AndroidGuys

Virgil “Gil” Dobjanschi is the developer behind Multiple Facets Instant Messenger, one of the 50 first round winners in Google’s Android mobile application competition. He is a software engineer/entrepreneur living in Dublin, California, and has extensive experience in software development in the fields of VoIP, mobile applications, desktop applications and server development. His latest interests gravitate towards the mobile space where he plans to spend the next few years of his career. Here he answers a few of our questions.

Hey Gil! Could you tell us what the concept behind Multiple Facets Instant Messenger is and how it is going to benefit people using Android?

The concept behind my application is simple: Enable multimedia instant communications. We live in a connected world and instant communication tools are here to stay. The problem with today IMs is that they offer mainly text as means of communicating. Multiple Facets IM adds photos, audio clips, video clips and even location messages to the IM experience. The mobile application uses the Google Talk servers to also allow for interaction with desktop IM applications such as GoogleTalk and iChat. Another facet of the application enables users to receive notifications for events in their Google Calendar, when new mail is received in their Gmail account or when their friends upload new photos on Picasa and so on. The new version of the application, which will be submitted for ADC Round 2, has a host of new features which I will disclose after the submission date.

The reason I started the development is manly the fact that the platform offered a unique opportunity to develop an IM application. The Android platform is an ideal platform for this application. It allows developers to take advantage of device features which even though are available today on other platforms, are tightly controlled by mobile operators.

Yes, I was driven by passion and lured by Android’s uniqueness. You also have to take time into consideration. At the time when Android was announced the iPhone did not have a public SDK, Limo and Symbian were not available as open source platforms.

I consider myself a passionate early adopter of the platform. I don’t think that I adopted the platform too early. For a complex application such as this, working by myself, I will need a long time to reach my goals. I do assume that the platform will launch late this year and that it will be successful. There’s no question that I am assuming a reasonable amount of risk.

Development for Android is relatively straight forward. Google has done a great job in designing the platform and has used modern concepts throughout the entire stack. Having experience with J2ME development is certainly useful but there are many new unfamiliar APIs and programming patterns to learn.

Here are some of the pros in by view:

1. Applications are developed in Java.
2. Great development tools. Google has based the development environment on Eclipse.
3. Attractive user interface built with XML layouts and a powerful animation engine
4. Allows the developer to run services in the background.

I don’t have any cons because the platform is not final. Google has signed up for a herculian task. They have great engineers and sufficient financial resources to succeed. We should not forget that once Google will complete the first version, the development community will get involved and will make the platform even better. It is important for them to have a great first version to make a very good impression from the start.

I think that Android is going to have a difficult time in the market place. Free playforms such as Symbian and Limo will yield lower prices but not necessarily great phones for consumers. I’m far more impressed with the iPhone. It is “insanely great” in my view. Users don’t ask if the iPhone software platform is free; they line up to buy one at a very attractive price and more then 80% them love it. That is what Android is up against. Once the Android phones will be out we’ll be able judge how it stacks against other platforms.

Thanks for your time Gil!