Full Version Update -> 1.5 GMAIL SUPPORT!!!

Posted by Alex Corbi | Filed under Updates

After a couple of weeks working on it , I am glad to introduce you this new version of Voice Alerts , I jumped from the 1.1.4 to the 1.5 because I consider the following new features as mayor changes:

Gmail support

Not only your SMSs and Tweets are being read by Voice Alerts, now there is also support for GMail emails.

Working on android to access the Gmail data is not that easy, or at least after lots of research I explain you the solution I came to:

With some regularity your android phone synchronizes its local information with the one stored in the cloud (GMail , Calendar , Facebook, etc…) If something has changed on your Inbox (new messages were received), Voice Alerts will notice it and will connect to the imap GMail server using the javaMail-android library. http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/

VERY IMPORTANT : You have to enable imap on your GMail account , for doing this, follow this link:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77695

It is also important to say that you need to have a data connection (Wifi, 3g, ) for this to work, I have tried to minimize as much as possible the data access to the GMail server so it doesn’t need to download lots of data draining your battery and data contract, in following updates I will be working on optimizing the whole procedure…

javaMail-android is a port for the mobile platform of a library that makes connecting to mail servers (POP, IMAP) and sending/reading emails quite easy. http://code.google.com/p/javamail-android/

Once the new mails are being retrieved from server, comes a difficult task: Filtering.

Emails are not like SMSs, some of them contain Html, some of them contains characters not so friendly for the Text-to-speech library to be read, they contain Multipart objects that represent Attachments or they are simply too long.

I have implemented some filtering algorithms that extract the relevant body info, but there are more improvements to do in this term. I would be glad if you report the bugs you find so I can improve this new functionality.

Your login data is not being stored somewhere else

You will ask yourself why you have to enter your gmail address and password in Voice Alerts again when the account is already registered on the phone. Well, I’ve tried to make the app read that information so you don’t have to enter it manually, but did not accomplish it.

I will be trying to get that working, but until that you have to enter your email address and password. I GUARANTEE you that the data is not being stored somewhere else than in your phone, Voice Alerts WILL NOT make an unappropiated use of you data, it is just for the javaMail login purposes. If the App would have malicious intentions i suppose Google would remove it from the Market.

Language detection

Not all your emails or sms or tweets are written on the same language, right? Sometimes you receive emails from English-speaking websites or your friends write you in German. This new version of Voice-Alerts uses dictionary files to detect which language is being used on the message body, so the correct language is being specified to the Text-To-speech library and everything sounds normal.

Shake to Stop

As i told, some emails are really long and sometimes is boring to listen to the robotic voice for 20 seconds, with this functionality (You can activate it on “General Settings -> Shake to Stop”) you can shake your phone and stop the alert, it works also with all of the Alerts (Sms, battery , Wifi , everything)…

When you shake your phone the voice alert will stop and your phone will vibrate a bit so you get some haptic feedback.

Bluetooth activation [EXPERIMENTAL]

If you use Voice Alerts mainly while you are driving, because you don’t want to have an accident while reading a SMS or an email, you will like this feature. Voice Alerts will automatically be activated as soon as your phone pairs with a handsfree device using Bluetooth.

This feature is still experimental because I have not yet tested it on a real device and it cannot be tested on the Emulator. So maybe it will not be working as expected, if you try it, please send me an email with your thoughts , either if it is working or not, I appreciate the feedback.

Share your impressions

So I hope you enjoy this new update, as already told, please contact me if you find bugs, or have new ideas about features or other improvements you would like to see. Or write me to say that everything works just great on your android phone…

And if you like the app, support it by leaving positive comments and rates on the android market. I will be improving the app constantly and introducing new functionalities on further versions, check the FUTURE ROADMAP to see what is coming!

Thanks.

Permalink | February 25th, 2010

7 Responses to “Full Version Update -> 1.5 GMAIL SUPPORT!!!”

  1. Carlos García Says:
    March 11th, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    hello, the option of activating bluetooth does not work.
    Connect and disconnect the handsfree but the program is not activated or deactivated.
    Does absolutely nothing.
    I have the latest version of the program.
    Thank you very much. A greeting.

  2. Alex Corbi Says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 2:37 pm

    Hi Carlos,

    Thanks for your feedback, i will check it out and fix it for the new update.

    Greetings

  3. TOMAS Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    hola,esta actualizacion de gmail es para poder leer el correo?gracias.

  4. Alex Corbi Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    Si, lee tus mails de la cuenta de gmail que le especifiques

  5. Nader Says:
    April 10th, 2010 at 9:30 pm

    Hello,
    I´ve bought this application a couple of weeks ago for my german HTC Hero. Since yesterday, I have a german HTC Desire. I can´t find this application in the market and if I scan the QR code I get an error message. Looking forwar for a fix.
    Thanks

  6. Oreste Says:
    May 2nd, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    Hi, the application read number for incoming call or incoming sms but not the name of the caller/sms sender. Why? Thanks.

  7. Alex Corbi Says:
    May 4th, 2010 at 6:15 am

    Hi oreste, i’ve detected a little bug concerning this issue, i am working for a fix i will upload as soon as i test it.

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