Thought Delimited

My second Android app, MyReminders, has been on the Android Market for 30 days now, and I wanted to share some stats as well as some things I've observed and experienced over that time period.

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Now that I have two apps listed in the Android Market, I thought I would write up something about the publication process to let folks know what to expect when they to go publish their own Android apps.

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When I created my first Android app, NoteToSelf, I had always intended to release a "deluxe" version with additional features.  Even though this app is essentially that deluxe version, I felt it needed a new name to reflect its most notable new feature (reminder alarms).

So this incarnation of the app comes with the following features:

• It allows you to dictate your reminder instead of typing it via Google's speech transcription service. All you need to dictate your reminder is a network connection (celluar or WiFi) and no concerns about talking to your phone in public.

• It gives you the choice between three different home screen widgets that let you cycle through all of your reminders and add or edit reminders via the widget.

• It lets you schedule an alarm for those reminders that are time-sensitive. You can use the settings in the app to determine how the alarms should notify you (by default, the alarm will cause the phone to vibrate and the notification light to blink).

You can read more about the app and view several screenshots at the following URL:

http://www.thoughtdelimited.org/android/myreminders/

Now...I did decide to charge $1 for this app in the Android Market, because I did put a lot of work into it and I think it's certainly worth that much given the functionality it provides.  However, if you're a contributing member of the ColdFusion/CFML programming community (someone who regularly shares their knowledge or their code to help others) and you have an Android phone that allows you to install non-Market applications, send me an e-mail and I'll send you the install file so you can have the app for free.

I haven't been blogging much lately, but that's partly because I was on vacation for a week and partly because I was working on this:

http://www.thoughtdelimited.org/android/notetoself/

It's a fairly simple app built with the standard Android API, but it meets MY need for a note/reminder list that is right there on my Android home screen and lets me see all of my reminders without having to go into the application. And being able to dictate my reminder (I put in the dedicated dictation button because my Swype keyboard doesn't have a key for dictation like the stock Android keyboard does) makes it easy to add a quick note if you can tolerate a mistranslation here or there.

This version is free, so if you have an Android device running 2.1 or higher, feel free to check it out.

Right now, there is a small window of opportunity for Android phone owners to acquire the newest "beta" (honestly, it's about as "beta" as Gmail used to be) version of the Swype virtual keyboard app.  It's only available for a few days for folks willing to register for the "beta" program (which is free) at http://beta.swype.com/.  You can't download it from the Android Market, so once the registration system is closed again you'll have to hope someone hacks the app to make it available (which admittedly happened with the initial beta), or buy one of the Android phones that comes with Swype pre-installed (that is Swype's "official" means of distribution).

So as I said already, Swype is a virtual keyboard app.  Once you install it, you can then use it instead of whatever virtual keyboard came installed and set as the default (ah, the freedom to choose...). What's special about it?  Instead of tapping each key (which you can still do if you want), you swipe/drag your finger across the keyboard from key to key to spell out the word you want to input. Even though you cross over numerous unwanted letters and numbers as you move your finger, it still somehow detects which of the keys you cross over with your fingers are the intended letters (maybe somehow detecting the briefest of pauses or the slight change in direction as you start moving to the next one). If it's not sure what you meant to spell, a list of possible choices pops up and you can tap the correct choice.

You lift your finger to complete a word, and if you start to trace out a new word it adds a space after the previous word automatically. There are also a number of special gestures, such as dragging your finger above the keyboard to capitalize the last letter you selected, and swirling your finger over a letter to enter the letter twice. You can see it in action in the videos on the Swype website.

I've been using Swype for quite a while, and I'm can compose text on my Droid a LOT faster with Swype than I could with the stock Android OR iPod Touch keyboard, and it works for me despite the fact that I sometimes hesitate or "take a wrong turn" because I've forgotten where on the keyboard the next letter is.

I strongly recommend that every Android owner take the opportunity presented by this beta offering and try it out for themselves.