Business applications please... (mail sync, office viewer, etc)

[moom]

The really only thing that prevents me today from buying an iPhone is the complete lack of business application. OK, the AppStore is full of thousands of "software", but most are just gadgets with very limited interesting usage.

I have currently a Nokia N95, and these are the things I'm using it for. I will immediatly switch to Android if I can get the same functionnality :

• calendar, contacts and todo synchronization with Lotus Notes
• Office viewer & editor : to view and edit MS Office files on the go (word, Excel, PPT). I'd love also to see the same to cope with Open documents from Open Office.
• Push mail, working with my Lotus Notes corporate account
• Java support : I'm using a Java-based Lotus Sametime client to access our internal instant messaging system
• VPN client : to access my corporate intranet

Since the G1 "looks" like a business phone, I hope it will very quickly deliver these software features and I do count on the community to avoid falling into the iPhone AppStore pitfall, ie keeping on releasing mostly totally stupid and not usefull "applications".

[HiGPhone]

most apps are not really a software ,but a game~iPhone is becoming a GamePhone

[cleverandroidname]

i'd realy like to see something like a bloomberg app, like the iphone. just something to check the stocks.

[bradynapier]

Hello,
I have a team working on a completely custom business suite of software for Android. This software will include

SugarCRM Integration
Email Sync (Gmail, POP3)
Calendar Sync (Gmail, Novell)
Contacts Integration (Shared contacts with various devices uploaded from SugarCRM)
And others.

More information will be available shortly after we get ahold of the first Android phone.

[bluprintid]

I agree I hope all the beer filler apps and pop wrapping apps are not gonna be put on the g1 n if so i hope they create a bunch of bizness bassed apps to complament the amount of fun apps. I am also hoping that the camera is better then people are showing, at least as good n clear as the 3g if not better. I mean come on the 3.2 mega pix is supposilly higher then the 3g right?

The really only thing that prevents me today from buying an iPhone is the complete lack of business application. OK, the AppStore is full of thousands of "software", but most are just gadgets with very limited interesting usage.

I have currently a Nokia N95, and these are the things I'm using it for. I will immediatly switch to Android if I can get the same functionnality :

• calendar, contacts and todo synchronization with Lotus Notes
• Office viewer & editor : to view and edit MS Office files on the go (word, Excel, PPT). I'd love also to see the same to cope with Open documents from Open Office.
• Push mail, working with my Lotus Notes corporate account
• Java support : I'm using a Java-based Lotus Sametime client to access our internal instant messaging system
• VPN client : to access my corporate intranet

Since the G1 "looks" like a business phone, I hope it will very quickly deliver these software features and I do count on the community to avoid falling into the iPhone AppStore pitfall, ie keeping on releasing mostly totally stupid and not usefull "applications".

[bluprintid]

I am ffffaaarrrrr from a developer but im hoping our android world is a go getter and takes full potential of this open platform google has produced for us future Android users

[Atean]

The really only thing that prevents me today from buying an iPhone is the complete lack of business application. OK, the AppStore is full of thousands of "software", but most are just gadgets with very limited interesting usage.

I have currently a Nokia N95, and these are the things I'm using it for. I will immediatly switch to Android if I can get the same functionnality :

• calendar, contacts and todo synchronization with Lotus Notes
• Office viewer & editor : to view and edit MS Office files on the go (word, Excel, PPT). I'd love also to see the same to cope with Open documents from Open Office.
• Push mail, working with my Lotus Notes corporate account
• Java support : I'm using a Java-based Lotus Sametime client to access our internal instant messaging system
• VPN client : to access my corporate intranet

Since the G1 "looks" like a business phone, I hope it will very quickly deliver these software features and I do count on the community to avoid falling into the iPhone AppStore pitfall, ie keeping on releasing mostly totally stupid and not usefull "applications".

Fear not. Take a look at the open-sourced programs currently available for Linux distros and understand that these programs can easily be ported to the Android G1 since most of the work has already been done. It's just a matter of tweaking the code to make it Android-friendly, touch-screen friendly, etc, etc.

It won't be long before an App is created for everything you need and more.

[pcaustin]

It won't be long before an App is created for everything you need and more.

I remember hearing something like this back in the 80s. Pretty soon all the programs would be written and programmers won't have anything to do. I've been programming ever since.

While I too have high hopes for Android, this is not quite that cut-n-dry. I haven't seen any support for native apps yet, so for now, all the apps have to be written in Java and conform to the Android API. If you've ever done any significant development, you know that taking an app from one API to another is not always trivial, and from what I've seen of the Android API it's unlike anything else.

[socalld]

All I'd like is an excel viewer, like on my sidekick. That allowed me to open an excel file sent via email and it'd open it up, through software on my phone, soo simple, please make an app for that; such a pain to go through my browser just to bring up some schedules I need on the go.

[ickyfehmleh]

Fear not. Take a look at the open-sourced programs currently available for Linux distros and understand that these programs can easily be ported to the Android G1 since most of the work has already been done. It's just a matter of tweaking the code to make it Android-friendly, touch-screen friendly, etc, etc.

It won't be long before an App is created for everything you need and more.

Understand that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Linux applications, which are mostly C/C++ and based on the Qt/KDE and GTK/GNOME toolkits, ultimately using X11 (aka the X Window System) to display things to the user, cannot just be "tweaked" to run on Android -- they must be rewritten. Android uses a Java-like virtual machine called the Dalvik VM, not C/C++. There is currently no way that I'm aware of to have an X11-based application run on an Android device; porting X11 to Android would be lolworthy as it is a huge beast.