Planetoid Android » ADC

Lost in space

PlanetoidAndroid — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:17:26 +0000

I’ve seen a few comments questioning why the G1 has a compass built in to it. I guess its main use is pretty obvious and is demonstrated nicely with the streetview application (below).

Coming from the UK, where most of the time you can’t see where the sun is during the day, I’d find it very useful to know which way I’m facing. A number of times when trying to find an address on Google maps I’ve arrived at a tube station, stepped out on the street and then waited for a few minutes for GPS to kick in on my device. I then know where I am but not necessarily which way I am facing. So my next choice is to either look at the intersecting street names, identify a landmark or just walk for a bit and see which way the dot moves. A compass would obviously do away with that.

We don’t have Streetview in the UK yet but I’ve seen their cars in Oxford and in Slough (why Slough!) so it must be coming soon. However, maybe for day to day use ‘Enkin’ or a similar app may be more use. Enkin makes use of a 2D or 3D map or even ‘augmented reality’ to overlay labels (or anything really) on top what your device sees through the camera. To do this it seems they need a compass as well as GPS and an accelerometer (see pdf here ).

I’d guess you’d also need a reasonable accurate list of locations – something which I can’t honestly say that Google Maps has having got lost looking for a hotel in Dublin last week.

(btw- Enkin haven’t updated their blog for a while. I’m hoping that’s because they are busy coding and not because they’ve taken the developer challenge money and spent it all on crack… they seem like sensible chaps so I’m sure they haven’t.)

Input methods for Google Android

PlanetoidAndroid — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:22:05 +0000

I believe one of the key factors that will determine the success or failure of the first android phones is how simple it is to enter text. Some of the early videos coming out on YouTube show devices with qwerty keyboards. However, I was also interested to see one of the winners of the first round of the ADC was ‘Writing Pad’ from Shapewriter . Shapewriter is already available for the iPhone and seems to be getting some good feedback.

If you really want to know how it works there is even a paper from one of the co-creators of shapewriter on the technology behind it called SHARK² (or “SHorthand Aided Rapid Keyboarding Squared” !) here .

SDK update for Android

PlanetoidAndroid — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:19:00 +0000

Silicon Alley Insider and others have commented on the release of the update beta release of the Android SDK.

Google developers have been upset previously by Google’s ‘preferential’ treatment of certain developers (primarily those involved in the Android Developer Challenge – and even more likely to phone manufacturers). I don’t see this as that unusual as they may have felt that releasing it to a smaller subset of developers first would help them iron out any ‘showstopper’ bugs before they released it to the wider community.