Smartphones (Pocket PC based) cost too much & Smartphone GPS ideas
Smartphones (Pocket PC based) cost too much & Smartphone GPS ideas
Since the company I work at is cutting back company cell phones (I'm on the cut off list) I figured that perhaps it's time to finally get a personal cell phone. Being a developer, the most tempting route is to get a Pocket PC based phone or a Smartphone but when I looked up the cost of a Smartphone I was in shock, $600 (ok so there's a $100 rebate for 1yr contract or $150 for 2yrs). I had assumed they were $299 but hot damn, it's just a cell phone running Pocket OS 2003.
Oh well, looks like I won't be buying anything high end right now, $450-$500 is a little rich for my tastes. I only wanted a cell phone and thought it would be neat to experiment with the compact .Net framework as it would be cool to code apps that I can carry with me. Especially if I can interface with the cell phone APIs and perhaps make my own caller ID software to display pictures (faces). Even cooler yet when Smart Phone have built in GPS devices so I could not only have an app that shows my friends (via MSN Messenger) but also tell me how many feet/miles they are away from me as we could share GPS cords back and forth.
Imagine your phone ringing a tone as you pull into the mall because your phone has realized a buddy is within X feet away (aka you're both at the mall) which then you can message or call them and meet up. Obviously you would be able to set a minimum threshold and set non alert zones (such as around your house) because obviously you don't want your app buzzing when your girl/mom/etc is in the same house as you, especially when you both live there.
Well there's one juicy GPS/Smartphone app idea I have that I just gave away. Now somebody can steal my idea and make a couple million. If you do, throw me some kickback cash, I'd do the same to you.