Wind Shard
Anybody who read this blog a year ago (JESUS TIME GOES FAST), back when Android first came out knows that I started out a as a huge evangelist. I foresaw myself doing a ton of Android development, especially starting out as a freelancer – I figured I could make Android dev at least a small part of my revenue stream, and hop onboard a rapidly growing community and platform.
Almost all of that has come true! I still am a huge evangelist, and Android is a success and a rapidly growing community and platform. There are 3 American phones out there right now running Android, and many others across the seas. And by the end of this year, the Tao and the Cliq, both from Motorola, will be out. I’ve predicted from the getgo that the combined total of Android phone users would outnumber iPhone users by the end of 2010, and I’m still feeling good about that.
The only thing that didn’t come true was that I didn’t actually get all that involved in Android myself. I’ve been a passionate consumer, of course, but all of my energy for development seemed to fall into a black hole. It had a lot more to do with that period of my life last fall, which, all said, was one of my low points. I didn’t have a lot of energy for anything, besides surviving, and being miserable isn’t conducive to joy and experimentation.
But lately, I have pretty much been living, eating, and breathing Android. It’s kind of nuts. I have a personal project that I mentioned before going on, and a more interesting Sunlight project happening, a pocket Congress of sorts. Working on both of them has created a sort of synergy I wasn’t expecting, and my skills and enthusiasm for working with Android have increased dramatically. I find myself reading more Android-related forums, and paying attention to Android questions on StackOverflow, and answering any I can. I’m learning a ton.
It’s like I’m behaving like a real developer. Which is unsettling, because I’m not one and don’t want to be. And like many of my obsessions, this is bound to eventually ebb. But for right now, I’m managing to find joys in smaller things, and not constantly dwelling on angst about how to be building towards the larger things. I don’t know if I’d call working around-the-clock and constantly getting 6 hours of sleep whose deprivation I don’t even feel “stopping to smell the roses”, but for right now, it’s serving the purpose.