Restarting Android Development

•  Off-late, I have developed some level of interest in getting back into the Mobile development space. 
• Just like when I started originally, I am starting it off with Android development:
• This is primarily driven from the relatively open nature of Android development, as well as the ready availability of hardware for testing. 
• My short-term goals are to be able to build, test and deploy some applications which are able to perform on-Device Machine Learning tasks. 
• I also want to understand the impact of Quantization, and mobile-optimization techniques on real-world performance. 

More to come !

Overview of new devices from Google's event today - 9/29/2015

1. New Phones - Nexus 6P ( in colors Frost White, Graphite, Aluminum ), Nexus 5X ( Also in three colors ) . 
2. Fingerprint Sensor - Both comes with Fingerprint sensor ( called as Nexus Imprint ).
3. Camera Improvements - Nexus 6P has 240 FPS Camera mode, and Nexus 5X has 120 FPS Camera mode. Both cameras have a fast burst mode to capture pics at 30 FPS. Both Cameras have a big sensor size ( larger than iPhone 6+ ) which improves low-light performance, and reduces the need for OIS ( Optical Image Stabilization ).
4. Power Management : Fast Charging - Both come with Fast Charging, and with the software-driven Doze mode which improves battery performance by 30%.
5. Ordering and Availability - Pre-order available later today - 9/29/15 -> Nexus 5X starts at $379 - Nexus 6P starts at $499, will be available mid-October. Google store will be the store of choice for this hardware.
6. Google Play Music – Purchasing either of these devices has an included offer of 90 days free access to Google play music. $15 per month for 6 accounts for Google Play Music as a new service.
7. Google Play Credits - $50 Google Play credit when either of these devices are updated.
8. Warranty Plan - Nexus Protect ( $89 ) – gives you a total of 2 years of coverage for mechanical breakdown ( rather than the 1 year standard ). Get a new device as early as the next business day in-case of a breakdown. 
9. Project Fi compatibility - Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P are available on Google’s Project Fi network. [ meh ]
10. Google Photos Improvements – 1. Shared Albums, with minimal setup ( for example, auto sharing of children’s pics etc ), notifications will be communicated when new photos are added. 2. Improved search capability – enabled via give labels to folks leading to queries like Search for Person 'X' hiking, Search for Dad at the baseball game 3. Chromecast support to be added Photos ( finally ! ). 
11. ChromeCast –> 

• More apps ( including Sling TV etc ) to support Chromecast. 
• The new Chromecast for $35 – modern new look ( Black, Lemonade, Red colors ), improved performance, new adaptive antenna system, 
• Chromecast Audio - also $35, will support mirroring in addition to streaming, and will also support multi-room synchronization. 
• Re-designed Chromecast app to improve discoverability of content ( excellent ! ). 
• Fast Play, allows Pre–fetching of content to improve streaming experience. 
• Gaming on Chromecast – use Phone as a game controller. 
• New Feeds coming for Backdrop – Facebook, 500PX, Flickr etc.

• And lastly, Pixel Team update – Pixel C ( Convertible ) – running Android Marshmallow. Built with precision engineering. Keyboard connects to tablet via Bluetooth, and is sturdy. Quadcore processor with GPU. Stereo Speakers. 3 GB memory. Far-field voice activation with four microphones. Starts at $499 for tablet, and $149 for the Keyboard. Availability, this Christmas. 

A brief review of Nexus 5 and KitKat

So, after a long wait, the world's 'most leaked' phone a.k.a the Nexus-5 was finally launched last week. Most of the information with regards to it's specifications had already been leaked multiple time prior to it's official launch. Thanks to Android Police for tracking the final official launch of the Nexus-5. What follows below are some observations after a few hours of using the phone.

About this review

This is going to be a personal ( and subjective, i.e. non-benchmarked ), at a glance review of the (just received) Nexus 5, and Android 4.4. As of right now, Android 4.4 is only available on the Nexus 5, but since Google has reduced the memory foot print of Android 4.4, so it should be spreading to other devices pretty soon. The official exclusion of Galaxy Nexus ( at least as of now ) is surprising and disappointing to me, however.

General comments with regards to the size
My general comments with regards to the size are that coming from a Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 5 seems a tad big to me. However, it is of the a size which I feel I will get used to it in a few days just as I got used to the Galaxy Nexus when I first got it. Nexus 5 is also marginally bigger than the Nexus 4.

General comments with regards to performance
The phone has a solid overall performance in terms or launching apps for the first time, restoring currently running apps, switching between apps via the task switcher, overall fluidity and refinement of transparency and motion animations. I believe that Google hit a sweet spot in Android UI design from Android 4.0 onwards, and Android 4.4 builds up on top of all the incremental updates to improve the overall look and feel across the board. In common tasks, like browsing, listening to music, watching videos etc, I didn't find a significant change between the Nexus-5 and the Nexus-4, which is not a bad thing at all. The Nexus-4 ( with 4.3 ) screams while performing these common tasks and Nexus-5 incrementally improves that. I am sure that for highly performance intensive tasks, Nexus-5's updated processor truly shows it's power. Indeed, in some tests it has shown itself to be one of the best performing Android phones in the market today.

General comments with regards to Android KitKat 4.4

Some of the features of the software package on Nexus-5 are listed below:

1. Google Now is just a left swipe away due to a totally re-designed Launcher App.

2. Google Now is also accessible from the home-screen via the keyword 'OK Google'. This is still not as nice as the 'Always-On' mode of Moto-X, or the ability to launch Siri from any screen in iOS devices.

3. Minor improvements like transparent status bar, and bottom menu bar.

4. The Camera app contains an HDR+ mode which actually takes multiple pictures at multiple exposures, and combines them. This is different than the traditional HDR Camera apps which do not follow this process. It should also be noted that the Camera is Optically stabilized, which is useful for certain shots when your hand may not be stable.

5. A full-screen mode which is useful for Apps like Games, or Videos, or for reading eBooks.

6. Higher security with SELinux in enforcement mode.

7. Typing in Hindi is now much easier.

8. A foray into a totally new run-time known as ART, which promises to significantly boost overall performance.

9. Number of home screens is unlimited.

10. Pedometer like functionality is now a part of the Nexus-5, KitKat combination so devices like Fitbit etc have a new challenger.

11. Business Caller-ID is now integrated as part of the Dialer App. What this means is that if you receive a call from a Business that Google has catalogued, then you will be presented with the relevant information when they call you. It also means that local Business search is integrated as part of the Dialer App. So if you want to order pizza, you don't need to open the browser and search for Pizza, but instead go straight to the Dialer App, search for Pizza there and Google starts showing local options immediately. There are plans to expand this to Individual Caller-ID as well.

12. Expanded developer options.

Q. Why did you choose a Nexus device ? Isn't Android Phone X better in parameter Y than a Nexus device ?
A. One word ( or two actually ) - OS updates. To me Android OS updates coming straight from Google, without having to wait for carriers, and/or OEM ( Original Equipment Manufacturers ) is one of the most important aspects of owning a device. Staying on the latest platform, not only ensures that you receive the obvious visual features, but also most importantly, the latest security patches and updates.

Q. What about the cost ?
A. Unlocked - 16 GB ( $350 ) , 32 GB ( $399 ). For the above mentioned performance and features, this is an unbeatable price since it compares favorably with many of the phones which cost double unlocked.

Q. What about the battery ?
I am expecting a battery life analogous or marginally better than that of the Nexus 4, due to the slightly larger battery. I will update this section once I have more info. It is interesting to note here that the Nexus-5 features some technology to reduce Battery consumption. 

Additional Reading and Extras:
1. Excellent overall summary of Nexus-5 and KitKat.
2. Google's official listing of KitKat updates.
3. KitKat's official video on Kitkat .
4. Last but not the least, Google's official promotional video for Nexus-5.

Week long stress test of Google Glasses

The Origin

• Google conducted an #IfIhadGlass campaign earlier this year, and a post of mine on Google Plus got me selected in the campaign. I had hoped to not just use it as an end user, but also to write apps for it. This review will focus more on usage of the device, as compared to a hardware breakdown of the Glasses.

The Pickup

• Around 1st week of June, I received notification from Google that I could pick-up the glasses within a month and I scheduled my Google Glass pickup from the Chelsea Market site on 29th June. At the time of Pickup, I took a 360 degree panorama of the site which can be seen here.  During the appointment, basic functionality like taking pictures, videos, setting up WiFi networks, making calls, navigation and 'Googling'-via-voice commands were demonstrated. The atmosphere was cordial and the folks there were responsive to the various questions that were posed. I was told that even though I can pickup the actual Glasses there, I would have to wait for sometime to get the actual detachable / modular Glass shades. This was a minor disappointment, since I had hoped to collect the entire kit in one go, especially after spending a decent chunk of money and physically making it all the way to NYC. Anyways, the pickup was right in time for my week-long trip to Vegas and Grand Canyon, where I had hoped to do a 'stress test' of the device. I thought that with the temperatures touching 118 deg F ( or 47.7 deg C ), it would provide an ideal atmosphere to test the Glasses in rough conditions.

Construction

• The build quality is absolutely top notch, and it also feels surprisingly light. Also, the Glasses accidentally fell down twice from a desk, but there were no scratches, or signs of damage. 

Battery life

• There has been justified criticism of the battery life of Glasses, which has been stated in certain blogs as being nearly 4 hours of heavy use. However, in my usage of the Glasses I was regularly able to take more than 100 pictures and videos over the course of the day on a single charge. Additionally, I don't believe that Google intends Glasses to be used as a continuous video consumption device ( primarily due to eye strain), but more as a here-and-now kind of a device. In that sense, Google Now is the perfect app for Google Glasses. Also, in that sense even though the battery life is an area of improvement, I found it adequate of bursts of interactions throughout the course of the day.

Photos and Videos

• The Glasses take decent pictures and videos in good daylight ( Sample1, Sample2, Sample3, Sample4 ) and also in moderate low light conditions ( Sample5 ). Glasses are excellent for catching fleeting moments, when you have a very limited window of opportunity. For example, we once came across Google's StreetView car, and were able to take pictures and videos of it easily with the Glasses. Glass's camera becomes nearly useless in very low light / night conditions ( as expected ). I don't expect that Google would be able to fix this anytime soon. They could either add a compact Flash, or increase the exposure time for the lens. Adding flash would have an adverse on the already scarce battery life, and increasing the exposure time is difficult because you would then have to keep your head absolutely stable for the duration of the exposure, which is not an easy task. At the moment, the Glass software automatically applies effects ( HDR tweaks ) to the pictures to enhance them and you don't have much control over the effects. This is an obvious area of improvement in the near future. Also adding timer(s) for photography would be very useful. Last but not the least, in a traditional camera you are able to frame the picture properly before taking it but currently in Glass you don't get that option. I guess in the future, this would be another good area of improvement with which you can get a live-preview of the picture that you are about to take. The pictures and videos get backed up automatically to Google+ when data connection is available, which good for backup.

Sharing

• The 'Taking-a-picture-and-share-it' loop is very straightforward. It is frictionless to the extent that one needs to be really careful while sharing pictures since it is such a compact loop. In the entire week of testing, there was only one incident where I accidentally shared a pic when I didn't intend to share it. The sharing function is tightly integrated with Google+, and you cannot help avoid the the feeling that Google is using Glasses to push Google+ ( pushing Google+ through all possible fronts seems to be Google's policy these days anyways).

People's reactions

• A bus driver at Grand Canyon as I was boarding the bus: "Is this your video monitor ?"
• Random person 1 at Grand Canyon ( with a broad grin ): "Google Glasses, eh? Are you recording everything here ?"
• An employee at a Grand Canyon Cafe: "Is this a magnifying Glass ?" ( Best reaction award goes to this one, in my opinion )
• A security personnel at a gas station close to Valley of Fire: "What you got going on there ?"
• TSA employees: No response at all.
• Some folks looked suspicious of it, while others were in awe. 

Limitations

• Volume of the bone conduction speakers is too low, and they are not audible in any public place. They can be easily overwhelmed with the most minor noise.
• The screen becomes useless in ultra-bright conditions. The only saving grace is that you can issue voice commands to still get functionality out of the device.
• Google is still working on Glass version for people who need optical correction. Given the modular design, this shouldn't be difficult.
• During the week of usage, there was an incident when I took a phone call with Glasses and the Glasses got 'stuck', i.e. they were repeatedly playing a sound even after I cut the call. I had to perform a hard reset of the device by pressing the power button continuously for 10 seconds. I guess this is a part of the pre-release experience. Anyways, this just happened once during the course of the week.

Voice recognition

• The microphones on Glass are impressively sensitive and accurate. Obviously, in strong winds you need to speak on top of the ambient noise if you want to perform voice commands. You also have the alternate option of using the touch-pad in such cases to navigate through the functionality, if you so prefer.

Glass as a distraction?

• After having used it for a week, I have to say that the Glasses are not as distracting as I had originally thought. One still needs to be responsible while using them, as with any other device like a smartphone.

Software Upgrades

• When I picked up my Glasses, they were at the XE4 firmware level. Subsequently after reaching home, i received the XE6 update, and then a few days back I received the XE7 upgrade. In other words, I received two updates during the course of one week. Google has plans of providing software upgrades every month, so there should be new features / fixes being made available on a fairly aggressive schedule. 

Future success / failure

• After having used it for a week, with having it on my eyes for almost all of my waking hours, I am still not convinced about the absolute future success or failure of the device. It could go either way. What I am sure of is that it's an interesting concept and Google is willing to aggressively improve it over time with feedback from #GlassExplorers, which should keep it interesting

Additional Resources

• Project Glass homepage 
• Project Glass community
• GlassXE.com community
• Pictures taken with Glasses on Google+

So how does Android support Device Diversity ?

Android attempts to address device diversity by the following techniques:

• By providing density specific resource folders. 
• By providing resource folders for screens with different sizes.
• By providing an ever upgraded Compatibility library which is used to extend the capabilities exposed on the later versions of OS, to older versions of the OS. For example, Fragments were introduced from 3.x onwards. However, by using the Compatibility Library, you can use Fragments even in Apps targeted to Android 1.6.
• By unifying the Tablet and Phone experience ( Android 4.0 onwards ). 
• Third-party libraries also exist which can provide similar capabilities ( or in some cases even better ) to extend capabilities to previous platforms. An example of this is, ActionBarSherlock.

The above are some of the ways which Android developers can use to tackle device diversity for their Apps.

Notes from Google I/O 2012 session - ” What’s New in Android ( 4.1 ) “

The official page for this session is here . The session is specifically about the latest iteration of the Android OS, i.e. Android 4.1 / JellyBean.

Google has now also made available the entire changelog, which is another good source of information about JellyBean . 

Below are my notes from this session, organized by category.

Performance, Memory

• Using V’sync + Triple buffering to make overall performance much better ( or much butter - as google likes to call it ! ).
• Non-editable TextViews use less memory.
• New Memory inspection APIs introduced for the application to be able to better inspect system memory, and then respond to it.
• RenderScript updates.
• Ability to cancel Database queries.

Widgets

• Android Widgets can now be hosted in third-party launchers.
• Widgets can respond to size changes. In Android 4.0, while re-sizing widgets was possible, intercepting this event was not possible. However, intercepting this change is now possible with Android 4.1, and consequently you can do stuff like update layouts etc.
• Widgets can now have different layouts for portrait mode, versus landscape mode.

Layout

• The new layout called as ‘GridLayout’ which was introduced in Android 4.0 for Activities / Fragments, is now also available for Widgets.
• GridLayouts were specifically created to solve the problem of deeply nested layouts for certain use cases in a more performant manner. 
• TextureView : Enhanced SurfaceView essentially.
• The above layouts are not Android 4.1 specific, but were actually introduced in Android 4.0 .

Animation

• Multiple Animation related updates to make animations easier.
• Activity Animation updates. Now, you can easily animate the ‘zooming out’ expansion of activities from a specific point + dimension on the screen. Android 4.1 JellyBean is replete with examples of this functionality / behavior.

ClipBoard

• ClipBoard can now hold styled text, I.e. Not just raw text.

Navigation

• Now you can manually create synthetic task stacks ! This is huge in my opinion. Also, this update is available within Google-developed Android compatibility package, which goes all the way back to Android 1.6, so this should be available for us as well.
• Automatic ‘Up’ navigation support for Activities, in context of Action Bar.
• Still no official Action Bar support within the Support package. Romain Guy recommended using ActionBarSherlock for this.

Internationalization

• 18 new locales, support for right to left text – Arabic, Hebrew.

Accessibility

• Enhanced in a major way. For visually challenged folks, you can perform gestures which will gradually traverse, and describe the various views to you, without looking at the screen. Once you choose the right area / view that you want to interact with, you perform another gesture ( double tap ) anywhere on the screen to execute the action. This way, you don’t have to figure out exactly where to tap. Also included is accessibility support to make complex Custom views more accessible. All of this exists in the support library, and therefore works all the way unto Android 1.6 !

Security , Permissions

• From now on, Apps that need to use external storage, need to explicitly request for this this permission. While this is not mandatory, at the moment, it will become mandatory in the future.

Networking, Throttling, $

• Android already supports determing whether user is on a WiFi network, or is using a regular cellphone network. However, this is a coarse-grained approach, for example, what if the user is on a metered Wifi HotSpot network ? In this case, the user can specify which networks are metered, and you can now query this setting from within your application before performing a network-intensive operation. 

MultiMedia

• Media Codec updates.
• Audio Latency improvements.

NFC

• Large payloads over Bluetooth, tap for pairing support.

Play Store

• You can respond to user comments, but this is for ‘Top Developers’.
• In-App subscription support.
• New seller countries.
• Entire Team can now access Android developer console.
• Sales report are now available.
• Android Expansion files -> Initial APK file can be unto 50 MB, and it can then be remotely augmented with extension files unto 4 GB.
• Incremental APK updates are now available, automatically ! Average saving ( data ) of 66 % per download, per Google stats.
• Unlocked devices now available directly from Google.

DevTools

• Emulator is much faster now, to the extent that you can run games on the same with good performance.
• Can test hardware acceleration, via Emulator.
• Sensor and multitouch support using physical Android devices. In this case, you actually run you application on the emulator, but can feed all sensor data + multitouch events using a connected Android device for thorough testing.
• ‘Lint’ Tool for automated checks of your code against Google recommendations.
• Tracer tool for Open GL ES.
• Device Monitor Tool. This is basically a newer version of DDMS, with a better UI.
• System Trace tool.
• Better NDK support.
• Support for creating standardized types of Applications.
• Layout editor updates.

Notifications

• New attribute introduced – priority. Support for opportunistic notifications. Opportunistic notifications are those which do not appear when the Notification drop-down is unexpanded, but show up once the user has pulled down the notification menu.
• bigContentView – 256dp tall ( 4 times previous contentViewSize )
• Notification Actions: you can add upto 3 buttons within your notification, from which the user can perform an action directly. If you want to add more than three buttons, you can use Custom Layouts.
• Styling updates with regards to Notifications.
• Notification sort order is first by priority, then by time.
• Users can now long-tap and find out which application posted a notification. If the user is annoyed by notifications coming from an application, they can just switch off the notifications from just that application.

Comments, questions and feedback are appreciated !

Enabling Android Webview to Ignore bad Certs..

Recently, in a small project I wanted to display a mobile optimized website inside of a WebView in a native Android App. So, I created the WebView and proceeded to load the website in it, and Voila ! it did not work ! I tried a few different settings for the webView, but each time I got a “Website not available” error.

Subsequently, I opened up the website on my desktop browser, and it worked great. Then, I opened up the website in the Android browser, and it opened up fine in either case. This was fairly baffling to me. [ Later I realized that in either case, I had set my browser to ignore bad SSL Certs ]

I was using a Custom webViewClient for loading the page, but was over-riding only three methods:

onPageFinished(WebView view, String url)

onPageStarted(WebView view, String url, Bitmap favicon)

onReceivedError(WebView view, int errorCode, String description, String failingUrl)

I had hoped that in-case of *any* kind of error, the onReceivedError would get triggered, but it was not getting triggered. After a little head-banging, I decided to take a deeper look at which other webViewClient methods I could over-ride and found some interesting ones.

onReceivedHttpAuthRequest(WebView view, HttpAuthHandler handler, String host, String realm)

onReceivedSslError(WebView view, SslErrorHandler handler, SslError error)

onTooManyRedirects(WebView view, Message cancelMsg, Message continueMsg)

So, I proceeded to over-ride the above three methods as well. In my subsequent test, I found that the method “onReceivedSslError” was getting triggered ! This was excellent, because now I had a clue of where the problem could be, and which direction to proceed in. I subsequently went to my desktop browser, and stock Android browser, and made sure that I got prompted in-case of a bad SSL Cert. After that change, I could see that the stock Android browser, gave me a Dialog with three options, kind of like the image below.

The above image communicated to me that the SSL Cert was not trusted, and that all I would need to do to make it work, would be to ‘intercept’ this Dialog within the WebViewClient, and ignore the bad Cert.

After a little bit of digging, I found this post ( image above is sourced from the same ) from Damian Flannery’s Blog which mentions :

engine.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient() {
 public void onReceivedSslError (WebView view, SslErrorHandler handler, SslError error) {
 handler.proceed() ;
 }

The single bolded line of code above, will make sure that the webView will ignore bad Cert warnings, and continue to load the website. I made the above change, and it was all good after that. 

Hoping that this post could save someone’s time when faced with a similar issue in the future…

State of the Android....

A non-techie post highlighting where Android is, and where it is headed. Will be updated in due course of time as Android evolves and the use cases explode. :-)

• Android is “getting armor-plated”.
• Android is “headed to the Desktop”.
• Android will “power NASA’s mini-satellites”.
• Android will “give you Terminator vision”. :p
• Android will “help you control your TV”.

Enabling Xcode like Auto-Complete in Eclipse…

1. Open Preferences in Eclipse. ( Command Key + , ) 

2. Type “Content Assist” into search box.

3. For each Editor that you wish to have code completion:

• Ensure “Enable auto activation” is checked.
• Put all characters into “Auto activation triggers for *” e.g.  .abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_0123456789
• Set “Auto activation delay” to 500 (or whatever works for you).

Thanks to Matt 

Android Resources of note

A short collection of Android related resources that I like to visit / read:

• Android Developer Website - http://developer.android.com/
• SO Android Q&A - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/android
• Romain Guy’s Blog - http://www.curious-creature.org/category/android/ - Great posts, especially on Android UI / Views related stuff.
• Reto Meier’s Blog - http://blog.radioactiveyak.com/search/label/android - Nice posts on how to write well-behaved Android Apps.
• Mark Murphy’s Blog - http://commonsware.com/blog/ . He also goes by the Handle “CommonsWare” on SO, and his posts ( http://stackoverflow.com/users/115145/commonsware ) there are highly rated. 

Android: Pre-built Drawables Index

Android: Pre-built Drawables Index→

This link contains a comprehensive listing of inbuilt Android Drawable Resources ( android.R class ) which can be used directly in your projects. Use of these can also increase connsistency of the user experience, in reference to the default apps.

#AppReview - LinkedIn Android App

Pros:

1. Contains a 'browser' view which keeps you inside of the App, even while reading external articles. This is good in the sense that it avoids context switching between the App and the browser while reading content

2. Has a fairly professional looking interface.

Cons:

1. Consistently lacking in 'Activity Indicator' / 'Busy Loader'. It is highly surprising that an App coming from a big company like LinkedIn would not have the Activity Indicator for any of it's screens.

2. Seems like the Application is not able to maintain it's state over the course of a complex navigation scenario, especially when you navigate back to the Activity after a period of time. In this case, the Application view appears to be a 'default' layout. A screenshot is shown below.

Test hardware = Galaxy Nexus, Android OS V 4.2.1

Cupcake - finally !

After waiting for what seems like forever, I finally intalled the Cupcake update on my G1. I used the website below for performing the update, as it seems to have really simple steps to install the update.

http://www.androidcentral.com/how-manually-install-android-15-cupcake-us-version

I need some more time with the Cupcake to post a personal review of the same, however, we already know it's awesome, right ? :P

For a list of what improvements the Cupcake brings to the table, look at the site below:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.5-highlights.html

Happy Android'ing !

Android G1 Apps which I use

I had been looking to buy a smartphone for a long time and finally decided to get an Android G1. I have loaded some applications from the App market, after reviewing them online and on the market itself, and they are given below:

Newly downloaded apps are:

1. 1Cast

2. ACast

3. Butters soundboard

4. Email

5. Labyrinth App.

6. Locale App

7. Locations App.

8. Moxier Mail

9. Mr. Mackey Soundboard

10. PF Voicemail +

11. Restaurant Search

12. RoadSync - Another Outlook client wiith ActiveSync

13. Save MMS application

14. Sipdroid - to setup SIP-based calls.

15. SkyMap

16. SnapPhoto - I have to check if it has been re-updated for the Cupcake.

17. SouthPark Open Home Skin

18. Star Translate

19. Steamy Window - fun app !!

20. Stream Furious - excellent audio streaming solution.

21. Translate App

22. TTS Service

23. Tunes for Android

24. TuneWiki

25. Voice Dialer

26. Voice Recorder

27. Voice Search

28. Web Server

29. Wertago

30. Where

31. WikiMobile

32. Wikitude

33. Wordoholic

34. Yellowbook v2.0

Old apps are stated below:

1. Astro.

2. Backgrounds.

3. Barcode Scanner.

4. Bubble

5. Bush Jokes(!)

6. Calorie Counter - via this app you can have quick access to nutrition details of a very wide spectrum of foods and drinks.

7. Cartman sounds :D

8. Chess - pretty challenging.

9. ConnectBot - for SSH'ing.

10. ContactsSync - for sync'ing with my company / professional contacts.

11. Doom (!) - one of my all-time favourite 3-D FPS games.

12. eQuotes - because I feel that quotable quotes can be inspirational, and a little inspiration does no one any harm.

13. Finance - I am not an investment junkie yet, but it is always good to keep a track of what's going on with some of the larger companies and stock exchanges.

14. Flashlight.

15. Free Dictionary - Though I don't foresee a need to be an english-language expert in the near future, I still decided to download this app, just in case because it's good to learn a new word once in a while.

16. Gmote - This is one of my favourite apps, which I downloaded on the very first day I got the G1. Using this app, you can setup your laptop / desktop as a server, and your G1 as a client, and then use the G1 as a remote for multimedia control. Other than that, you can then use the G1 to remotely browse the files on your computer and play the desired ones. Further, the G1 can then be used as a wireless keyboard. And last but not the least, using this software you can stream music from your computer to your phone. Pretty neat.

17. GV app - short for Google Voice - use all the features available in Google Voice via bypassing the browser completely.

18. Hot Giggity - Quagmire's sounds !

19. imeem mobile.

20. J2ME Explorer - to run Java-based apps.

21. Lyric Search.

22. Meridian Video Player.

23. Mother TED - to see videos on the awesome TED website.

24. NPR Podcasts - to listen to the very informative NPR podcasts.

25. Owner app - to display owner info once the phone is locked.

26. Parallel Kingdom - Localized, city-based social network.

27. PdaNet - awesome application, allows you to tether any computer. Tethering, in simple terms, means the capability to use your mobile device as a modem for another device which cannot directly use the internet. This app was not available directly on the Android Market, and I had to download it from the original PdaNet website.

28. Peter Griffin sounds !

29. PicSay - great app. Using this, you can take pictures and modify them directly on your G1.

30. QuotePro - using this you can stream quotes, in real-time to your G1.

I have many more apps to go, but I shall stop for the time being and come back with more info later.

Happy Android'ing !