Cell phone multimedia app question

[rcfant89]

I have been frustrated by the lack of a multimedia messaging app or the difficulty/tediousness of the current ones. It seems to me like whenever you want to send a picture or video, there are tons of steps you have to go through (videos in particular). Open pictures, click picture, click share button, select app to use, enter recipient, send. That seems like a lot of steps to me and I'd love to have/make an app that would shorten the process.

Also, and more importantly, sharing videos sucks. I have unlimited data but when I try to send a video in a text message to somebody I get a stupid "Message size limit reached > Unable to attach file. File size too large" error message. I have unlimited data. There shouldn't be this dumb message. I know there is one app called "Kicksend" that lets you send messages without a limit but even that app seems very clunky.

I'd like to create an app that is centralized around sharing multi media. Pictures, videos, files, whatever you have on your device and want to send you can send. And in just a few touches. One idea would be a multi option screen and here's what I mean by that:

When you open the app, instead of clicking through 6 individual/different screens to finally send a file, one screen pops up with all those options. There are 6 lines and you click into each line to set the options. So you click the app and the configuration screen pops up with the following:

1st line: [File you want to send]
2nd line: recipient(s)
3rd line: message (if you want)

etc etc. You can include additional lines with additional options to make it an all in one place for all your multimedia transfer needs. So my main question is, how would one go about doing this? I am very good with computers but I haven't programmed any apps before. I've written a website with code a long time ago but that's about it. How difficult would this be and what would I need to have to get it done?

Apologies in advance, this might not be the right section but I didn't see a more applicable one.

 

[hang-the-9]

You can already to this in just a few steps, although the size and speed limitation would be an issue. A large file could spend hours being transmitted. First, Dropbox, install on phone, copy files to there. Second is email, you can go to the file on the phone, go to options and there is a send via email option there. Two steps, find file, send it. You can't really just code an application to copy the file, you need to first send it to a server, then the server would move the file over to the othe phone. I don't think you can send a file directly to a remote phone without something in the middle hadeling the connections and the file transfer.

About coding an app, depends for what platform. Look for books or websites on how to start, plenty of them around. I'm sure there is a Programming Android For Dummies book or two out there.

 

[rcfant89]

I don't think you can send a file directly to a remote phone without something in the middle hadeling the connections and the file transfer.

That is what I'd like to know. I don't see why you wouldn't but that has always been the issue I've had with sending media. Can anyone confirm for sure that this is 100% true? Obviously verizion (in my case) would be handling the connection but does anyone have to host the image or video that I send or does it simply transfer my packets from A to B?

 

[hang-the-9]

I don't think you can send a file directly to a remote phone without something in the middle hadeling the connections and the file transfer.

That is what I'd like to know. I don't see why you wouldn't but that has always been the issue I've had with sending media. Can anyone confirm for sure that this is 100% true? Obviously verizion (in my case) would be handling the connection but does anyone have to host the image or video that I send or does it simply transfer my packets from A to B?

For a "real" application that's a bad idea, especially for a phone. What if one of the phones drops the connection? How will you know when to restart the download again? What if it's on a slow connection? What if the battery runs out? You need a middle server to manage all that. There is a difference between playing around with things on your phone or computer and going past that to work on other people's systems.

The only time you have a direct connection to another system if it's on the same internal network as you. Even if you send something as simple as text it first goes through the service provider. So your app will have to connect to a central server, then route the file to another phone that has the same connection on it's side.