Lack of quality apps on Android :(

[fredphoesh]

Hello guys,

Ive got an HTC Touch HD with Eclair 2.1 running (if a bit badly) and I really like Android, love the idea of it and want to move to Android come Feb when I'm due a phone upgrade.

Ive been spending lots of time on the App store, trying out programmes, seeing if I can find apps to replace the great programmes I have running Wm6.5 on my touch HD...

After days searching and trying things out, ive come to the sad conclusion that Android has loads of apps, but very few that are of equal quality to WM apps by people like Resco, SPB, SK.

I loaded iTunes (yuk) on my PC and had a look at the iTunes app store, and im afraid to say, based on that, there is a good chance I will let the devil enter my life... my next phone may just be an iPhone. (just saying that makes me a bit nauseous) It makes me sad really, since I think android is growing fast and I REALLY dislike Apple as a company (despite owning an 8 core macpro and a 17 macbook pro for video editing at home) with their closed, proprietory systems, control freakiness, and lacking multitasking, removable battery, customisation and live widgets... But the quality of apps (probably due to their tight fist over the way apps are bought and installed and closed phone OS) is clearly better than what is available on Android.

To name some apps on WM which have no peer on Android:
Core player (with xvid, divx, wmv etc)
SPB Wallet (with desktop syncing and editing of info)
Resco Photo Explorer (fantastic ease speed and smoothness)
Thumbcal (quick and easy use)
gAlarm (incredible alarm app, so many options)

They are apps I use a lot. Id particularly miss using xvid/divx.

Perhaps there are some apps which I have not found on the Market app store, and if any of you know of any gems you have found for some of those, please let me know.

Thanks guys,
Mark.

 

[screennamie]

Phhhhht... I'd rather get a palm pre than an iphone. Considering there are no apps for that really at all.

Head to the app request part of the forum and see if anyone is developing what you're looking for or may even be out.

 

[fredphoesh]

oooh, and a few more (also posted to request section)

SPB backup (great for rom testing, can backup EVERYTHING on the phone)
WorldCard Mobile (photograph business cards and OCR adds contact to address book)
SK Tools (swiss army knife of tweaking, registry editing etc)
ListPro (fantastically powerful Lists with collums, filters, flags, checkboxes etc)

 

[blackvyper]

Don't really think you gave the Android Market a chance.. perhaps if you tried Handmark or Androlib. If you want an iClone that's cool... just don't complain that they reduced the price of the phone after you've bought yours... which is what's going to happen. They can have my Android when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

 

[knuckledragger]

Google Goggles does this.

WorldCard Mobile (photograph business cards and OCR adds contact to address book)
etc)

 

[fredphoesh]

Google Goggles does this.

ooo really? Thanks.
I searched the Market and did not find that under "Business Card". I had thought Goggles was for identifying objects. Can you do one card after the other without having to go to the address book in between?

I guess my main point is that the apps I have found are generally very simple, with relatively few features and options. Even the (pretty good) Astro is nowhere near as fully featured as Resco Explorer... and Astro is one of the "deeper" Android apps Ive seen.

Im sure it will change with time, but Google have been very slow to respond to making Google Tasks easily Sync-able (duh!) or to giving out the code (or whatever it is) to people like Coreplayer to give Android Divx and Xvid ability. I am not terribly confident they will be doing that anytime soon.

Thanks for he headsup on Goggles.

Mark.

 

[kabbie_mcfeely]

All Android code is open and avalible to developers.

The Android App Developer community is not as big as that fruit app place. Android is less than 2 years old and paid apps are about a year old. How old is the fruit store ? The Android app store will get better. It will nevr compare to the fruit store, because its not a fruit.

The Android system is more evolved than the fruit system. I don't even know why people compare them. Its like comparing a sports car to a 4 wheel drive truck. Sure the sports car looks good and is fast, but can you pick up groceies with it, can you get through 5 foot snowdrfts, can you bring home that new 100 inch tv with it ? I would rather have something that does everythinng I want it to do when I want it to .

You could always try to learn to develope apps and make them yourself.

 

[fredphoesh]

All Android code is open and avalible to developers.

Today, in an attempt to understand why on earth there are NO divx or xvid players for Android, I read some guy from Coreplayer saying why there is no Coreplayer for Android at this time. This is an excerpt from that reply written in AUGUST last year! :

We have been asked if we plan to release a version of CorePlayer for Android. The short answer is yes (we have been researching/working in it for over a year now) but there are major hurdles in the current SDK and NDK.

- Native space
- Audio input (is really a hack atm in the SDK and not for production)
- Video rendering
- NDK (too many issues to list)

While Android works great for many apps.... its A/V system designed by PacketVideo is far from robust enough to add onto no less use. David Turner one of the lead Android Devs even noted last week that there are major changes coming this way with each SDK/NDK release as it relates to multimedia, quoting: "(and believe me the graphics and media frameworks are under extensive changes at the moment, and will keep doing so for quite a number of upcoming releases)".

Our goal is once the dev kits are ready to use for stable Audio input and a new method for Video rendering, is to basically replace the entire multimedia stack with CorePlayer. Naturally for us the diff is that we want to run in the 'native space' as much as possible, so we hope with the upcoming milestones it helps us and other developers to do what we need to make that happen.

In the meantime we have been working on the native Dalvik components (UI, system access, network access, installer) and will adapt those as each SDK/NDK milestone is released.

see this thread at
CoreCodec Community Forum • View topic - CorePlayer for Android...

 

[shawn1224]

wait wait wait, how do you get eclair on a winmo device?

 

[fredphoesh]

wait wait wait, how do you get eclair on a winmo device?

Hi there,
Not too hard, depending on the winmo you have, im not sure you could stick it on any old winmo phone... but here is a link to the forum thread on XDA where they have download links etc for that.

Ive just booted up, dig the 4 colour splash screen, but there are a few things not working yet, like gps, 3g(on my specific phone, others have luck there)

[TESTING] Android Eclair 2.0.1 On Blackstone 29-12-2009 - xda-developers

PS blackstone is the HTC Touch HD.

 

[killtheaquitted]

Sadly, I have to agree with the OP on this one. While there are some truly awesome apps, many of them feel half-baked or dumbed down. I love the concept of open source and I understand that this is part of what you have to deal with in an open source market, but it just doesn't feel like quality apps keep churning out onto the marketplace on a regular basis. I am not going to laundry list what I would like to see, it is just more of a general comment. As for games, solitaire, jewels, sudoku, labrinth, and tic tac toe, have been the top 5 games in popularity since I got my Hero in October. Tic tac toe? Really? Polarbit is hard at work developing some great games, but the game market has just felt stale for some time now. Don't get me wrong, I love android, and I love my hero and I will never get an iphone, but I just get irritated at how that market keeps flourishing with really cool stuff on a daily basis and I am staring at solitaire for the 3rd month in a row as the top game in the market. Maybe I just need more patience

 

[shawn1224]

I have to say I'm jealous. I feel like a red headed stepchild stuck on 1.5.

 

[fredphoesh]

I have to say I'm jealous. I feel like a red headed stepchild stuck on 1.5.

well, its very slow on my device since its a hack, but good enough to see whats what ;-)

 

[Cirga]

Hello guys,

Ive got an HTC Touch HD with Eclair 2.1 running (if a bit badly) and I really like Android, love the idea of it and want to move to Android come Feb when I'm due a phone upgrade.

Ive been spending lots of time on the App store, trying out programmes, seeing if I can find apps to replace the great programmes I have running Wm6.5 on my touch HD...

After days searching and trying things out, ive come to the sad conclusion that Android has loads of apps, but very few that are of equal quality to WM apps by people like Resco, SPB, SK.

I loaded iTunes (yuk) on my PC and had a look at the iTunes app store, and im afraid to say, based on that, there is a good chance I will let the devil enter my life... my next phone may just be an iPhone. (just saying that makes me a bit nauseous) It makes me sad really, since I think android is growing fast and I REALLY dislike Apple as a company (despite owning an 8 core macpro and a 17 macbook pro for video editing at home) with their closed, proprietory systems, control freakiness, and lacking multitasking, removable battery, customisation and live widgets... But the quality of apps (probably due to their tight fist over the way apps are bought and installed and closed phone OS) is clearly better than what is available on Android.

To name some apps on WM which have no peer on Android:
Core player (with xvid, divx, wmv etc)
SPB Wallet (with desktop syncing and editing of info)
Resco Photo Explorer (fantastic ease speed and smoothness)
Thumbcal (quick and easy use)
gAlarm (incredible alarm app, so many options)

They are apps I use a lot. Id particularly miss using xvid/divx.

Perhaps there are some apps which I have not found on the Market app store, and if any of you know of any gems you have found for some of those, please let me know.

Thanks guys,
Mark.

Just takes time to catch up. I am finding more and more apps that are of great utility daily on android. I run cupcake, and I have 0 complaints. Not to mention the fact that its not nearly as buggy of an OS as WM period. Not to mention you can post ideas for apps right here on this forum, and more than likely someone will snag it up and develop it.

I would go Iphone, but.. oh right.. you cannot just swap your SDcard anytime you like. Oh and you cannot organize your applications the way you want. Instead you have to scroll through pages and pages of icons hunting. Oh and see how you actually loaded Eclaire on your device? You cant do that with the Iphone OS. Why? oh right.. its not open source.

Just to name a few. Then again, I am a computer tech and despise apple. I am admittedly a unix and microsoft fanboy... that being said I still dislike windows mobile OS.

 

[djclark]

Just takes time to catch up. I am finding more and more apps that are of great utility daily on android. I run cupcake, and I have 0 complaints. Not to mention the fact that its not nearly as buggy of an OS as WM period. Not to mention you can post ideas for apps right here on this forum, and more than likely someone will snag it up and develop it.

true. it will take time. with that said, there needs to be user excitement to warrant working on a platform.

I would go Iphone, but.. oh right.. you cannot just swap your SDcard anytime you like. Oh and you cannot organize your applications the way you want. Instead you have to scroll through pages and pages of icons hunting.

right. except on the iphone games like myst etc... are possible. The iphones hw architecture is far superior to androids. the sd card is a liability - not a benefit. Seriously, give me 16/32GB of space and I don't need to swap sd cards.

Oh and see how you actually loaded Eclaire on your device?
You cant do that with the Iphone OS. Why? oh right.. its not open source.

btw, the core os is open source - Open Source. You also raise another point that is a knock AGAINST android. Fragmentation. With the iphone if version x.x comes out- ALL iphones get version x.x. The whole need to "try" eclair on your device is because your provider has gotten around to or authorized you to have new releases... fwiw, that sucks.

Just to name a few. Then again, I am a computer tech and despise apple. I am admittedly a unix and microsoft fanboy... that being said I still dislike windows mobile OS.

I never get this. someone calling themselves a computer tech and "despising" apple. frankly, its ******ed. From a tech point of view - apple makes AWESOME hardware and software. Mac OS X rules ( ie its UNIX ). Even itunes, which is panned on here left and right - is awesome. You plug your iphone/ipod in and everything is synced etc... Its fluid and it just works. Android devices need that. Think about it. The mp3 players from the 90s worked the same way android works now when syncing media. Its lame.

To be honest, I don't know if google has the vision or desire to really take Android from good enough to something that can really challenge the iPhone.

I love my eris, but I can see its shortcomings. The big things that bother me about android :

1. Fragmentation of OS ( ie we should ALL get 2.0 when 2.0 comes out )
2. shitty default interface ( ie nexus one may be better in this regard )
3. Outdated arch ( ie sd card - give me 32gb of continuous flash ram )
4. Shitty media support

I'm sure all these things will be fixed in time. Problem is, Apple will not sit still. I'll finish out my contract with verizon, but if android is still "good enough", you can bet I'll just get an iphone. I dont think I'm alone. I went with this platform because I like the underdog and some of the features of Android ( open, notification drop down etc... )

 

[discohornet]

I'm sure all these things will be fixed in time. Problem is, Apple will not sit still. I'll finish out my contract with verizon, but if android is still "good enough", you can bet I'll just get an iphone. I dont think I'm alone. I went with this platform because I like the underdog and some of the features of Android ( open, notification drop down etc... )

I hope you're right. I hope google gets some real steam here because iphone has something no one else has. Market share. I was at a truckstop. A TRUCKSTOP in the middle of IOWA. There wasn't a big city for at least 150 miles. What did they have on the counter as a trinket you could buy? Right next to the Belt Buckle Cigarette lighter was a "jelly" Iphone protector. That's right, I could buy butane, a coze with "I like fat chicks" on it and an Iphone case.

That kind of market presence can suffocate even the most innovative of producers. I hope google can get their hands around that because I love them.

But when I can't even use google products (google documents) on the phone made FOR Google, that's just plain frustrating.

 

[djclark]

I hope you're right. I hope google gets some real steam here because iphone has something no one else has. Market share. I was at a truckstop. A TRUCKSTOP in the middle of IOWA. There wasn't a big city for at least 150 miles. What did they have on the counter as a trinket you could buy? Right next to the Belt Buckle Cigarette lighter was a "jelly" Iphone protector. That's right, I could buy butane, a coze with "I like fat chicks" on it and an Iphone case.

now thats funny.

That kind of market presence can suffocate even the most innovative of producers. I hope google can get their hands around that because I love them.
But when I can't even use google products (google documents) on the phone made FOR Google, that's just plain frustrating.

I hear ya. Google is doing what they've always done though. They ship stuff with rough edges and it stays in beta for like 20 yrs. this would've worked competing against rim, nokia etc... Cause lets be honest those guys never built nice/polished interfaces etc... competing against Apple is a whole new game. Apple fixates on ease of use etc... If google doesn't start taking that seriously, android will always be looked at as second class. Which is unfortunate, cause Id prefer an open platform like android reigns supreme.

 

[jeff0r3]

I must say it is my only complaint coming from a BB Storm. I love the phone, the gadget apps are fun for a while. But my biggest disappointment has been the everyday apps and the customization is very very limited.
I haven't rooted my phone yet!!.. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to take a chance on bricking my phone to get it customized more than it comes stock.
I didn't like the fact of only having 3 Home screens. Couldn't the Google people foresee us being Widget Junkies.
We all know how big Facebook has become. I find it kind of scary that no Devs whether it be free or paid app have put in a bunch of time to develop a app/widget that is able to out perform that of the fruit company or the BB.
I'm not bashing the phone, service or even Google. Just a little scared of the lack of developers.

Jeff