How the year 2010 had been for Android

Jan:
-Year started off with the release of Android SDK 2.1
-Google launched its first phone Nexus One on 2.1 running Flash 10.1
-Motorola Backflip with Yahoo as a default search page, LG GT450 Android Phones got launched
-20,000 units of Nexus1 were sold out in the opening week

Feb:
-With the introduction of live wallpapers in Éclair version, users started enjoying richer, animated, interactive backgrounds on their home screen.
-There were many edge cases in the service lifecycle that made it very easy to accidentally leave a service running; new APIs in 2.0 make this much easier to deal with.
-Android SDK introduced a new UI for end users to monitor and manage the running services on their device.

Mar
-With the help of Voice-enabled keyboard feature in 2.1, one could dictate message instead of typing it.
-Android NDK r3 version released
-Google Labs released Gesture Search App for android

April
-Google started working on Android Tablet
-Google confirmed Android 2.1 downgrades Image Quality 2.0
-Android twitter app from google was made available in the app store, this app brought in an evolving Android UI design patterns.

May
-Google Developers day – Google IO was hosted and it got an awesome response and support, for the first time the keynotes were live streamed.
-Android 2.2 (Froyo) was introduced with features: Cloud to Device Messaging, Dalvik JIT etc
-Through the new app market feature, users could report bug and developers were able to receive crash and freeze reports from their users.
-Google Latitude API were made public

June:
-Android 2.2 SDK and NDK R4 both were available for download
-An application which violations Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or Content Policy or any malicious application that poses a threat, google developed technologies and processes to remotely remove an installed application from devices.
-Logitech brought Android iPhone apps for Google TV
-This was beyond imagination, but it came true: iPhone 3G was running Android 2.2
-French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers started enjoying using Google Voice Search

July
-As android 2.2 supports application installation on SD card, this gave users room for many more apps, and benefits to apps from games categorie.
-Swype came to Android virtual keyboard
-Android Market welcomed Korea
-Google announced the release simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications. At run time, application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records.

Aug:
-It was interesting to see new players like Spice Mobility, Dell, Micromax launching Android devices
-Samsung Galaxy S got launched, which till today is sold like hot cake.
-Google Android overtook Windows Mobile

Sep:
-Android 2.2 started to see wide adoption
-2007 when Google announced Android, Andy Rubin said “We hope thousands of different phones will be powered by Android.” But at this stage was growing beyond phones to new kinds of devices.
-Samsung Galaxy Tab was announced and it was said to be a wake-up call for Android developers. It was scary for the developers as they had never seen a screen like this on an Android device before.
-Launched Voice-Action in the new Google Voice Search for Android — an awesome new way to search faster.
-Developers from 20 more countries were now able to sell paid apps on Android Market.
18 additional countries were now able to purchase paid apps from Android Market.

Oct:
-There was lot of buzz happening around about Google TV and Galaxy Tab
-Android was quickly moving to hardware that are increasingly different from the smartphone devices, having lack of features like GPS, accelerometers, and video cameras
-Google announced the mobile editing capabilities for Google docs on android and iPad
-Adobe AIR 2.5 cross platform runtime environment for android released

Nov
-Showing content ratings for all applications on Android Market. This provided users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them.
-U.S Military people favored Android and they all owned an Android phone
-Google Map 4.6 with new features in its Location Based Services was released for android

Dec
-Google with partnership of Samsung launched Nexus S with 2.3 android sdk with support for NFC
-Google Map 5.0 was released which was faster, supported offline & -iIn 3D look
-Android Market Client Update; more payment options in android market
-Skyfire the popular mobile browser released 3.0.1 for Android
-Google launched a new eBook store to read digital books optimized for android devices running 2.1
-Andy confirms google activating 300,000 Android devices per day

Conclude:
When google launched the Nexus One, they thought this would be the flagship mobile device for their new Android operating system. The Nexus One served as the blueprint for Android devices, which exploded across most major mobile carriers. With their open approach and flexibility in what carriers and manufacturers can do with the OS, Android’s numbers grew. Android began to surpass the iPhone

As android became more popular, there was talk of fragmentation of the apps ecosystem and the operating system itself. With frequent updates from Google, but carriers dragging their feet on sending updates to their customers, the problem seemed serious for developers and Android fans. Fragmentation may soon become less of an issue as more handsets are updated to the latest Android OS, but still its wait and watch.

If you need a phone or a tablet with an advanced OS but are turned off by Apple’s “closed” nature of premium pricing, Android is the device for you.

2010 came to an end …I take a break and reflect on the year gone by.

Jan – House warming of my newly bought house. My family, relatives, friends and colleagues attended the function and made it memorable. I could say my dad was the happiest person that day :)

Feb – At IBM we completed our first Android project and I was lucky to be given the opportunity to do the presentation in front of Global Delivery Team. That was an unforgettable day for my team when each of us received an appreciation mail from the GD leaders.

March – Got an opportunity to work with Mobile Monday Bangalore team to host the first of its kind, Mobile Developer Conference. The event turned out to be a big success, so much that people ask me when we are planning to have MODC part 2 in 2011.

At the end of the month I was officially married to Android: P, as I was honored as an “Android Evangelist at GBS”.

April – As I believed in giving blind person vision by donating your eyes, I donated my eye to Eye Bank Association of India.
The question is "How would u continue to live after u are gone"
"I will live my eyes to an eye bank and help someone see this beautiful world through my eyes."

May – Got busy with my passion, conducted Android trainings at IBM. If my math is right, trained around 50 + Java professional on Android Application development.

We had our All Hands Meet (AHM) for O2 Uk at Royal Orchid. After this event, I was known as Miss Entertainer and it made me realized that I am more than a bathroom singer. It feels nice when (now) my X-colleagues call me and mention they liked the way I sang my favorite song “Words” at the event.

June – I was enjoying my life at IBM and I was very proud of being an IBMer.
IBM is always been an innovator, and it gave me an opportunity to prove myself.
My idea got a business approval, did the coding & when it went live the feeling was just out of the world. I could say it were those 5.5 million customers, who inspired me :)

I was playing all my dream roles: Programmer + Team Lead + Trainer + Evangelist, + Anchor + Singer & also a News Letter editor all at a time.

July – Time for celebration as I completed a year in Bangalore. Like to thank all my friends and relatives for welcoming me with open arms and making my stay so lovely.

Life was just too good and perfect, but then I decided to take up new challenges and move from a service company to a product based company – Motorola. My fascination towards Moto devices tempted me to be a Motorolan.

Aug – Joined dance classes, where on weekends I was learning Hip-Hop and Jazz on weekdays I was learning contemporary dance form. Dance is my all time passion, and I just dance for myself.
On the other side, I was having fun developing enterprise application for Motorola most talked and most wanted android phones.

Sep – People called me fool when I rejected my x-Company Oracle's amazing job offer;

and most of them called me insane when I did not took up the Google India job opportunity.

I never thought that I would be offered a documentary film to act in (it was based on a classical dancers life), I rejected it saying "I am suffering from camera phobia".

I knew that I hurted most of the people at this time (specially my google friends); but it was the time where I was trying to understand what exactly I wanted to do out of my life and career.

I was bided an emotional farewell from the company where my stay was the shortest. Till then had no idea how much I was wanted, adored and popular at Motorola… that was the most emotional movement of the year and I will cherish it forever.

Oct – I started my career again as an Evangelist and I was happy being a part of Teleca.

To bring ADL in India was a dream of me and few of my android passionate friends and we finally made it happen.

London was calling me at the end of this month and I started off for my first international visit.

Nov – I had some of my best time in London
Participated at Droidcon and Planet of Apps Europe, meet some amazing people and leant a bit more about life.

Conducted a workshop at Mobile Developer Summit, Bangalore and spoke at Bangalore Android Meetup about Dual Display for Android

Dec – I was now officially a part of Teleca Global Solutions and marketing team, and my job profile got carved well. I was happy of what I would be doing henceforth.

When you win a proposal you feel good and I was floating in this feeling.

As the year gave me lots of success, joys, happiness, fame, money and a goal, I planned to celebrate it in my home town with my family and friends.
Visited Pune after a long gap of 1 year and the traditional + rich with culture city again hugged me with lots of warmth and love. Visited my school and met school friends, took a walk around my collage campus. As it took me to a flash-back, I said to God:

“Give me some sunshine
Give me some rain
Give me another chance
I wanna grow up once again”

Wish list for 2011

Not many but few Wishes for New Year 2011

* Stopover 3 different lovely cities across the Globe.

* Celebrate Birthday on an island.

* Tag on my passion without failing once in a month

* Sponsor an orphon child

* Conduct atleast one face yoga workshop

* Minimun two blog post every month

* Find someone who knocks me off my feet

* Thanks Giving at Golden Temple

* Bake whats called the perfect Chocolate Cake

* More of tech talks and blogging

* Keep up the smile no matter how worst things get

* Stand on the cities tallest building, kiss the sky and sing my favorite song

* A day in a Jungle

* Play an Adventure sport

10 things I can't live without

Apple Milkshake : Almost addicted, can't kickstart my day without it

Internet : As it connects me to my family, friends, colleagues and my blog, twitter followers

Dessert : I don't have a sweet tooth but a sweet teeth

Job : It defines me, enriches my learning and adds to my knowledge

Laughter : The best medicine and gives me the push to go ahead and solve any problem

Blog : My best friend with whom I can share everything and it never complaints

Compliments : It keeps me going and motivating

Pay check : Money, money I don't need it, but we all can't live without it... True fact

Miracles : As I say "I live to witness miracles"

Music : I believe dance is the best form of exercise and stress reliever

Why do most of the Hum Tum Stories end Unexpressed?

Tum and Hum met for the first time like strangers

Hum said something logical and Tum laughed out loud.

Hum kept wondering, while Tum realized that he has lost his most precious thing

Tum dreamt about Hum while Hum kept dreaming about how true love would be like.

Tum looked forward for one glimpse of Hum, while Hum kept running far from reality and hiding face from the world

Tum waited to hear “Hi” and a smile from Hum, while Hum was scared to look into anyone’s eyes.

Tum will dile Hum number, but would cut it before it rings

Tum bought roses but did not gather guts to offer Hum, so scattered its pedals on the steps Hum used to daily walk up at. Wishing that they get blessed by her feats.

Hum looks at the pedals and feels bad, carefully takes her steps so that none of the pedals get stamped by her.

Tum expresses his feeling in a mail, but instead of clicking on Send he saves it as Drafts

Tum will watch Hum from far and adored and respects here Indianess.

Hum carrying a bindi on her forehead wearing a salwar-kameez passes by Tum with eyes down lost in here own fantasy world.

Tum sitting opposite of the table that of Hum.

Hum smiles at all and every time Tum expected exclusively one for himself.

Tum rushes to the library to grab the same book he saw in Hum hands

Tum stood behind Hum when she’s purchasing pastries and buys the same pastry which was adjacent to the one she picked.

Tum bought a lavish car wishing to take one day Hum for a long ride

As Hum was getting wet in the rain, Tum steps out of his car and walks to share the same lucky rain drops with her.

All so silent but not in real….lots happening.

The world around Hum and Tum could witness all this but were speechless.

The day came where Hum and Tum story came to an end.

Tum organized a Farwell for Hum as he was happy to see Hum heading towards her dreams.

Love is not about expression, its all about feeling.

Its not that Hum didn’t felt Tum feelings, she knew it all….just that she could not overcome here fear of being loved.

She will always respect and treasure the Love and adoration she received.

Thank You!

Confession from a so called Android Fan Gal.

Yes I bough the iPad and when I said this I know it hurted most of them. So I am not doing any justification on this here, just expressing and sharing my thoughts about iPad.

It all happened during my visit to London last month.

I was at Planet of Apps Europe Conference and luckily was sitting next to BBC Technology Correspondent who was hosting the event for the day. He had 2 devices & no price for guessing – Apple iPad and Samsung recently launched Galaxy Tablet.

We started the conversation and when I asked him “What are your thoughts on Samsung Tablet” he took both the device next to each other and started comparing.

To summarize my observation:

Browser experience, typing experience & video rendering on iPad was far more better then the Samsung tablet. On that sadly Samsung Tab is overly priced and the touch pad is not very responding.

Then my dear boss handed over his iPad asking me to play around with it….that was actually the beginning.

I was falling for iPad as I started :

- Playing games

- Watching youtube videos

- Checking and replying to mails

- Updating my Facebook status

- and tweeting from the iPad twitter app

- Making notes

- Reading an iBook

When I was back to my hotel, I was actually missing something and was hating to work on my laptop, asking myself a question “Have I got used to iPad ?”

I got the answer and early morning I went to the Apple store on Oxford Street and bought my iPad.

The question here is “Did iPad got sold here or its me which got totally sold out for iPad”

As I was back to India….

Mom said- “U were supposed to buy an android phone, has the size of the phone increased these days?”

Sister said- “How could you buy a mac product?”

Dad said- “Why a gadget, why not branded watch, cloths, shoes & diamonds?”

Friends said – “U are an Android betrayer”

But my 6 yrs old niece simply loves playing with iPad and I am happy to see a smile on here face.

I am still passionate about android, but the fact is if a gadget can bring in smile on a face…its any time worth-it.

A good friend Soham Mondal made a productive use of the iPad and here are his thoughts on the iPad (1.0) after a week or two of using the iPad

Pros

1. The web-surfing experience. Apart from the lack of flash, the surfing experience on the iPad is unparalleled to any other device. The zippy touch + screen size experience is much better than that on any desktop or laptop and the galaxy tab doesn't even come close!
2. Videos/Youtube. If you like watching music videos or youtube vlogs/flicks, there is nothing like the iPad, you can now watch videos while you lie down on the bed or while you wait for your cab to reach the office car or anywhere the go, it looks great and feels very convenient to use
3. Apps. Some apps look and feel downright amazing on the iPad, games n newsreaders feel right at home here!
4. Battery life. 7+ hours while watching videos and surfing the net over wifi is no small achievement
5. Form factor, screen size. Apart from the weight, everything feels just right! It is sleek and very portable.
6. You can pair your apple bluetooth keyboard to the iPad to have a mobile workstation on the go, this is a really practical and powerful solution for mobile-workers!

Cons

1. It is a tad too heavy! Yup, you won't notice this when you first hold it, but if you plan to read books or watch videos while you hold it, it really weighs down on you. This is easily the biggest flaw of iPad 1.0 and I'm sure apple will work on a lighter frame for the next version of the iPad!
2. Speakers. One (mono) speaker just doesn't cut it these days. On top of that, the speakers are dry and weak and just do not do justice to the videos played on this device.
3. Apps. Apart from the handful of good free apps, most apps are either outrageously priced(some even free on the iPhone) or just not present. Either way, you can't really complain considering that the iPad has just been around for less than a year.
4. Youtube! Unless you jailbreak the iPad, the youtube player defaults to the highest resolution for videos. In other words for some videos it will default to 720p or 1080p and you have no way to reduce that and u can expect videos to buffer forever for most contemporary channels over 2/4 mbps connections.
5. Lack of camera(s), this doesn't really matter to me but many people might object to the lack of a front facing camera for video conferencing!
6. Lack of a back button. You would be surprised that I would complain about this but after using an android device for the past few months you cannot live without a back button. It is so practical and jumping back to the home screen or using the software back approach is not practical most of the times!

All in all, it is a great device, you wouldn't really think you'd need one until you actually get one. It is great for watching videos and surfing the web and I've actually started using my laptop less after getting this. However, I would definitely want it to be lighter and with a better speaker, if that's the case I would definitely not mind going in for the iPad 2.0 wifi + 3g version!

Final confession: I enjoy all the attention that I get when I carry along with me my iPad.