

Ask HN: What Cool Android Projects are You doing? - shareme

I am finishing some library frameworks for android development and attempting to pick a cool android project to complete from my list<p>One of the ones that stands out is maybe put a SIP/VOIP stack on top of JXTA-P2P.<p>What cool Android Projects are you guys and gals coming up with?
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nir
Working on KalSMS - an app that lets an Android device function as an SMS
gateway: <http://github.com/niryariv/KalSMS/wiki>

If you live where Twilio/Textmarks/etc already cover, it's just a fun hack,
but in developing nations it could be a bigger deal. Current solutions require
non-trivial setup (software + cell modem) and NGOs sometimes send technicians
for a couple weeks to Africa just to set up the gateway. KalSMS (like any
Android app) could be installed by simply scanning a barcode - and maintenance
just means keeping the phone on, something non-techies easily do already.

Looking for beta testers, and anyone who might donate/sell me a Nexus One to
develop on..

~~~
djb_hackernews
Wow! I had this very same idea after reading about rapidSMS. Seemed stupid to
devote an entire web framework like Django to the solution. Sweet. Looking for
contributors?

~~~
nir
Yeah, I had it after working with RapidSMS for a while ;)

Would definitely love contributors - my Java sucks. Have tasks in the pipeline
like async HTTP reqs, a request log view etc. Email me at niryariv@gmail.com
and let's hack!

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cludwin
I'm working on the "Finding cool apps in the Android Market is hard" problem.

Right now I am basically taking the crowd sourcing approach by asking people
what their top N Favorite apps are. Once I get some more data, I intend to
employ some "amazon-style" collective intelligence and create a recommendation
engine.

I realize that there are other people working on this problem but to my
knowledge no one has solved it yet;)

~~~
ggruschow
Maybe you could run in the background and just pay attention to what the users
actually use? It seems like the pattern of use is going to be more indicative
of what the rest of us should take a look at than the people-who-bother-to-
rate-bias will allow. For example, a few basic things I'd like to know: if
someone downloads it, tries it, and uninstalls or never touches it again after
a couple days, if it force closes a lot [on a class of devices], and if people
are using it consistently over time, like multiple times a week for months.

That said, I don't really need recommendations as to what to try, I just need
something that doesn't present me with a zillion clearly crappy options (and
this applies to Apple's too.. Stupid-compiled-pamphlet-of-information I'm
looking at you). After eliminating those, there's not so much left in the
Android Market that I can't go through it in a reasonable amount of time.

~~~
gryftir
The app market finding problem differs depending on how you intend to monetize
it. Running an app means more to an app that makes it money via advertising
then one which is sold. Making money from analytics is different from targeted
advertising and from having a paid app.

But if you want an interesting take on it, how about figuring out which people
who are downloading the popular apps first, and tracking their behavior as a
cohort. Use the trendsetters to predict the trends.

------
Zak
I'm curious as to whether anybody working on cool Android projects is writing
them in Not Java. I've been meaning to try Scala on Android, but I don't know
of anyone using it for anything beyond demonstrating that it is possible.

------
ryandvm
It's only a little "cool", but I just completed version 1 of a live wallpaper
that shows National Weather Service radar imagery.

<http://www.appidio.com/apps/radar-wallpaper/>

~~~
ydant
It's begging for auto-location adjustment (when I land somewhere new on a
plane, I'd want to see the nearest tower for where I am). At the very least,
there should be a way to pick the nearest towers to your current location
easily. Bonus points for calculating what range you would need to have that
tower cover your current location.

Can the range be shortened even more than 150 miles?

~~~
ryandvm
Yeah, auto-location was quickly identified as a potential future option.
Though it's not quite foolproof because there are a lot of cases in which you
don't actually want the nearest radar site, but rather the nearest one upwind
of you.

Another feature I'm toying with is the ability to stitch together multiple
images so you can pick any point in the country as the "center" of the image.

As for the radar range, there is all kinds of post processing that could be
done to simulate shorter ranges, but the only images the NWS currently
produces are either 124 or 248 nautical miles.

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starnix17
Hard Copy - Unofficial Instapaper client: [http://www.appbrain.com/app/hard-
copy-instapaper-app/com.ton...](http://www.appbrain.com/app/hard-copy-
instapaper-app/com.tonycosentini.hardcopy)

It's a fun project to get into Android with. I imagine that my pizza/date
money income from the project is going to disappear now that Marco is working
on Instapaper full-time (as he's probably working on an Android client).

~~~
ydant
I don't know Marco, so I don't know his motivations or plans, but he's pretty
disparaging of Android on his blog. A lot of what he says I agree with, but a
lot of it reads like baseless commentary from the sidelines without having
used the product much. So I wouldn't necessarily count on an Android client
being his top priority.

If you can make your client work exceptionally well and fit the Android
mentality, you have an opportunity to be fairly entrenched and beat out the
official client - I wouldn't give up.

One thing Marco does well is think out every user interface decision and add
polish to the product. If you don't do that, and he does release an Android
client, that could kill your app's success pretty quickly. Polish is something
Android is lacking pretty heavily, and we all notice it when it's there.

~~~
starnix17
He said on Twitter that he was working with a contractor on it, but it fell
through.

I think my app has polish, and it's slowly getting better, but most of it
based on the official app adapted to Android UX patterns.

Either way, Marco is nice enough to allow third party clients and I've made
more than I thought I would already.

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haseman
I've totally neglected it (and it's been in rough shape for a while) but I
have a functional Geographically based Augmented Reality library. If someone's
interested I'd love to hand the reigns of the project over. Right now it's
very much in a proof-of-concept state.

<http://github.com/haseman/Android-AR-Kit>

~~~
tocomment
I wanted to do AR based on a page of text. So it would hover images over
certain words. Any idea if that's possible? Any idea where to start learning
about it?

~~~
haseman
You're looking for pattern based AR (unless the words on your paper have
precise GPS coordinates)

I haven't look at it much yet, but you might have some luck with the new
Quallcom AR SDK.

<https://ar.qualcomm.com/qdevnet/sdk>

~~~
tocomment
Thanks. A lot of times knowing what to search for is half the battle. I'll see
what pattern based AR turns up.

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Nemisis7654
I know this is nothing compared to what a lot of you guys are probably use to,
but I released an app earlier this month called EasySal Calculator. I wouldn't
say it is "cool", but I am new to programming so actually finishing and
publishing an Android app is pretty damn cool to me.

~~~
UrLicht
Finishing anything you start is pretty damn cool.

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mks
Not sure if you want to join some OS project or you are just curious about
current android scene.

Anyway I will use this for a bit of self promotion though - we have just
released public alpha version of source code editor on android -
<http://www.touchqode.com>

We have bigger goals with it - just for now we want to make code editing on
mobile phones easier. It might not fit general idea of cool (for us it is
definitely cool) since our post <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759122>
just sunk :)

~~~
nfriedly
Heck yea! I was looking for something like this a couple of months ago.

Feature request: built-in ftp/sftp with upload-on-save option.

~~~
mks
Yes we are definitely planning to look into more options of how to get your
source files to your phone - FTP and CVS/SVN among them.

At this moment we suggest you synchronize your source files with your
development computer using dropbox. There is a writeup on what setup we use
ourselves in FAQ section <http://www.touchqode.com/faq.htm#synchro>

~~~
nfriedly
Gotcha - I saw that after posting my comment. Cool.

Next q: Since I installed it directly from your website and not the android
market, how will I know about updates? Your blog looks rather sparse.

~~~
mks
We will move it to android market soon. Meanwhile you can either subscribe for
updates on the main page or follow us on twitter.com/touchqode

And promise we will update the blog as well :)

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biafra
I am currently working on a pgp encryped version of latitude. Right now its
not even alpha although some of my geekier friends already use it. Its crpto
is based on bouncycastles openpgp implementation. On the server side I use
google app engine. The motivation is to have full control who can know where
you are on the client.

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JangoSteve
I'm not working on it myself (yet), but I'm really excited about Ruboto, which
is a project to allow you to build Android applications in Ruby. I recently
saw a presentation about it at JRubyConf this past weekend and have been
playing with it since.

<http://ruboto.org/>

~~~
SingAlong
Checkout <http://mirah.org> for Mirah

Can create android apps with it and get it to compile to an apk. It has ruby-
like syntax but is strictly typed. It's former name was Duby. It's awesome and
being actively developed. It's come a long way.

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rarrrrrr
We just launched the SpiderOak backup and sync client for Android this
morning: [https://spideroak.com/blog/20101004214544-finally-here-
spide...](https://spideroak.com/blog/20101004214544-finally-here-spideroak-
android-10-application-released)

We'll be making it open source shortly.

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davidw
It's sort of on the back burner, but when I get a phone, I'll probably do more
hacking on the Hecl port to Android: <http://www.hecl.org>

~~~
shareme
due to the quality emulator you do not have to wait for a full device..I did
not..

~~~
davidw
Sure - the code is out there and it works. More than anything it's a
motivational thing.

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rookie
as my intro to android dev i created a crossfit app called xfit to display the
crossfit workout of the day. this is also my first finished project so
definitely cool to me.

<http://www.gearley.com/xfit>

[http://www.doubletwist.com/apps/android/x-fit-wod-
crossfit/1...](http://www.doubletwist.com/apps/android/x-fit-wod-
crossfit/1462258236127927147/)

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kno
I’m building the coolest marketing tool since the rolodex.

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geuis
New startup with @limedaring(same name on HN)

