Sharing URLs
A really handy feature that I didn’t know about until recently is the ability to share a URL you are viewing in the browser. Long-pressing on a URL in the location bar brings up a menu with the option to “Share page” or “Copy page url” (it can also include “Save image” and “View image” depending on the context). Choosing “Share page” reveals a menu with several options. At the top are the built-in choices such as sharing “@Delicious,” but below those you can see options for specific apps. Selecting “Twidroid” allows you to share the link via Twitter from right there. You don’t have to open the full Twidroid application, and you don’t have to worry about the URL length (as it’s automatically shortened with your URL shortener of choice). Just type a few words and send away. You can even hit “Attach” to add or take a picture or video (both of which are automatically uploaded and linked for you). I don’t care if you call this “multitasking” or “app interlinking.” I call it awesome.

Shortcuts
Most people already know that Android has folders, and it even has live folders (folders which have their contents populated by an app, such as a list of Pandora radio stations), but Android also has the ability to create shortcuts. I don’t just mean shortcuts to open apps; I mean shortcuts to open very specific parts of apps.

One of the applications that I use fairly frequently is One Bus Away, which allows me to see which buses are going where and when they should arrive. The default view that opens is a map view, which I personally don’t use. I know the stops I use and the routes I ride, so I nearly always want to go to a specific stop. I’m frequently in a hurry, checking if I’ll be seconds away from catching the bus, and the slight delay going from loading the map view to loading the stop I want feels a lot longer than it really is. Fortunately, Android has the answer: I can create a shortcut directly to the exact stop that I want to view. I simply long-press on the home screen, select “Shortcuts,” select the desired choice, (potentially further customize it, such as picking a specific bus stop in this case) and the icon is created. Touching that icon will jump right to the correct spot in the app.

Conclusion
These are the types of features that are so simple but add so much to the experience of using an Android-based device. Is Android perfect? Of course not. But can it do some amazing things? Absolutely!

At the end of last week, the iPhone application I have been working on was released. It’s the free CBS News application for the iPhone (iTunes link), and it’s the best type of application from a developer standpoint: an application to be proud of. I developed the code that processes the APIs we ingest, and I also created the web views that display the data. Fortunately, that means I didn’t have to create the Objective-C that ties it all together (not that there’s anything wrong with Objective-C).

The great thing about this application is that it just works. Data is cached, so you see results quickly while updated news is loaded in the background. Tweets in the Twitter section that contain links to CBS News articles, blogs, or videos can be tapped on to directly view that content in application. Videos from top CBS News shows such as 60 Minutes and CBS Evening News with Katie Couric can be played directly in the app. Even the image galleries are searchable.

The reason that I say this is an application worthy of pride is because of all the “magic” that happens behind the scenes to make this application work. Most people who aren’t developers will use the Twitter section and tap one of the CBS News tweets and then tap on a “(view)” link to read the story. The flow is simple enough, it makes sense, and why shouldn’t you be able to view that story in the application? And that’s exactly right. There’s no point in including a Twitter section that just ends up always linking to the full CBS News site or that only includes CBS News tweets. That wouldn’t be much different from an RSS feed. Similarly, having all the in-story links open a new webview that just loads the next CBS News article from their site would be illogical and virtually unusable from the end-user perspective (and, really, that’s the perspective that matters).

Of course, the developer perspective is a lot different. An inexperienced developer might just assume we’re using some special Twitter API that includes metadata with article IDs or something that would make this really easy. A more experienced developer will know things are rarely that easy and will imagine the code involved with following links from TinyURL, bit.ly, and other URL shorteners, possibly to an RSS feed which then points to the real article. And maybe that developer would even consider that links to videos point to Flash videos, which aren’t usable on the iPhone. Anyway, there is even more involved than that, but all I’ll say is that this “magic” is complicated code that makes the end-user enjoy his/her experience and makes the developer proud.