Having just finished the first pass at a single site xml RSS feed reader for Android, I can say that the world of mobile technology is stunningly impressive. To draw a quick comparison, less than a year ago I was using a phone (albeit overpowered for lack of paying for a data plan) which could make calls reasonably well and serve as a quick task-tracking tool on the go; tonight I wrote and transfered a pretty simply program which slurps xml data from an RSS feed on one of my other websites and provides a basic list view of the titles, along with a link to the blog entry on the site (the link opens in the browser). Though a rather straightforward task, it strikes me as a surmounted barrier of sorts, moving one step further along the path of really understanding the tools I use. The basis for the project is available at the x-android forum of ibm.com.
The impetus for the app came from a conversation yesterday relating to the OpenPublish Drupal distribution which my company produces. We have been discussing integration on different platforms with some of our clients who are looking to add in a Totally Sweet iPhone Apptm even if they don’t really have an idea of requirements or aims of the new platform beyond “more revenue.” In any case, we are alloted some time for professional development projects and I’ve been meaning to take a crack at something for Android for a while now. We’ll find out if the Boss thinks it worthy of some continuing effort; if not, at least I’ll have stuck my foot in the door of another programming possibility.
Between this and getting my Drupal.org CVS account a couple weeks ago, it has been an exciting past couple weeks.