AndroidGuys

We’re back with another profile on a developer and his application. Don’t be fooled into thinking this one-man team hasn’t cooked up something delicious for your Android phones. This looks to be a much needed application for tech and phone enthusiasts. With ever increasing libraries of music, photos, and videos, this program helps keep you from cluttering your phone up with duplicate copies of your files.

Tell us about you and your team. Some background on yourself

BoneCoder was founded solely by Tammen Bruccoleri. Being a recent CS graduate I wanted to expand my computer experience in the field of cell phone applications, thus when the Android SDK came out I found it to be the perfect platform and opportunity to develop applications for the cell phone. In my spare time I’m working on the Hummingbird project (which I am the solo designer and developer).

Can you tell us a little bit about the project?

I am currently working on an application called “Hummingbird”. In a nutshell it allows you to listen, watch or view your music, video, or pictures from a media filled PC on an Android capable cell phone anywhere in the world, at least where you have EDGE, 3G, or Wi-Fi access.

Where do you see it fitting in? Who is the target audience? How will it help?

• I see it fitting in with the on-demand media needs of mobile users and satisfying that need of having remote access to your media files.
• Mobile users that want to have 24/7 access to their media content. Also having an unlimited data plan would probably be required and/or Wi-Fi access.
• “Hummingbird” connects the user with what they already have; whether it is millions of songs, movies or family pictures and allows the user to have unfettered access to their media content.

Did the Android Developer Challenge get you off your butt to start writing?

In a way yes, but the major motivation for developing Hummingbird was that I found it frustrating that I’m limited to only 2, 4, or 8 gigs of storage on my cell phone and being forced to take only a limited selection of my movies, music with me on the road. I wanted to have at least the ability to access, and be able to consume my media wherever, whenever I wanted.

Having a central PC filled with media content (similar to a Home Theater PC) which will always have a greater storage medium then a cell phone, I figured providing access to content that is already on your PC was the best method in accessing large amounts of media files. And let’s face it nobody wants to have multiple copies of files on multiple devices, no need to waste those precious gigs on your cell phone.

Did you run into any competition with your application? Anybody else doing something like this from what you’ve seen?

I did not see anything along the lines of what my application tries to fulfill. I did see media players and various content providing, but nothing along the lines of what the Hummingbird accomplishes.

What kind of advertising or marketing do you anticipate?

Word of mouth, when a good application or service is provided it kind of advertises itself.

That’s the best way anyways. Getting advice from a friend or trusted source is better than some corporate website telling you what you should buy. So how do you plan on distributing it?

Hummingbird comes in two parts:

- The Hummingbird Server (installs on your media filled PC)

- The Hummingbird Client (installs on your Android cell phone)

Both will be free and downloadable at www.BoneCoder.com. Also by having the Hummingbird Client installed on your Android cell you can send the client version to another Android cell phone.

We couldn’t agree more. Any idea as to how soon until will we see Hummingbird?

Sometime in 2008, since it’s a one man project it will take a little longer than most development cycles. However, I refuse to release an application that is semi-complete or feature lacking. “Quality to market” trumps “first to market.”

Thanks again to Tammen for spending a little bit of time with us. We wish him luck in the challenge and can’t wait to get our hands on it! Further information & contact information can be found at:

Website: www.BoneCoder.com

Email:Tammen.bruccoleri@bonecoder.com