About two weeks ago I acquired an Android phone. I really dislike phones — people seem to have no manners when it comes to their phones. There are two things that cheeses me off especially:
- Talking on a phone while driving — dangerous and rude.
- Checking your phone when having a conversation with someone — very rude.
But these things are not really the fault of the phone, but rather the user. So having resolved not to do these things myself, I am boldly using the phone in private for all kinds of things. The fact that I can check my email is somewhat convenient. The calendar is very convenient. Browsing the web is quite nice. And there are a couple of nice apps like Google Sky Map and AllSports GPS. Also the camera works nicely.
It has occurred to me that I could write apps to make some money for my house. I need a “house app” or several that I could sell. Unfortunately, it seems that Android Apps is not really a money making scheme and — more importantly — I am not yet able to do it from South Africa. I could (quite legally I believe) use my Finnish bank account. But there is another kind of hitch with this: our country’s admittedly draconian import and export regulations make it almost impossible (well, entirely impossible) to access any money I make in this way. I was at an Industry roundtable this afternoon and one of the complaints was that it is simply impossible for a SA based company to sell any kind of IP to the rest of the world. If you want to do this, consider basing your company in the UK or the US. And those overseas investors are not keen to do business with SA because of the Reserve Bank’s policies. Oh well.
Until Google reaches some kind of agreement with them, I’ll have to develop my apps in private. There happens to be an upcoming Android workshop presented by Google that I shall try to attend and perhaps I can pump them for information about how much progress, if any, they have made in this regard.