Matt Cutts, who is head of the spam team at Google, had wrote an interesting post this weekend with his 5 fun smartphone tips - solutions that can be provided with Android. He listed these five tips for smartphones which would fit perfectly for Android phones including the G1:
- See what you’re ordering – Use Google Images to see what exactly is on the menu, especially if in another language.
- Comparison shop – Taking a picture of a bar-code and finding the best price online which can be more automatically be done in an Android application already, ShopSavvy.
- Make a note to remember later – using the phone’s camera to take a picture of a part and its number so it can be ordered later.
- Archive a brainstorming meeting – again using the phone’s camera to take a picture of a whiteboard session to pick up later.
- Keep a food diary – Once more using the camera to take a picture of a meal and directly send to followers email… truly a phone feature for the food connoisseur.
I would add another five
- GPS replacement for your car – As phones have done to watches so too with car GPS devices.
- Walking GPS – a GPS device for walking where you can see based on where you are currently, how to go to your destination using streets, paths, or public transit using the latest features on Google Maps.
- Location based interactive gaming – As the Nintendo Wii did for video games in general, Android games are starting to do for mobile games, for example NavBall. It is a 45-minute game with 2 teams of 11 players each that will attempt to score as many goals. The “ball” and “goal” are placed on a map in a city and the players have to get into formation to kick the “ball” at the right angle and speed to make a goal. The players have to move around the city with their GPS enabled phones in order to achieve this.
- Translation Service – Ideally you could speak into the phone then hold it up to a person for it to audibly translate into their language and then they could speak back to the phone and it translates back to English.
- Making Phone Calls – You can type or select a phone number and talk to a person. This feature is ironically never mentioned and seems to be less and less the actual use of smartphones.
I personally met Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced in Seattle earlier this year where he truly is a rock star in the SEO world. I would often see people form crowds around him at the conference and when one would have the chance to ask him a question some were nervously sweating and stuttering – perhaps Android could resolve this as well.
3 comments… read them below or add one
“GPS replacement for your car”
I’m not (yet) a GPS user, but I’ve heard comments that suggest phone-based GPS aren’t as good as in-car GPS units, perhaps due to inability to pick up the signals from the satellites to get a fix. Any idea if this is true?
Of course, if it is true, there might be a way to drop the phone in a cradle or something that hooks the phone up to a stronger GPS antenna while in the car…
My G1 tracks very well in the car. Not quite a Tom Tom but im sure someone is working on and app for that.
how do you empty the “trash” folder in one or two clicks?
What’s new in the Battery Biz. this phone is a heavy user of electrons.