

If you're an Android developer and looking for ideas, start here - icey
http://androidforums.com/application-requests/

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DrSprout
Why do all of the Android websites look like crap on an Android phone? If
there were a website you would think would have a good mobile layout, it would
be one ostensibly dedicated to a mobile platform.

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wildmXranat
I can't say that I disagree with you. If you notice, these sites use ready to
go platforms or forums without much attention to mobile users. Shame.

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maxharris
Henry Ford is reputed to have said, "If I had asked my customers what they
wanted, they would have said a faster horse."

Looking at this forum is fine, but you still have to go through the effort to
integrate all of these disparate and narrow desires into something larger that
you can build a business on. That's hard! Staying motivated while working on a
problem that you don't have yourself is even harder.

~~~
icey
I think the idea is to look for inspiration, not specifications. (At least,
that's how I hope people would go about it)

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lallysingh
Or in more concrete terms, customer problems that need solving.

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bmalicoat
I don't really think crowdsourcing app ideas is the best idea. Mostly you'll
end up hearing from a loud minority. For example, there is a request for an
Illinois Compiled Statute app....I don't really think that would have huge
market appeal.

Developers are better off looking at small problems or annoyances in their
day-to-day that they can solve using the Android (or any phone in fact).

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nwatson
A single developer looking at their day-to-day needs is going to consider
maybe at most 5% of the total market need for Android apps. All developers
together doing the same might consider only 40% of that possible market. ...
and that piece of the market will be crowded.

A better approach is to consider how ubiquitous tablet/mobile almost-always-
networked touch/voice-based computing is going to allow better HCI in what
general spaces, cross-reference with a comprehensive list of industrial
practices, see how those can improve, and team up with domain experts to
identify common needs and start building libraries, back ends, and apps.

There are already too many to-do lists, casual games, and social apps. It's
time to make industry more efficient.

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tvon
and maybe look here for UI inspiration: <http://wellplacedpixels.com/>

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joshwa
Awesome. On page 2 is a request for the app I'm already building! I think I
just found a few beta testers :)

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milofelipe
Thanks for this! Now my only problem is being able to sell my apps. I'm from a
country where we can't create Google Checkout merchant accounts so I can't
sell apps in the Android Market. I hope this changes soon.

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ZeroGravitas
If you wrote an app that funneled ambient sound via the microphone to your
headphones (handy for in-canal earphones as they block out so much external
sound you can't hear people talking to you) would Android's flexibility allow
this to be triggered in some simple manner? By simple manner I mean e.g.
binding to a physical key or gesture, or adding to the built in audio app.

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aresant
If you're looking for an idea to monetize, go into the iPhone app store, sort
by most popular, rinse and repeat.

EDIT: Or NewGrounds or Download.com / games

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thinkcomp
If you're an Android developer and looking for work, please e-mail me. aarong
/at/ thinkcomputer.com

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apphacker
An email client with copy and paste would be great, and zoom.

~~~
mdxch
For Android phones with a physical keyboard, the Gmail app allows you to
select/copy text by holding the shift key and dragging over the text on the
screen.

~~~
jcl
Also, you can long-press on a text field, which brings up a select/copy/paste
menu. This seems to work across all Android apps, and presumably works on non-
keyboard phones.

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apphacker
Great, but how does that allow me to copy text from someone else's email? Like
a call in pin or something? If I click reply the quoted text does not show up
in the text field.

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jcl
Oh man, that's really bad. I rarely use the GMail app, so I hadn't run across
this particular limitation yet.

I found a forum thread where someone found a sequence of interactions that
work around the problem, but select/copy/paste really should be in the app's
menu, like they are for the browser:

[http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread...](http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread?tid=4d89ebb8945b19fa&hl=en)

Summary: You can use Shift-S to activate select mode, then use the scroll ball
to select. (On a keyboardless phone, hold "menu" until the soft keyboard comes
up, then press Shift-S to activate select mode.)

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apphacker
Wow thanks. Yeah that needs to get improved. :O

