2900 days ago, I had an idea for an app that enabled phone-to-phone messaging without the internet.
I called it Tin-Can.
Tin-Can is a one-to-many messaging system like Twitter, but without using the internet. Messages hop between phones using BLE. There is no central database. There is no user registration. Usernames have a random string associated with them to ensure they are unique. You can change your username any time.
Tin-Can has likes/dislikes and threads. You can follow specific users, and you can export and share your data with someone over email/sms/etc.
Here's the backstory:
JakobVirgil tried to build it with me. We had a successful kickstarter, and raised $1800.
Watch the kickstarter video steve made. It's awesome.
Anyhow, JV hit a wall, and insomniasexx joined the effort with a mutual friend of ours. We finally got an Android version built and were featured in Ars Technica and I was interviewed on Marketplace Tech. Heady times...
Unfortunately, we had to use WiFi to sync at the time, and functionality was very fragmented across Android devices. Tin-Can kinda sucked.
However, time passed, and low energy blue tooth (BLE) arose as a uniform near field standard. I could not let Tin-Can die. After much time, effort, and wrangling with the Apple app store, Tin-Can is now available on iOS and Android. It is better than ever.
Try it out. Let's hope we never really need it!
Congrats on the progress, and I hope it works out!
Two of us have installed it on our Android phones down here, but we're not able to see each other's posts, I'm afraid. And searching for their user name doesn't bring anything up...