I’m quite excited by the idea of the new Android TMobile G1.  Mostly, because I’m an existing TMobile customer, so there’s no great pain for me to switch to try this device (if I’m willing to give up my Blackberry, which has treated me quite well).  But, I’m a big believer in the future of this Google platform, and the promised openness.  The SDK integrates into my exciting development platform, Eclipse.  I already a believe in Amazon’s DRM-Free MP3 store.  (Anyone who purchases music online, and cares about the future compatibility of their purchased music should be using Amazon’s MP3 store.).  I’m a fan of Gmail.  Basically, I’m probably the target market for this first generation device.

Anyway, here’s my first idea for an Android application.  Who, knows, maybe this exists on the phone already.  Anyone out there, feel free to implement this idea, as I have no time until after November.

I use Picasa and Flickr for storing my photos online. But what I’m about to propose should be built with plug-in extensibility in mind, so that people can create the ability for it to work with ANY online photo sharing site that supports 3rd party access.

I’d like my phone to connect to the Internet (at set times, or set ranges), and synchronize the latest albums/galleries for offline use (because we know the 3G network is going to be limited).  These images would then be available on the device anytime I wanted, instead of relying on 3G network.

So, this software would:

1) Manage an offline cache:  the physical size allocated for local storage, or based number of offline galleries the user would like to keep available.

2) It would then connect to Internet, while not being used, and fetch appropriately sized images for local viewing

3) Optionally, apply some sort of photo frame for visual for eye-candy, whether this is a simple drop shadow, or something more complex and configurable like a fancy sloppy border photo frame.

4) Support lightweight plug-ins that can work with any online-photo sharing site.
5) Open source, available at code.google.com so developers could quickly build plug-ins for all available photo sharing sites.

Anyway, just thinking out load, and thinking of the possibility of an open platform that smart people want to develop for.