Can you do science on a phone?
Click the image to download the PDF (3.5M) in a new window. The PDF includes slides and notes.Yes! Perhaps the real question should be: Would you want to? Isn't the very idea just an extension of the curse of mobility, never being away from your email, work, commitments? That's the glass half-empty view; it takes discipline to use your cellphone on your own terms, picking it up when it's convenient. And there's no doubt that sometimes it is convenient, like when your car breaks down, or you're out shopping for groceries and you can't remember if it was Winnie-the-Pooh or Disney Princess toothpaste you were supposed to get.
So smartphones are convenient. And everywhere. And most people seem to have a data plan or ready access to WiFi. And these devices are getting very powerful. So there's every reason to embrace the fact that these little computers will be around the office and lab, and get on with putting some handy, maybe even fun, geoscience on them.
My talk, the last one of the meeting I blogged about last week, was a bit of an anomaly in the hardcore computational geophysics agenda. But maybe it was a nice digestif. You can read something resembling the talk by clicking on the image (above), or if you like, you can listen to me in this 13-minute video version:
So get involved, learn to program, or simply help and inspire a developer to build something awesome. Perhaps the next killer app for geologists, whatever that might be. What can you imagine...?
Just one small note to geoscience developers out there: we don't need any more seismographs or compass-clinometers!
FLOSS, apps, conferences, technology in Apps, Software 
Reader Comments (2)
Have you guys ever tried your Agile Apps on a tablet? I'm not too familiar with the Andriod tablets, but I've heard of the Galaxy Tab and some Motorola thing. Being a lover of all things Apple, I am more familiar with the iPad than the competitors myself.
Anyway, thinking in terms of a Tablet App might just change the way you look at what is possible or even desirable in mobile computing. The bigger screens are such a joy to use, and it's actually not painful to do stuff like draw, use office-apps (word, excel knock-offs), read things; just about everything is a better experience.
In my experience at work I've noticed that iPads are not just replacing Laptops (which they are), but now people who are tech-useless are getting on board with them too.
If you are planning to add more visual components (mapping, graphing, plants-versus-zombies style games with different rocks maybe?) to your apps in the future, you might want to explore what is possible on the bigger screens!
@Reid: Yes... I have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 on pre-order. No doubt it will be late. I am sort of dreading seeing our apps on there, to be honest. They are essentially haute couture, built solely for my phone, and at least tested on Evan's too. I'm sure a professional developer would weep to even think about almost any aspect of how we build software. So the Tab will be a big 'learning experience', I'm sure.
From what I've heard, it sounds a bit like corporations are more well-disposed towards tablet. I guess because they seem a little more like laptops. So I agree — I think they'll be everywhere within a couple of years.