Back in 2007, I made a post about “My wanted software list on a mobile device”, by the time those idea was as my describe, dreams, seems a good time to go for a renew on the topic in mid-2011.
First, lets compare the old list back in 2007…
Mail – A good mail client, my wish list on mail client was: support IMAP IDEAL, HTML mail and unicode.
Tick, Seems it has been fulfilled, mail client on iOS, K9 and GMail client on Android has done a good job.
Password keeper – A login/passwords PIM that syncs with desktops,
Half a tick, Android does offer password and login sync to Google Server, but there doesn’t seems to be an app for me to edit/view them, currently I am using dropbox+keepass, which partly fulfil my password login needs….
Media player – A “normal” media player that support different types of media, RMVB,MKV,AVI(DIVX),TS….
Half a tick, it turns out 4 years has passed, there still does not seems to be a standard that rules the media type, either were there any media player that cross-platform support as much media type as I needed, my current solution are: on iOS, I uses AirVideo Server to stream my media to my iPad (HTTP m3u8/MP4), save me lots of time to convert, on Android, I uses VLC to stream by RTSP/MP4 realtime transcode, same idea, different approach.
Sync – Data syncing in all connections, any computer.
Tick, Google Calendar, GMail, Contacts, sync to Google Server by default, Photo Sync by Dropin to Dropbox automatically when I am on WIFI (Or the build in Picasa does the job too), Google Music/Amazon MP3 does the Audio Sync, yes it has been done.
Web Browser – A real, up to standard, normal browser!
Tick, or say almost tick, Safari on iOS did most of time, but lack of a BASIC function I want, file upload, and stock Web browser on Android does most of them, Flash, AJAX, File upload etc, good job done, I am sure if the development on a mobile browser does fly these few years, it is almost as good as browsing on desktop. (of coz on mobile we have to work with smaller screen size, hard to access Tab and multitasking, lack of Java etc, but that is mobile browsing, can’t ask for too much isn’t it?)
Mapping network resources as local resources.
Tick, more than a tick, I did mention FTP/SFTP/NFS/Samba, all done on Android, now we can even RSync, Dropbox, SFTP etc…
Ok, now my wish list (not dream list anymore, because I just know it too well it will be done) 2011!
A Network enabled Media Player, Server
– I would like like a media player on my mobile device that support most media types, with subtitle (srt, sub etc) support, this media player should included strong network abilities, example: streaming in by HTTP/HTTP m3u8/RTSP, and streaming out to other devices by DLNA/AirPlay, a media server enabled function would be a plus, a network media server that allow me to stream not only content, but bookmark the progress of the media that I am consuming, example when I am playing the media at home on my display, I paused, it will automatically bookmark my progress, which I can watch them while I am on the road a continue where I left off, and vise versa.
A even better sync function
– As I mention in “Sync” above, basic sync is working good now, there must be a better way to sync my bookmark/password/documents/opened browsing tab.
A OneNote+Evernote all in one note taking software.
– this is a part where I don’t see much development, Evernote has similar idea, syncs but really behind MS OneNote on functions and UI, as an early tablePC user, I still thinks that OneNote is working great! the problem is we do not get OneNote on iOS/Android and it does not automatically syncs, I think if M$ is still thinking to “Go hard” on mobile biz, this will be a big gun they can bring to Windows Phone.
A sourcecode editor, UltraEdit32 on mobile
As a developer, it would be GREAT if this exist isn’t it?
I think that’s almost much I can think of right now, lets hope the next time I review this list, we get ticks for everything here.
Links
Theo’s Weblog – My wanted software list on a mobile device