WhoIsNext

WhoIsNext is an android application which helps us to keep in touch with friends and relatives. This application I started implementing when I faced a situation where I was thinking of to whom I want to make a call next. From my call log it is very difficult to check whom I haven’t contacted in the recent past and when I contacted them. And I searched in the Android market for an app which helps me to keep in touch with my friends. But I couldn’t find a simple one. So I created one WhoIsNext. User can add contacts to this app and the app will sort the contacts based on the LAST_TIME_CONTACTED. So the app will show the contacts which are recently contacted on bottom, and contacts which the user hasn’t contacted recently will show up on top. Along with the contact name user can see when he contacted that person.

I am using the LAST_TIME_CONTACTED property of a contact to sort the contacts. But the problem is some of the Android devices don’t update this property. So this application won’t work in those devices for now. For more details visit this link.

So for the next version(1.1) I am planning to create a BroadcastReceiver which will update the LAST_TIME_CONTACTED property of the contact once a call ends. This will helps me to fix the problem without much rework. But there is one problem with this approach as both the device and the application uses the same property LAST_TIME_CONTACTED. If the device updates this property for SMS and email then the application can’t use this property as the application concentrates on calls.

In another version(1.2) I am planning to save the LAST_TIME_CONTACTED value to a custom variable. And update that using the BroadcastReceiver. In that way the application is not dependent on device specific properties.

You can check the source code of this application from my GitHub repo.

Update

I have implemented the BroadcastReceiver and storing the contact details to a file as part of the latest version(1.1). Now the app is independent of any phone specific features, so the latest version will work in any Android mobiles :)