Enabling the Ecosystem is a series of interviews with those people and firms that are helping to build the overall Android ecosystem.

This week's interview is with Andreas Schobel, CTO of Snaptic, makers of the 3banana note-taking application. 3banana, unlike an ordinary note-taker, offers integration hooks to allow third-party apps to add and manipulate notes.

AG: So, what is 3banana Notes, and why is it important to Android developers?

AS: 3banana helps users capture information in a note-taking application wherever they are, and helps them make the most of that content. Users can save text, photos, location and keep notes organized by easily adding a #tag. Notes are securely backed-up to https://snaptic.com.

What is really nice for developers is that they can add the ability to capture notes in their apps with only a few lines of code. You can find out about more integrations at: https://snaptic.com/gallery/.

AG: How does an Android developer tie their app into 3banana Notes?

AS: The easiest way is to use our Intents. With a few lines of code a developer can quickly save text, photos, and location and then be able to get back a list of their notes. You can find out more at http://github.com/snaptic.

AG: What restrictions does this integration place on the developer's own application? For example, does 3banana Notes require an Internet connection and will cause problems if the developer's app tries to create a note when no Internet connection is available?

AS: Being able to access your notes offline with 3banana is something we are really proud of. Offline access means your notes are always available, and if the user decides to turn on sync, everything gets securely backed up when you are online again.

More generally, besides needing 3banana installed on the phone, the only restriction would be the scenario of needing 3banana online to save and edit notes. However, because we offer offline usage, this restriction doesn't exist. The next time the phone is online, everything will sync and resolve.

AG: What sorts of notes can a developer create? Plain text? HTML? Images? Sounds? Other file formats?

AS: We support text with some HTML, photos, and locations.

Part two of this interview comes tomorrow!