Since I got my hands on the T-Mobile G1 in 2008 I’ve been totally captivated by Android, in a large part due to it’s open (-ish) nature and Linux base.

MailCircle

MailCircle displays your unread GMail count on the lock screen and notification tray of Android 5.x (Lollipop) devices

Notification screenshot

The inspiration for MailCircle came from the DashClock widget, which I’d relied upon for years to give me an at-a-glance unread count on my lock screen. Unfortunately, with Android 5.x the ability to put widgets on the lockscreen was removed, leaving me unread-count-less

Linkbasher

Linkbasher is an app designed to do one very specific and minor task - to resolve shortened URLs faster than your browser can, and launch the correct app once it’s done so.

If you’ve ever been annoyed by the Twitter app launching Chrome with a ’t.co' shortened link rather than the YouTube app when you click on a YouTube link within a Tweet, this app is for you! Otherwise, nothing to see here.

Alf for LOVEFiLM

Discontinued and no longer supported.

Alf allowed users to manage their LOVEFiLM DVD lists from their phones.

Alf screenshot Alf screenshot Alf screenshot Alf screenshot
Alf on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone, although it also had a full tablet UI, and a 'Holo'-based UI was nearly done by the time API access was revoked.

I released Alf in February 2011 to fill another hole in Android’s catalogue - an app to manage one’s LOVEFiLM DVD rental list. Fortunately LOVEFiLM were happy to provide an API that developers could use to interface with their system.

A few months after Alf’s release, LOVEFiLM released an official Android app, LOVEFiLM by Post. Alf boasted support for a wide range of devices, from small-screened 1.6 phones through to the latest KitKat-based tablets, and was downloaded over 6,000 times and had a 4.5/5 star rating.

Unfortunately in November 2013 Amazon announced that the LOVEFiLM developer API was to be shut down. Since Alf relied on this API in order to function, I was forced to shut down the app as well.

Tweetabouts

Tweetabouts updated users' Twitter profile ‘location’ field with their current geographical location.

This is the first Android app I wrote and released, but has not been updated past Android 1.6.

beebPlayer

Discontinued and no longer supported.

One of the most notable absences from the Android Market in 2009 was an app that could stream content from BBC iPlayer - something Apple users had been able to do for months. This was particularly frustrating, since there vere video streams available that Android was able to decode and play reasonably well, and they were being used by far less sophisticated phones. I was however able to identify the URLs for these streams, and combined with metadata available on the iPlayer web service, crafted together an app that provided a rough iPlayer experience on Android.

At its height, beebPlayer had been downloaded from Android Market over 200,000 times with a 4.5/5 star rating, and was in the top 10 apps list within the UK, such was the demand for iPlayer on Android.

I withdrew beebPlayer in May of 2010 at the request of the BBC.

The BBC have since released their iPlayer app which offers a far superior experience.