Google has made it pretty easy to create apps for their Android OS, that I am sure you have heard about, and possibly use.
I am a heavy user, and I'd like to try and make an LMR app, just for the fun of it. Or have yours on my phone?
But what on earth would be fun or possibly even useful?
Perhaps it's an all together stupid idea, because one can always just use the phones browser, and get "the real thing" there, even log in and all. Several of my posts have been made that way, from my phone.
But still, I can't let it go.. We have a somewhat boring Twitter feed already, and some RSS. We could optimize these, so you could get a boing on the phone when.. or we could control robots fro.. What? Ideas? :)
http://appinventor.googlelabs.com (You will need a Google account and something running Android)
the answer may be to make a “mobile-friendly” version of LMR, still web-based, therefore runs on any mobile device. screen size can trigger an automatic redirect to http://mobile.LetsMakeRobots.com. (I can point out a few sites I use triggers like this) done right, it could be a site that feels like an app.
there should be enough tabs at the top of the mobile version to select all the portions of LMR that we commonly use, and each would occupy a full screen, such as:
Well, besides your platform of choice it would be easy to access a mobile version since all these devices have a browser. But this will still be a browser version of the site and not an app.
Maybe we can think on consuming the RSS already available or, even better, a web service that will not only publish rich information but also may accept postings, one of the key features for a community
In such case the app would consume the Web services and provide a custom interface and an standalone like app interface.
This means changes in the site infrastructure and keeping up to date a client version for the mayor rich mobile platforms like iPhone, Android, Symbian and Windows Phone. But from the device perspective is important to have a consistent and rather easy way to get info in an structured manner.
Aw, the way I wrote that was ambiguous… I meant that both Symbian and Android systems have support for Python. It’s cool to hear you also have a Symbian phone BMakins, I have an E75 which I bought solely because it supports Python!
Host a telerobot on LMR and make it controllable via a web browser or Android application. Its a little more involved than you were maybe hoping for but I think it has potential to expose LMR to new audiences. The phone would need to display a live video feed and could use button or accelerometer input for control. Perhaps not easy or practical but a sweet idea in my opinion.
Maybe it could be a collaborative effort among some LMRer’s on the coding side.
YOu can DL the android SDK and start working on it immediately without the need of a device. Testing it is pretty easy as well if you do have a device…Getting everything setup for iphone mobile is a bit more complicated and costly…
I think it is a wicked idea with a generally downloadable app that could tap into a robot somewhere. only problem is that if it was a success, we’d shoot ourselves in the foot; Imagine more than 100 people trying to connect to a robot?
I think it would be appropriate to allow only a single connection with a timeout of a few minutes, after which the user’s IP is then blocked for a few hours, of course this could be abused by renewing IP.
no
so
but we see… an app can be great