[Legend General] mikereidis:
:) Absolutely not ! Just may not post much when deep in "the machine".

I KNOW this will work when the audio routing mystery is solved, so I've gone ahead and started on a radio app. It's minimal at present but it:

- controls power on or off

- changes and displays volume

- changes and displays frequency

- scans up or down

- shows RSSI (signal level) as expected when a station is tuned in and the antenna is moved

Sooner or later the audio routing will be solved, and I hope to have an app ready to go at that time. At present it requires a few kluges that require root access. The app development is giving me a nice break from racking my brains over audio routing.

A few days ago I started a "monster" thread in the general Android development section documenting what I've learned about the TI FM Radio and asking for some technical assistance.

So far not a single response to my 10 monster posts of technical info. But that's OK cause I'd prefer to clean up some of that before the thread gets too much notice. And please note, developer type posts only on that thread. I've seen several other threads for different devices using the TI FM Radio, so I think a cross-device thread is appropriate for devs to share info.

And yes, I want my app to be usable on many other devices, whether they use a compatible TI chip, or the even more popular broadcom line.

So far I haven't tried reverse engineering using one of the stock ROMs mostly because I have just the one phone and it's really handy to keep it in operating condition. I'm mostly been "forward engineering" searching for datasheets and assembling all the info I can find from various internet sources. But I also examine binaries on my CM7 ROM and those I can find on the internet.

I also need to get some bluetooth devices. Some of the TI code indicates the FM radio may be capable of internally transferring audio to and from (for Tx!) bluetooth from and to the radio. So the audio data might never leave the chip, meaning that just standard chip commands might be able to do the routing.

I'm putting over 12 hours per day, 7 days per week into this project. I hope to find a way to make at least a meager income from this over the next 3-6 months, so I can continue. Suggestions on that front are welcome, but I think it'd be via sales in the Android app marketplace(s).

I DO feel I see massive benefits in making apps open source. It's one way I think the lone developer can stand a chance in a marketplace full of larger entities than a single person. Biggest question with open source, though, is how to make money.

But I guess even with open source, one can still place a non-free App in the marketplace, and people might pay and download either because: (a) they want to support the project, (b) they want ad-free or (c) enhanced versions or (d) latest updates or (e) support or (f) they might not even know an APK is downloadable somewhere..

Currently, the GUI of the app is built with Android App Inventor, a somewhat Visual Basic like visual development tool. Unfortunately AppInv has serious limitations at present, but so far I've managed to work around them with scripts and an extender. If the AppInv "Source" (really, a diagram, LOL) was made open I think it could be interesting to see what other people make from it. I could supply the scripts/API, documentation, investigation, support, etc.

So, so far I REALLY like the easy GUI design and end-user (non dev) modifiability of App Inventor. But so far there are very few paid apps out there built with AppInv.