# Ideas for an Android App



## Fenrari (Mar 5, 2012)

So I'm teaching myself a bit of programming in my off time and though I don't have enough knowledge of the matter nor the skill set just yet, I'm planning on a something to do for the near future. 

So! If you're a droid user, what type of app do you use the most? What kind of apps would you like to see? What makes an app likeable for you/detractions for you?


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## Ikrit (Mar 5, 2012)

FAF browser

do it now


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## Captain Howdy (Mar 5, 2012)

Shopkick (freebies), eBay (functionality/useful), pulse (news app), BoA (bank), Droidlight (flashlight), Goog.Translate, swype (keyboard), Ringdroid (functionality), moviefone, Yahoomail - My span of apps I use regularly. They don't really fall under any one category, except maybe 'functionality' would be best.


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## Elim Garak (Mar 6, 2012)

A better imageboard browser for both 2chan/futaba-style(Fchan, 4chan, 420chan) and Danbooru style(Gelbooru, Danbooru,e621) imageboards. There is no fully functional one that supports all danbooru boards I listed and the one for 2chan style ones sucks ass.


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## Runefox (Mar 6, 2012)

All of the above.

The kinds of apps I use are often multipurpose, or if not, they're very specialized. For example, Trillian handles all of my messaging, though the new Steam app provides only a specific part of that. The most common apps I use aside from that are Chrome beta, Wapedia, and the integrated mail client (with everything synced to Google's servers). My major problem with Wapedia is that, while a great Wiki browser, it doesn't allow me to browse ANY Wiki, like Wikipanion on iOS does, which is disappointing.

As for what's important in an app, any app should follow the Android Style Guide in order to provide a consistent experience. Furthermore, it should be easy to navigate (using the style guide helps there), and while in the background, it should do as little as possible (if it's a network-connected app that uses notifications, C2DM is preferable to save battery/data). Using the hardware acceleration present in Android 3.0+ should also help with battery and overall smoothness and presentation of the app.

Now, as for what you can do? If you can build a forum browser that doesn't require the forum to use any special plugins or anything, that would be awesome. I don't know why nobody seems able to do it, or maybe nobody cares to. Browsing forums on mobile browsers is a PAIN, and downloading a browser for each forum sucks, too, especially when they yell at you saying "HEY WE HAVE AN APP NOW". Just something that lets you add a list of forums to browse, log into said forums (if you need to, maybe even "record" and "play back" the login process from a browser if the forum is wacky about it - An app called WiFi Web Login does that for WiFi hotspots), and get an interface that's optimized for mobile. In fact... Here's how it should look.


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## Schecter (Mar 10, 2012)

I was convinced to try and develop a FA app for andriod since I am already a registered Andriod developer and love working in Java, but I decided to abandon that notion because FA doesn't offer any API functionality and that someone else already made one. The whole purpose for me wanting to dev. An FA app was so that users could receive updates in real time (like Facebook). Alas, I don't know how without an FA backed API.


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## Faustus (Mar 13, 2012)

Seems like these days 'de rigeur' for mobile applications are very slight reworkings of existing ideas that use some weird, completely unconnected and totally misspelt word as their title, and rely on people's curiosity to draw them in and try out a free copy. I miss the days when software did exactly what it said on the tin, like... er... like the way Quark is a program that helps you track subatomic particles... um... and CorelDraw was purely for marine polyp art and... errr... PhotoShop is a place where you buy.... cameras?

OK I'm fooling nobody there, software has always had silly names!

I'm an iPad / iPhone guy myself, but I reckon what people mostly want is simplicity. Don't overdesign it, make your app with a single useful function that it performs excessively well, then concentrate on making it look fabulous and work efficiently.

-F


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## Elim Garak (Mar 14, 2012)

Faustus said:


> Seems like these days 'de rigeur' for mobile applications are very slight reworkings of existing ideas that use some weird, completely unconnected and totally misspelt word as their title, and rely on people's curiosity to draw them in and try out a free copy. I miss the days when software did exactly what it said on the tin, like... er... like the way Quark is a program that helps you track subatomic particles... um... and CorelDraw was purely for marine polyp art and... errr... PhotoShop is a place where you buy.... cameras?
> 
> OK I'm fooling nobody there, software has always had silly names!
> 
> ...


You are aware that there is a thing such as descriptions and ratings.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup
On device Play Store has access to the same info.

Also, define a single useful function.
When I see a forum app I want to not only to read and navigate but rather almost the whole feature set from within the app. Tapatalk does this amazingly well. The problem is they need to install a plugin forum/server side for better parsing and and less bandwidth usage. It's basically opening an UI.
Also what I linked above, a app not only to back up but to provide full app management.


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## Runefox (Mar 14, 2012)

Tapatalk and forum-specific browsers annoy me a lot, because they don't work with any of the forums I use (FAF being one), and EVERY time I go to any random forum that DOES support it on my phone's browser (usually looking for something specific about my phone or an app), I get annoying Javascript popups saying "HEY LOOK AT US WE HAVE TAPATALK GO DOWNLOAD THAT" or "HEY WE HAVE OUR OWN FORUM BROWSER THAT ONLY WORKS WITH OUR FORUM GO DOWNLOAD THAT".

It's kind of like those Wiki browsers on Android that don't bother letting you access any other Wikis but Wikipedia. Or, in the case of Wapedia, Wikipedia + a few they decided to throw in, almost all of which are broken and unusable and you have to use a web browser anyway. Wikipanion on iOS was way better, but there's nothing remotely like it on Android but the very-broken Wapedia.


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## Elim Garak (Mar 15, 2012)

Runefox said:


> Tapatalk and forum-specific browsers annoy me a lot, because they don't work with any of the forums I use (FAF being one)


I made a thread for adding support for tapatalk in this forum, not even the mods bother to comment on it.
Tapatalk is way better then browsers for forums. It takes 10 mins max to add the plugin.


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## Runefox (Mar 15, 2012)

Hence why I would like to see a forum-agnostic forum browser. Doesn't have to be faster than a regular web browser. Hell, all it needs to really do is make forums in general more readable. Just parse the XHTML, drop the CSS, and present it with its own interface.


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