AndroidGuys

We were contacted by one Michael Novak last week who has come up with a  program called WeatherPhone.  Novak’s program looks to be along the lines of what the FCC wants to do with their nationwide rollout of a text message emergency alert system.  Except instead of all emergencies, WeatherPhone focus on weather.  We’ve seen desktop widgets and web browser plug-ins, so it’s refreshing to see something like this for phones.  Take a few minutes to learn about Mr. Novak and his program.

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

The WeatherPhone team consists of Michael Novak and John Lotito. We have been programming for many years in both software development and web development. The team is located in New York City.

(Our website www.penguinsoftware.org should be ready shortly.) You can send us an email, we’ll let you know if its up.

Have you written for any other operating systems?

Yes, we have written applications for other mobile systems as well as Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris.

How did this experience compare to writing for other operating systems?

The experience of writing for android was unlike any other. The challenge made it more interesting, interacting with other developers in the IRC and mailing list and getting a feel for the platform as a whole. The way Google has designed the system made UI development a breeze.

What kind of application are you working on for Android?

We are currently developing an application to alert users of Severe Weather in the areas they specify in the application. We are adding support to allow the user to activate their GPS location in the application to use for alerting them.

How much time did you invest in developing this application?

The application has been in development since the beginning of the year. We have been working on the server side infrastructure and Android client application. We currently are in the process of designing a windows mobile application.

What attracted you to write for Android?

Open Source, the User Interface, and ability to develop feature rich applications with no membership investments.

What were some of the challenges you faced in writing this program?

Optimizing the application to run with multi threaded services.

Did the Android Developer Challenge motivate you to write?

We had begun planning the application without the challenge in mind, but decided that it was definitely something fun and a great experience. I feel the challenge has brought the android development community closer, which is crucial to maintaining such an open source project as android.

Have you received any feedback from other developers? If so, what are they saying?

Yes, the response from developers has been great! We are on the must - see list over at www.anddev.org

Will this application be for standard handsets or touch screen? What factors went into that decision?

The main focus of our application is to support as many devices as possible. We are certainly going to maintain that our application work for both touchscreen and standard handsets.

Do you see any other competition with your application?

The concept we have developed is currently a one of kind from our research.

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

The application hopefully will appeal to the general public, with concentration on the areas effected greatly by severe weather.

Do you anticipate writing any other applications?

Yes, we plan on writing many apps for the android platform because it was a fun experience.

How do you plan to get the word out about your program?

We plan to hit any avenue possible to get the word out about our application.

How will you make it available? Pricing, etc?

The application will be freely available to download from a phone or the internet. We are planning on releasing the source code when the stable release comes out.

How soon will we see it?

The project page is available at http://code.google.com/p/weatherphone

If we get enough interest we are going to release the apk early for people to play around with.

Given an opportunity to start over, what would you do differently?

Planned a bit more for the overall usage of the application.

Do you plan to buy an Android phone?

The day it comes out!

From your perspective, how successful do you think Android will be? Why?

I think android will be hugely successful because the developer community is strong, which means great apps will be available. Also, for the user it is great to have a phone not cramped and locked down by closed source systems.

Where do you think Android could be improved?

I think some of the system resources could be re-worked as well as some core UI components. The overall UI design is great, but this is hard to judge on an emulator. Good question for when handsets are out!

Google is sitting across the table from you… what do you say to them?

Great job, finally we have a phone platform that is built for the user!

What would you do if you won $25,000 from the Android Developer Challenge?

Invest in the project and make it available to more users!

Thanks for spending some time with us Michael!  We appreciate the information and look toward the day when we can install WeatherPhone on our Android handsets!