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Hndhld blog

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Bubble or Opportunity?

Guess the amount of money that has been invested in start ups working in pure play Apple apps. 1, 2, 10, 50 million USD?

The correct answer is a 100 million dollars, says this piece.

Now, I dont know if its a bubble or an opportunity. For now, sitting in India, clearly it seems to be the latter.

Our website is up...

Our website is up :) Take a look (whoever is reading this blog, apart from me) Visit hndhld.com

We are on twitter too (twitter.com/hndhld) - now that's overkill for an audience of 1, dont you think?

What else is on in our lives? We seek to crack the secret code of Symbian over this weekend and also include the airport volvo routes in the volvo app...

And there is a ton of work staring at us...

Desi app stores?

The biggies are gonna roll out Desi app stores. And that seems to means Nokia and RIM. Apple gets mentioned in the piece, but their response leaves us with the feeling that they have no such plans. Sony Ericsson gets a passing mention. Google, no word...It basically seems to mean that Indian developers will be allowed to put up apps - it probably wont mean anything more than that.

What is big idea of a desi app store when the global version can do the trick? It is as great an idea as having an India specific social network. But there are already apps like Cab Lite in which Indian operators are present, so it does not prevent people from making "worldwide" apps too. In any case, this is good news for teams like ours.

And it is a good thing to create markets for apps. One, it will prove to many of the naysayers that the Indian IT market has no talent. It will also be an answer to the many who doubt Indias technical expertise. Also, it lets people do stuff that may be "too small" or in the "blind spot" of phone companies. The good thing about apps is that it allows users to customise their phone. In a nation with a multitude of languages, this is the best way to customise. But if that needs to happen, apps have be made available to phones with a much lower budget...

But there is a lot of potential out there...

Bangalore BMTC Volvo routes

Here comes our second app in the Android market. We have put up the Bangalore BMTC Volvo bus route finder as an app. Enter the "To" and "From" destination to get the appropriate Volvo bus routes. Enter just "To" or "From" for bus originating and terminating respectively. Or just get the route number listing and routes.

The Bangalore BMTC Volvo route finder is useful even if you new to the city. So, if you are visiting Bangalore (and have an Android phone), do install it and try out these bus services.

Go green, use public transport.

We are planning to enable the next version with GPS capability too...

Android phone in India

Finally, the Android phone is set to be launched in India.

We will keep you posted as our apps for the phone get ready.

The price point of the phone (on contract with Airtel, a la iPhone), though, disturbs me a bit. At 30k, I am not sure its a steal, unless both Airtel and Google have some ace up their sleeve. At this price it mimics the iPhone plan. 10K lesser and it would have given iPhone (not exactly selling like hot cakes in India) some food for thought...

In the meantime, Google, can you please let Indian developers upload paid apps into Android?

Augmented Reality

As it is, we are living in "The Matrix" and to top it we have virtual reality, second life and now, this. Augmented reality.

By definition, Augmented reality (AR) technologies offer the ability to layer data--including images--over our perceptions of the physical world. While science fiction versions of AR usually involves high-tech eyewear, real-world AR is moving swiftly from the labs to the users via advanced smartphones. These handhelds offer everything a basic AR setup needs: a good display; a camera to see the world; and location-awareness.

But, this is the first step really and you will see a lot more as all these worlds converge. The only thing I am willing to say at this point, is, it will all be on your phone...