AshwinBihari.COM » google http://ashwinbihari.com Sat, 08 May 2010 19:50:58 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Android Market http://ashwinbihari.com/2008/08/28/android-market http://ashwinbihari.com/2008/08/28/android-market#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:26:09 +0000 Ashwin http://ashwinbihari.com/?p=123 There’s been a lot of hoopla about the Apple App Store which allows you to download free and paid applications to extend the functionality of your iPhone. With jailbroken phones you get the additional benefit of Cydia to install a larger variety of applications not screened by Apple.

Android has slowly been taking shape to be a viable competitor to the iPhone in all aspects. The release of the recent SDK and announcements of the upcoming HTC Dream shows the progress that has been made. The SDK includes an emulator that allows developers to get a head start in creating all sorts of applications and test them out well before any phone is released.

Until now there was no clear indication of how these applications developed with the Android SDK would be made available to the early adopters of the HTC Dream. We got that answer today in the form the Android Market. An App Store equivalent with virtually no restrictions on approval of applications. I imagine that the by the time the Android Market takes shape there might be some restrictions in place to prevent people from putting up malicious applications that cause harm to the devices. The initial implementation will only allow for free application with promises of paid application support in the subsequent updates.

I took the opportunity to download the SDK and play with the emulator and created some applications and had quite a bit of fun. The chosen language for Android is Java which makes the SDK available for Linux and Windows. The Apple SDK is only available for Mac’s and even if I were to get an iPhone I would still need a Mac to develop any applications and that’s just an investment I’m unwilling to make.

If the HTC Dream and Android truly take shape by the end of the year, I might actually consider heading in that direction as opposed to the iPhone when my current AT&T contract expires.

Cheers

]]> http://ashwinbihari.com/2008/08/28/android-market/feed 0 Google Maps Re-Routes http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/07/05/google-maps-re-routes http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/07/05/google-maps-re-routes#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:32:28 +0000 Ashwin http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/07/05/google-maps-re-routes/ I’d been using Mapquest for all of my mapping needs until Google decided to unleash Google Maps on us. I never bothered looking to Mapquest again for anything. However, one feature that I wish I could do was to have Google Maps re-route if I choose to go a different route than what it had figured out.

That is, if it said RT 90 was the best way of getting there and I wanted to avoid the tolls, I was hoping for a way to direct the tool to draw me a route using RT 2 instead. Well Google Maps now provide this feature and it’s very cool!

Check out the animation below for me re-directing Google. :)

Google Maps with Re-Routing

Cheers

]]> http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/07/05/google-maps-re-routes/feed 0 Google Maps and Live Traffic http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/02/28/google-maps-and-live-traffic http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/02/28/google-maps-and-live-traffic#comments Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:03:56 +0000 Ashwin http://ashwinbihari.com/2007/02/28/google-maps-and-live-traffic/ Google Maps with Live Traffic

Google is introducing live traffic status for select cities around the US. Visit Google Maps and once having set your destination, click on the Traffic button the top right to get a glimpse of how your commute to that location is going to be like. This is definitely a welcome feature, and in the future getting updates as to why a portion is red or yellow would be welcome.

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