick play led me to think it just wasn’t worth it over the Hero. Very good, but not £500 better.
Well a couple of weeks later the decision was made for me, and the very kind people at Google gave me a Nexus. I’m very grateful to them, and have since fallen in love with the phone.
Result
Google do a lot of things well, and a few things badly. I mean, Google Accounts are in my mind a fiasco of fiercely tangled interconnected tubes that are not unlike some kind of impossible maze. But they do a lot of things well, and are increasingly integrating themselves with our lives in any way they can. Sure, aiming to provide a service we desire, but surely with motives of profit above all else.
It’s the fact they’re one enormous company that is sucking data from our very movements, which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable about it all. For now, I just hope their motto holds true.
Anyway, they gave me a phone, and a very good one at that, so they’re awesome.