Day: 15 January 2011

Mobile Apps working together to better support the user

I just started using Astrid on my HTC Desire (Running android 2.2) and I’m very impressed. The thing which amazes me is the integration with Locale.

Yes it a task app but the difference is with Locale, you can set conditions. Conditions like show me this task when I’m in certain location. Show me this task when you walk into a wifi signal with a certain SSID. Show me a task when blah blah blah…

Unfortunately it seems I’m behind the curve on this one. The locale team blogged about this last year.

I put on my todo list all sorts of tasks. Sometimes they are work tasks like “fill out my expense report.” Occasionally, I add random ideas like “ask the dentist about electric toothbrushes.” More frequently I add personal tasks like “get bananas.” With Locale + Astrid, I get reminders for these tasks when I can do something about them. By tagging tasks as “groceries” and connecting the tag to a situation in Locale (for example when I am near my local Trader Joe’s), Astrid will remind me to get bananas the next time I’m near the store. In the same way I can limit Astrid’s pestering me about my expense report to times I am in the office. And the next time I am sitting in the dentist chair, Astrid can alert me to get his take on the latest teeth-cleaning gadget.

While there are many tools that provide a place to save information you want to remember, most of them lack reminders when you need them. Locale gives Astrid the power to do this in an amazingly simple way, making Astrid less annoying and much more useful.

Exactly!

So theres a interesting trend of apps building on other apps. I noticed this with Dropbox. I got a feeling that because Dropbox has been out for the iPhone for longer, there might be more tightly integration that on android at the moment. But I noticed quite a few apps are using dropbox as there syncing method instead of creating there own. Its not just syncing there’s a lot more that comes with using dropbox as the storage method.

Whats also weird is I’m now expecting dropbox syncing as standard in a lot of the apps I download. After that I’m also expecting some kind of locale ability.

In actual fact, if I was to improve Astrid, I would indeed the ability to use dropbox and create tasks using a very simple XML format. It currently syncs with Google Tasks but I’ve not really got that syncing with Evolution or anything else yet, so something else would be great.

I’ll be watching this trend of apps working off the back of other apps more closely.

What is it with White chicks and Gang signs?

Me and Sarah use to laugh our asses off at this video. Why because of the hilarity of the fact most white woman I know, when faced with a camera will pull some crazy pose and throw some kind of gesture with there hands. Why? Why oh why? Now to be fair not everyone does this but most do. Its like some kind of meme which has spread deeply in the consciousness of the woman of our little planet. To see the effects you need to breaks out a camera and ask to say cheese, bizarre!

The weird thing is, not many men know what I mean when I mention it. So for those men, here’s exactly what I mean.

I can’t work out if its a cultural thing either because I’ve known non-westernised woman to also throw a few signs when having themselves shot. What makes things even worst/sad is I’ve seen quite a few dating profiles pictures on Okcupid and many others (there’s plenty on plenty of fish, bad pun ignore me). One of the girls I’ve been out on a date with had all types of signs all over her profile pictures. I so wanted to ask her, so what the heck is with all the gang signs? Do you think its funny or something? Of course I never did, mainly because we had one date and never saw each other again (lucky escape I feel).

Of course this will be in my folder for geeks talk sexy part 2: The other half of population. Its very easy to imagine all men are weird (some more that others of course) but in actual fact woman are equally as weird. We’re a perfect fit for each other maybe? 🙂

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