MIT is known for being at the forefront of computing and communications, so perhaps its not too surprising to hear that a class entitled “Building Mobile Applications with Android” a) exists and b) has come up with a load of working Android apps before the first android phone hits the shelves.
The apps on show lean heavily towards the social networking end of things, with quite a lot of geolocation going on too. Although these are undeniably cool features, I do sometimes think it would be nice if every once in a while someone would just write a version of ‘Snake’ or something.
Anyway, here is a quick sample of what the latest generation of IT geniuses came up with.
Loco is a mobile social network that links to your phone contacts and lets you view their locations using google maps.
Flare is an employee tracking system for small businesses (e.g. pizza deliveries).
KEI is an intriguing BlueTooth ‘key’ app that can be used with a special receiver to (for example) unlock your car. Quite whether I would want to trust my car to the 128-bit security the app uses is another question.
GeoLife is a nice mashup of a ToDo list with Google Maps – effectively assigning ‘to dos’ to physical locations and reminding you to do them when you reach those locations.
It’s great to see that there are already some bright developers working on Android apps – and the thing hasn’t even come out yet. Imagine the kind of stuff we will start to see once people use an Android phone and find that there are some itches that need to be scratched..
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About Stuart Houghton
Interesting. Android is so tempting, even though it has question marks about developer support and consumer interest. Even so, I’d sure like to jump an an Android phone myself because it’s a very appealing platform.
I’m wondering… is this class online? I believe MIT has a lot of classes available for free viewing. I’d sure like to “take” this one.