Android Apps for design, business, and productivity

[John Pacyga]

Does anyone have recommended Android Apps for landscape design/construction, business development and/or productivity?  I have found a few, but I’m hoping there are more out there…

[Amy Verel]

For productivity, I found Rehearsal Assistant voice recorder so that I don’t lose all of the ‘mental notes’ I find myself making during my traffic-y, 30 to 60 minutes each way car commute to work.  It’s a nice way to (sort of) recover some of the productivity I lost when I gave up a train commute, and it lets you make little voice memos without too many steps. Which apps are you currently using?

[John Pacyga]

I will try it!

I’ve found Business Time, HowSteep, Photoshop express, and SBMX (AutoDesk SketchBook Mobile Express).  There are others I’m trying but not the amount of professional apps I thought I would find.  Wish it had the Dirr app…

[Amy Verel]

Thanks – I’ll try those! Dirr app would be AWESOME – hopefully someday! Wonder if there are other good tree/plant apps in the interim?

[John Pacyga]

Oh, you have to try Google Voice.  Check out the website, because it can do a lot!

I haven’t found any tree or plant ID apps… 

[Steve Mercer]

Check out HipVoice they will be on Android soon.  http://www.hipvoice.com   They have a push to talk application that is cell phone carrier independant.  As long as the other person you are talking to has hipvoice you can PTT.

[Mark Miller]

I don’t have a smart phone yet, but I’m eying up an Evo so I’m excited about your guys’s discussion here. I did some quick searches myself and here’s what I found. Hopefully they’re good… I wouldn’t know cause I can’t really test them myself.

 

-Master Gardeners Pocket Guide (looks like a good tool for learning tons of plant stuff)

http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/lifestyle/master-gardener-pocket-guide_kqvw.html

 

 

– Landscapers Companion (seems like slimmed down horticopia)

http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/books_and_reference/landscapers-companion_bhix.html

 

I will definitely have to check out the other ones guys mentioned as soon as I get my phone.

 

[Kerri A]

I second Researsal Assistant. Has been really useful . . . also recording lectures, etc.

[Amy Verel]

Thanks Mark – those look like great finds!

[Amy Verel]

Will do. Just found this tree app from Audubon – little pricey but no doubt worth it! Think I’ll see how I like the two Mark suggested below (just downloaded) before coughing up 10 bucks though.

 

http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/books_and_reference/audubon-trees_lbhz.html

[Mark Miller]

I’ve got the Landscape Architects Portable  Handbook, and it’s a pretty good tool. I’ll have to get the Site Calculations one as well. BUT…

 

What we should all do, is go look those books up on Amazon and then request that the publisher make them available for Kindle, and then after enough of us have bugged them they’ll make them available for Kindle. Then you get the Kindle App. and you’ll have those books on your phone with everything else.

 

Speaking of which it looks like you can get the Kindle App for Android for free and Amazon has several decent LA books available as EBooks, they’re only slightly cheaper than the hardcopies, but just imagine all the back pain you’ll spare yourself by being able to carry Site Engineering for Landscape Architects,Google SketchUp for Site Design, and The Professional Practice of Landscape Architecture  All at once in the palm of your hand.

[Jonathan J. Bob]

I’m in design/build.  I just went to a Techo-bloc seminar and they have an app for iphones and ipod touch that allows you to calculate areas.  You set your pace distance, hold the phone flat and pace the perimeter of the area for the proposed patio and/or walls.  You can then input which of their products you want to use and it will give you the quantity required.  They also have their entire product line w/pictures and details so you can show a client (kind of small photos) some examples.  Also they will give you a list of closest suppliers to job site using GPS.  Obviously this is limited to this manufacturer but maybe shows what is coming.

[Steve Mercer]

Sounds like a fluffer program to me.  Farmers have been stepping off fields for years and this is only an appoximation at best. When building Retaining Walls and Patios, I use a Leica Robotic Total Station survey instrument.  It is the only way to precisely measure (for quotation purposes) and then build the structure using the stake out function of the instrument.  Approximating Retaining Walls and Patios eventually is either going to cost you work because your quote was to imprecise or worse cost you money as your estimate was to low.

[Steve Mercer]

Android is still a relatively young platform for productivity apps.  Though it has promise it has a long way to go before catching up with more mature platforms such as Windows Mobile.  Though I scratch my head sometimes at Microsoft’s strategies.  Most all of the productivity apps for Windows Mobile are for WM 6.5 and lower.  WM 7 is a complete rewrite and Microsoft doesn’t seem to want the business community to move to WM 7 as a lot of the features the Business community is use to using in WM 6.5 and lower are missing in WM 7.  It appears to me that Microsoft was in such a hurry to create a product to compete with the iphone that they left the business community behind.  Since the iphone wasn’t created origonally for business users I guess Microsoft didn’t see the need to put those features in WM 7.  The whole smartphone phenomena is hampered by the cell phone carriers.  Each phone has to be certified by each carrier.  And carriers don’t always see the need to certify a new device (Look how long it has taken to get another carrier besides AT&T to certify the iphone) 

[John Pacyga]

Google’s Free Apps for Android:

http://www.google.com/mobile/android/#utm_source=hc_header&utm_medium=Android&utm_campaign=topic=19501

(The menu across the top can take you to other phones…)

[Author]

Posts