# App Ideas(?)



## gfosco (Nov 27, 2011)

I'm interested in making an Android App or Service, but haven't picked what to do just yet. My background is in server development, web apps and services, security & encryption, automation, macros and scripting.

The current idea is a text messaging relay service (obscures the sender from the recipients carrier network, obscures the final recipient from the sender) using Twilio. An android messaging app could then be built which would abstract away the relays involvement from the experience.

For the non-developers in the house: Can you think of an app or service that is missing, that you would want?


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## wyllic (Sep 5, 2011)

A non-crappy Facebook App


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## ArmanUV (Feb 1, 2012)

A forum reader like tapatalk that doesn't have a crappy old interface.


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## creaky24 (Jan 13, 2012)

ArmanUV said:


> A forum reader like tapatalk that doesn't have a crappy old interface.


+10000000

Sent from my Liquified Nexus


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## JBirdVegas (Jun 11, 2011)

How's your java? And would you be required to install the app on both ends of the communication?


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## gfosco (Nov 27, 2011)

JBirdVegas said:


> How's your java? And would you be required to install the app on both ends of the communication?


It wouldn't be required on both sides, just whoever wants it. You'd give out your relay number instead of your phone number.. doesn't matter if they use a relay as well.

Not a big fan of Java.. was considering using Mono for Android, or just struggling through with Java.


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## JBirdVegas (Jun 11, 2011)

I would stick with java because the app side UI could really be as simple as an EditText and a send button the real magic will be on your server side but its a good idea. Plus with some effort you could probably get away not using any special permissions.


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

C# is not much different than Java, just Java happens to miss some nice features of C# like closures, less verbosity, map/reduce (and linq). You can get around a lot of that by using Google Guava and/or Apache Commons. I'd say you would have more troubles having to learn how the Android API works than you would with the differences between C# and Java. You'll still have to learn the API whether you use C# or Java as they look nearly the same outside of the language change. Standard packages in C# and java nearly function the same as well except for a few renaming changes here and there. I've used both C# (.net C#) and Java for 5-6 years and just make take on it.

Server side you can use whatever you want though. If you're going to handle a lot of connections, consider what you are using there carefully though. You can mostly just pass info along via socket or some other method and send back a reply. Google also provides methods to work with server side.

Another alternative is to use something like Moai, where they provide the server side for you and the API. However, you'd have to use Lua and perhaps some C++ for that and it's really meant for Games.

If you work with Java, get Intellij IDEA, beats the crap out of Eclipse. If you ever used very nice plugin called ReSharper for C# in Visual Studio, they also make that. They just added an Android UI creator to Intellij's preview edition.

As far as app ideas, just think of something that annoys you when you use your device (or something in life in general) and work with that as your initial idea after looking around for previously created solutions (or the lack of good ones).


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

Also, about your initial idea, there exists something sort of like you are talking about. It was made by Moxie Marlinspike, a security expert. Source for it is on github. He also made a security focused ROM for Android, but his company was bought by Twitter and now he works for them. I emailed him once about a question on the GPL components of his ROM and he mentioned that it (whipsercore) would eventually be opensourced. The nice part of it, besides a more secure lockscreen and encryption that I would trust was it had a built in active state firewall to allow/deny connections as they happened.

Source for the SMS service is GPLv3, so can't really use it for anything paid, but it can give you some ideas. It was built before ICS and hasn't been updated since.


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## ERIFNOMI (Jun 30, 2011)

yarly said:


> Also, about your initial idea, there exists something sort of like you are talking about. It was made by Moxie Marlinspike, a security expert. Source for it is on github. He also made a security focused ROM for Android, but his company was bought by Twitter and now he works for them. I emailed him once about a question on the GPL components of his ROM and he mentioned that it (whipsercore) would eventually be opensourced. The nice part of it, besides a more secure lockscreen and encryption that I would trust was it had a built in active state firewall to allow/deny connections as they happened.
> 
> Source for the SMS service is GPLv3, so can't really use it for anything paid, but it can give you some ideas. It was built before ICS and hasn't been updated since.


That firewall would be pretty nice for some of the control freaks among us.


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

ERIFNOMI said:


> That firewall would be pretty nice for some of the control freaks among us.


Yep. I tried, but not for very long, to port it to the galaxy nexus before getting side-tracked. Basically needs some modules compiled in and it should (hopefully) work. However, the source for the app is not open so that means rewriting it perhaps in parts or smali, yay.


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## ERIFNOMI (Jun 30, 2011)

yarly said:


> Yep. I tried, but not for very long, to port it to the galaxy nexus before getting side-tracked. Basically needs some modules compiled in and it should (hopefully) work. However, the source for the app is not open so that means rewriting it perhaps in parts or smali, yay.


Fun fun...


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