Technology and Making

Discover provides an elegant and powerful interface by which to transfer files between your computer and your G1 over a wireless network. With Discover running on the G1, you just direct your computer's browser to the designated IP address (you can find it under Discover's "Server Info" menu option) and you'll see a fast web-based interface through which to manage your files. It should work on any operating system, and you can assign passwords to protect your files from hostile action.

A minor triumph of the open source model, this free application from the Market allows you to enter text via an onscreen keyboard without opening the slide on your G1, one of the most exciting features of the much-delayed Cupcake update.

It's pretty easy to use but not immediately apparent - I had to go and dig through android7's boards before I figured it out.

When you run Softkeyboard, it loads in the background and appears in your Notifications list. Whenever you want to enter text, slide down the notifications bar and choose Softkeyboard. You need to enter your text, click on the Return icon in the lower right corner and then (this is the part I couldn't figure out), long-press on the text box and choose "paste" to enter the text. Job done!

The Number 1 must-have application for Android. aTrackDog finds and lists all your applications, then checks them all for updates in one go, even if they're not in the Market. Updated versions are brought up in a list, and you can tap on any one to go straight to the Market or the developer's website and download an update. Since many Android apps are updated several times a week, this is your most important piece of software.

Developed by one man, SnapPhoto is a new Camera application for Android and adds most of the features you're missing - adjust the white balance, night mode, take multiple shots, etc. etc. Best of all, it uses the phone's accelerometer to judge when there's a stable moment to take the shot - you focus, push the button, then hold it as still as possible, and SnapPhoto will take the shot at the very moment the camera is most still, getting you the clearest possible picture.

It's updated steadily, and has become very stable and featureful. Bookmark the developer's FAQ Page to keep track of the latest changes, they're not listed in the Market entry.

This application gives you the ability to record video on your G1, a much-desired feature. It will drain your battery really fast, and it's still in beta and a little buggy, but overall it's working well for me. There's no sound as yet, but that's scheduled for an update in the very near future. Overall, a very exciting third party offering.

There are a few applications to give you easy picture uploads to the web. These are, in my opinion, the two best.

Picasa, which is the official release from Google, lets you upload any picture to your Picasa web albums. This is essentially a new addition to the core Google apps bundled with Android - the fact that it has to be downloaded from the market may mean development ran a bit behind, and this may be bundled with later Android phones, even newer G1s.

PixelPipe is a remarkable service. With clients for pretty much every desktop and device under the sun, it provides quick photo upload to over 50 websites, including blogs, photo hosts and many others. You'll need to sign up for a free account to use it.

Because both these applications appear in the "share" menu, they'll let you upload photos from any app that supports it - new camera applications like SnapPhoto, for example.

Out of the box the G1's Android operating system supports Google Chat, the Instant Messaging system which has grown out of Google's Gmail email service. You can view your Buddy List at any time, appear available whenever the phone is in network range and messages from your Buddies come up as notifications in the bar at the top of the screen. US users have support for other networks, although I am informed that they pay for use - the price of a text for every message.

Facebook Chat is so far supported only by andFBChat, a Google Code project. It's not yet in the Market, so you'll have to install from the website. It's also pretty buggy and frequently fails, but may improve soon - I'll be keeping an eye on it and posting here, as this is one of my must-have applications.

There is good support for AIM with Hello Aim! and Myspace with MySpace Mobile, As yet, I can only find support for ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber, and MSN in Meebo and IM+ - see below for details.

The only multi-protocol messengers for Android that I've found so far are Meebo and IM+.

Meebo connects to AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, its own Meebo protocol, and the MSN and Yahoo networks, and should support Facebook Chat soon - this feature is being worked on in collaboration with the Facebook team. However, it's still very buggy, and you have to log in to each service each time you load it - it doesn't even save your details.This may be improved soon.

IM+ supports AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, Jabber, ICQ and Myspace. It's got a much better interface, automatically logs into all your networks when open and is more stable, but it's paid software, costing $19.95 after the 7-day trial. There is no word as yet on when it will support Facebook Chat.

This insanely featureful to-do list manager has a slick interface, the ability to sort your lists by all kinds of categories and create your own customized smartlists, and every option you could hope for. It also synchronizes with the web-based to-do list managers Remember The Milk and Toodledo, giving you both a backup of your tasks and a set of lists you can access from anywhere.

I've tried several to-do list programs for Android and I think this is the best by a significant margin. Personally I use Toodo for keeping track of my tasks when I'm out of the house, Remember The Milk for managing the details and the RTM plugin for my Google Homepage to give me a quick overview of what I have to do.

You can check out the Toodo Development Plan to see all the features they're planning to implement. This is a textbook open source project - hardworking team, total transparency, keep their users up to date.

Between them, these programs give you full control of your G1's ringtones. Rings Extended allows you to use any audio file on your G1 as a ringtone, and Ringdroid allows you to edit any audio file, via a very easy to use drag-and-click interface, cutting it to whatever length you want - so you can clip out your favourite sections of a track and use them as ringtones or notification tones.

Note: Ringdroid also allows you to convert any audio file into Android ringtone format, but you won't need this feature if you have Rings Extended installed.

This program's been causing a storm on the iPhone for some time, so it's got a fair amount of development work behind it, as well as having gathered a slew of awards.

TuneWiki works as a featureful audio player, indexing and playing all the audio files on your G1 and letting you build playlists on the fly. But it's also a social network in its own right, allowing any user to create and edit lyrics, gathering the community's favourite tracks, and incorporating geographical data to show you when your favourite bands are playing nearby. It also has a built-in Youtube search which allows you to save your favourite music videos to a library.

As a jukebox application, TuneWiki is rock-solid, and the ability to build playlists on the fly is very neat indeed. I hate to admit, but with a bigger SD card and better battery life, the G1 and TuneWiki could easily replace my 80Gb iPod.

There are two good contenders for access to Last.fm's streaming music. The third-party application known just as Last.fm has a good feature set, with the ability to search for artist information, manage playlists and select between several recommended tracks from each radio station. Unfortunately it's still very unstable, in fact I can rarely get it to play a track without failing. Definitely one to watch as it becomes more reliable, though.

Last.fm have now released their own Android client, listed in the Market as "Last.fm - Personal Radio". It has a more basic feature set, but includes good solid Notification area integration, and it is rock-solid stable in my experience.

Two simple programs that do two simple (but important) jobs.

Podweasel grabs the latest episodes of your favourite podcasts, saves them and plays them back. To be honest, I'm hoping that Tunewiki will be adding this feature in the future, and save me an application. There's no word on that yet, but I'll keep watching the news and post here if it does. For now, Podweasel does the job nicely.

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