You know how I love my phone like it was a sexy robot from the future? Well check this shit out. It’s also a full-blown GBA emulator, which with its massive AMOLED screen, and dual core processing, makes my Samsung way more awesome than I could possibly have conceived.

This is a screenshot from Tiger GBA running Advance Wars 2, on it’s original resolution (you can upscale but I like to kick it oldshool). The app integrates with a ROM downloader, where one can select ‘backups’ of the games they already own in order to play.

Legal note: it is against the law to download and play ROM backups of games you do not own. So play safe!

This is my second Android device, my first being an HTC Hero, whom I loved like a little brother. But I love my Galaxy like she’s a sexy robot from the future, trained to be awesome.

Given I’ll be spending the next couple of years with her, it’s important that I maximise all that awesomeness. For me, that boils down to the following areas:

• She needs to look attractive
• She needs to let me do my thing
• She needs to last ’til at least midnight
• She needs to be constantly surprising
• She needs to feel like she’s all mine

It’s quite possible to achieve these things from your Android device: it just requires a bit of time to work out your priorities, and sometimes the advice of a few well respected sources. Ultimately, it’s experience that leads to a happy relationship. By the way, yes, I’m still talking about mobile phones.

With all of this in mind, I think I’ve found my ultimate Android setup, the perfect relationship, if you will. So without further ado, I present to you my Ultimate Android Homescreen, a perfectly-tuned combination of sexiness, usefulness, battery life and entertainment.

At just three screens, she’s the most efficient I could conceive of – the product of several hours hard thinking!

1. The ‘Immediacy’ Screen - stuff you need right now
2. The ‘Entertainment’ Screen - stuff to feed your head
3. The ‘Productivity’ Screen - stuff to get shit done

A couple of things glue this all together: Tasker, and LauncherPro. I also advise JuiceDefender, but like all of the apps listed below, it’s not an essential. After all, this is more a ‘what worked for me could work for you’ article (like this one).

(click the graphic to view in fullscreen)

Whether you follow this exact recipe, or you choose to develop your own ultimate Android homescreen, I hope you’ll be very happy together, and I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

Though I have a full blog post detailing my Android setup (composed for immediacy, productivity and entertainment) in the works, I thought I’d share details of one of my favourite apps: Autodesk’s SketchBook Mobile.

With it, and my trusty BoxWave Capacitive Stylus, I’ve turned my handset into a mobile sketchpad. Here are the results:

Me, taken with the front-facing camera

Me, traced via SketchBook Mobile

So it’s pretty effective, right? I’m no Picasso, that’s for sure, but the app is a very handy addition to my mobile armory, and it’s one I’d recommend to anyone with a powerful enough device. Here’s their full product demo:

Oh yes, almost forgot to mention – this whole post, except for formatting and adding links, was completed on my handset itself via the official WordPress app. Suck on that, Apple fanboys!

It’s a swashbuckling shoot-em-up game for Symbian devices (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson) that uses a really unique marker-based mechanic: the coins in your pocket!

In AR mode, three coins laid out in a triangle become a desert island, and the surface they are on become the ocean. The idea is to stop waves of marauding pirates from stealing your buried treasure, so you must aim your device to blast the approaching galleons with your cannon, whilst avoiding their fire by moving (yes, moving!) out of harm’s way.

The more ships you sink, the more treasure you earn and the more power-ups you unlock. There are 30 levels in all, including battles with the Spanish Armada, drunken pirates and ghost ships. It costs 99p to download the full version, chargeable to your phone bill.

Here’s a video of the game in action!

As you’ve seen, the innovative approach that Optricks have taken with their markers mean it’s possible to play at any scale. You could use coins to keep the game small enough to play in the pub, or you could ‘upscale’ and use larger discs (like frisbees) to play with massive pirate ships. The best bit: the larger the markers, the larger the field of play, and the more immersive the player experience!

This is one of the best, most purposeful uses of AR that I’ve seen. There are too many use-cases where ‘the medium is the message’ – but in this instance the medium is what connects you to the content, rather than defines your experience of it. Great work Ian, Gavin, Marcus and Dylan.

Here’s the link again: AR! Pirates.

“I asked some of my personal heroes in mobile to write down their five most significant trends for the coming decade. All of them have been of great inspiration to me during this decade: for their ideas, visions, talent, the capabilities to adapt and the perseverance to succeed whatever the situation.”

Here’s the deck. Hit fullscreen for best viewing experience:

These are my five stand-out ideas from the presentation. What are yours?

Digital syllogomania:

Digital garbage collection becomes a (very) lucrative business
Slide 10 / Fabien Girardin / Researcher at Lift Lab

Sensors:

Mobile devices will have sensors added which will enable the capture of local data from temperature to noise and from location to who else is on the room
Slide 13 / Tony Fish / Entrepreneur

Cellular voice dies:

It truly becomes another form of data on the next generation data networks
Slide 30 / Kevin C. Tofel / Managing Editor at jkOnTheRun

Mobiles manifesting AI:

Fulfilling, at last, the vision of “personal digital assistants”
Slide 33 / David Wood / Principal at Delta Wisdom

New sonic experiences:

Augmented reality, 3D sound, will create new mobile audio formats and end user experiences
Slide 41 / Atau Tanaka / Director of Culture Lab