Posts Tagged ‘application’

ABSOLUT’s Drinkspiration Arrives for Android

This next post is strictly for those who are 21 years or older. No peeking kids! We're going to trust you here... ABSOLUT VODKA has just announced the launch of their Drinkspiration app for Android. Defined as an "interactive encyclopedia of recipes", the application helps users find and share drink recommendations based on a variety of conditions including location. “Have you ever found yourself in a bar without really knowing what to order? With Drinkspiration by Absolut, you’ll never have this problem again. Drinkspiration is your best friend in the bar, giving you guidance, personalized recommendations and an all-encompassing gateway to the drink universe, right in the palm of your hand,” said Fredrick Tallroth, The Absolut Company. Featuring over 400 drink recipese, Drinkspiration lets users get search for drinks based on taste, weather, time of day, bar vibe, sound volume, real-time drink trends and more. Twitter and Facebook integration let you share your location and drink choices so friends and family know about that Bloody Mary you're knocking back. The next time you find yourself in the store trying to figure out something to new to drink, break out Drinkspiration and get creative! Most Commented Posts Reuters: Nexus One Available Directly Through Google Website January 5 Reuters is reporting that a source of theirs indicates a January 5th date for the Nexus One to go on sale. They've been advised that it will be at a "reduced price to consumers who agree to a serv...

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Evernote Coming Pre-Installed On Samsung Android Phones

If you’re looking for a note-taking Android Application and ask around, chances are someone will direct you to Evernote . It does a lot more than just take notes: Evernote for Android is a free application that allows individuals to create notes, snap photos, and record audio. Users can instantly find any notes that were created on their phone, desktop computer, or the web. In addition, Evernote automatically makes snapshots containing printed or handwritten text searchable — great for business cards, whiteboards and wine labels. The company has joined forces with Samsung and many of the manufacturer’s Android handsets will now come pre-installed with the application. The Samsung Behold 2 for T-Mobile recently enjoyed a software updated and Evernote was included in the package, becoming the first to incorporate the new partnership. Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, commented on the development: “We’re incredibly excited to be working closely with Samsung on their line of Android phones. Android represents Evernote’s fastest growing mobile platform. This partnership helps Evernote reach a huge new audience with our promise of perfect memory for everyone.” I’m all for manufacturers and carriers pre-installing apps on their phones, often times reducing the burden for smartphone/android newbies to hunt down applications they might enjoy or find useful. Evernote definitely fits in that category. Any Evernote users? Chime in with your experience – both good and bad! [Via Press Release ]

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Tether(Berry) in beta for Android

Tether , formerly known as TetherBerry, has spent lots of time behind the scenes porting their extremely successful BlackBerry application to Android. Tonight is a great night for many that have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this beta. Tether has sent out emails to those that have signed up for their long awaited beta so that public testing can begin. This announcement comes shortly after they announced their 1st Birthday Celebration , which includes some amazing prizes, including 3 Android devices. If you are not signed up for this beta and want to sign up, point your mouse here , fill out the few pieces of required information and sit back and wait. At this time there is no word as to when more testers will be given the application, but keep an eye out for more information to come!

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Sobees Streamlines Native Twitter Client For Windows, Integrates Realtime Search

We’ve written about Twitter client Sobees, which is working to create the best social media client on the market, competing with both TweetDeck and Seesmic. Today Sobees is releasing a new version of its Windows native desktop app built in .NET, complete with realtime search, a redesign and more. The new client includes support for Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed and LinkedIn (which was added late last year). The most significant addition is the availability of realtime search on the client, with the ability to search Twitter, Friendfeed, OneRiot and FacteryLabs from within the application. Sobees integrated elements of its newly launched realtime web dashboard to power search in the client. Sobees has also added drag and drop technology for columns in order to change the place of a column within the client. Other technical updated include the ability to preview Tweets and maps, translate messages, and see pictures posted on TwitPic from within the Tweet. And Sobees will break out threaded conversations you have with friends. Sobees is competing in a crowded space where each client continues to innovate and offer users more options for managing their social media accounts and the reealtime web. For example, Seesmic has incorporated Ping.fm, to allows users to update more than 50 different social networks at the same time. And TweetDeck now incorporates YouTube and Flickr within its client. For now, Sobees doesn’t have any mobile clients but we are told that iPhone and Android apps are coming soon. CrunchBase Information sobees Information provided by CrunchBase

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Google Gesture Search Launches On Android Market

Last year at Google I/O, Romain Guy showed us a neat little Android Application called “Gesture Search” that allowed you to write shorthand of sorts to quickly jump to your intended destination. Think of your finger as a stylus and a single letter as a command. Or better yet, just check out these demonstration videos made by members of Android Forums: Google does an even better job at explaining it: Gesture Search lets you quickly find a contact, a bookmark, an application, or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items by drawing alphabet gestures on the touchscreen. Gesture Search continuously updates search results as you add each letter and improves search quality by learning from your search history. When you load the application you get a plain black screen and as you “swipe” letters one-by-one it displays search results as if you’re typing out a word and it’s refining the list as you go. It seems to work great and the idea is fantastic, but I wholeheartedly agree with 1080p/AlbertOrange (maker of the 2nd vid): “Right now it’s a novelty because it is a separate application that needs to be downloaded from the marketplace. Now if Google finds a way to integrate this into the core operating system… then we’ve really got something here.” Google is innovating so much in so many places they often leave certain ideas in the dust if they don’t catch on – I hope Gesture Search isn’t one of them. Here is what Google has to say about Gesture Search on their download page : Do you find it hard to find a contact or locate an application from a list of hundreds of items on an Android phone? Or do you find it stressful to search for an item by typing in its title while on the go? Gesture Search from Google Labs lets you search your Android-powered device by drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen. It allows you to quickly find a contact, a bookmark, an application, or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, all in one place. It is fast and fun to use. Gesture Search currently supports English and requires Android 2.0 or above . I bet the 1.x users are a bit bummed… sorry!

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Cell Fun » Experts Question Google Phone Business Model (PC World)

Recent Posts. 05 March 2010. Password Application Gives Wrong Info to Fraudsters (PC World ). 05 March 2010. Android Largely Unharmed in Google-China Row (PC World ). 05 March 2010. Experts Question Google Phone Business Model (PC World ) ...

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Google’s Gesture Search Gives You A New Way To Search Android

Android users have a new way to search their phones today, and it’s pretty damn cool. Google has just released a new application called Gesture Search that lets you search your phone’s contacts, bookmarks, applications, and music simply by scribbling out letters with your finger. No hunting and pecking — you just draw out each letter as if you’re finger painting. The new application is currently only available for devices running Eclair (Android 2.0, which is currently only found on the Nexus One and Verizon Droid). Using Gesture Search is quite simple. First, you boot up the Gesture Search application, which you need to download from Android Market. After installing it, your phone will prompt you to ask if you want to add the application to your home screen (which you’ll probably want to do if you intend to use it with any frequency). Tap the application, and you’ll see a black screen, where you’re supposed to start drawing the first few letters of your query. As you complete each letter, the application will refine your results. If you mess up, you can delete the last letter by drawing a horizontal line to the left (you can delete the entire word by swiping to the right). I’ve been playing with the new application, and the character recognition seems to work pretty well. It’s still too early to tell how useful this will be on a day-to-day basis, but it has potential. For one, it’s great for people who don’t like having to flick through long lists or use the phone’s integrated keyboard. And because everyone knows how to draw these letters by heart, it makes for a good way to search when you can’t keep your eyes on your phone (don’t take this as a recommendation to use it while driving, though — that’s never safe). CrunchBase Information Android Information provided by CrunchBase

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Android Market Gets A $13,000 Per Month Success Story Of Its Own

In the months following the iPhone App Store’s launch in July 2008, it became clear that the platform was turning into a gold rush. Success stories of one-man companies earning $250,000 in a few months became common. And even though the odds of striking it rich were clearly much lower than the media portrayed, a huge surge of developers started building iPhone applications. Android Market, where meager sales have been the norm, was left in the dust. Now Android Market is getting its own glimmers of hope. Edward Kim, who built the application “Car Locator” around five months ago, has just announced that he’s pulling in $13,000 a month from the application, which “started as a little side-project while [he] was vacationing with [his] family”. Kim writes that the free version of the application has been downloaded around 70,000 times, while the paid application has been downloaded 6,590 times. The price was initially $1.99, but he moved it up to $3.99 (he notes that despite doubling the price, the number of downloads didn’t decrease too much). So what was Kim’s secret to success? Well, a big part of it seems to have come from the fact that Car Locator is now a featured app on Android Market, which means Google more prominently displays it to users than ‘normal’ applications. Getting featured increased the app’s revenue by over four fold. This probably comes as bittersweet news to developers (you can’t exactly count on being featured by Google), but Kim says that he’s ranked between 100 and 200th place in the Market’s ‘Paid’ category, which means that there are probably at least 100 other applications seeing similar success. Android Market is still far behind the App Store in many respects (except for openness), but it looks like it’s finally starting to mature. Kim is very optimistic about the future of the platform, telling me “Android appears to have grown enough that developers can make some money off of it, but there’s not SO many developers that you’ll never get noticed.” Here are some of Kim’s other observations: The application was netting an average of about $80-$100/day, until it became a featured app on the Marketplace. Since then, sales have been phenomenal, netting an average of $435/day, with a one day record of $772 on Valentine’s Day. Too bad I didn’t have a Valentines date this year — we would’ve gone somewhere real special! There appears to be clear peaks on the weekends and during holidays. This was always my hunch, but I think I can finally say this with certainty since the signal-to-noise ratio is much better now. Some may be quick to point out that a featured Android application is only able to net $400/day, while top iPhone apps make thousands. But the Android market appears to rotate applications in and out of the featured apps list in some psedo-random fashion. Every time I open the Marketplace app, the featured list is different and most of the time, I don’t even see my app on there. The price of the application was increased from $1.99 to $3.99. I ran a few price experiments and was surprised to see that though I doubled the price of the app, the number of purchases decreased by much less than half. Android users appear to have a willingness to pay more than a couple dollars for apps. Piracy appears to be an increasing problem. A quick search for Car Locator on Twitter reveals links where people can download the .apk file without paying. I tend to have the same attitude on piracy as Balsamiq, so I’m not too worried about it, but I would love to hear some typical statistics on Android piracy. CrunchBase Information Android App Store Information provided by CrunchBase

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See, You Can Make Money with Android Apps

Hey look, a success story for an Android developer! We've been waiting for the day when a developer steps up and says, "Hey! I make pretty decent money from Android!" While it's not quite the runaway success that Trism was, Edward Kim is tickled pink with his app's performance. We're only too happy to share his story. Kim's app, Car Locator, started out as something he did on the side when he was on vacation. Fast forward about 5 months and just under 7,000 downloads later and his app is on pace to grab $13,000 a month . The free version of his app has seen over 70,000 downloads of its own as well. So what's the secret? Turns out, it might be Google. Car Locator is now a featured app in the Android Market. This means that you see the name and app more often than you do for other titles. You'll see the application sliding in and out of the front page of the market each time you open it up. Buy Car Locator for Yourself! In terms of overall paid apps, Kim estimates that he's somewhere in the ballpark of 100-200th. Can we assume that there are this many other developers enjoying a similar fate? Hard to say. The featured status is probably the key. It also doesn't hurt when you can put "3rd place in ADC2" in your app's description. Here's a couple of things pointed out by Kim on his blog : The application was netting an average of about $80-$100/day, until it became a featured app on the Marketplace. Since then, sales have been phenomenal, netting an average of $435/day, with a one day record of $772 on Valentine’s Day. Too bad I didn’t have a Valentines date this year — we would’ve gone somewhere real special! There appears to be clear peaks on the weekends and during holidays. This was always my hunch, but I think I can finally say this with certainty since the signal-to-noise ratio is much better now. Some may be quick to point out that a featured Android application is only able to net $400/day, while top iPhone apps make thousands. But the Android market appears to rotate applications in and out of the featured apps list in some psedo-random fashion. Every time I open the Marketplace app, the featured list is different and most of the time, I don’t even see my app on there. The price of the application was increased from $1.99 to $3.99. I ran a few price experiments and was surprised to see that though I doubled the price of the app, the number of purchases decreased by much less than half. Android users appear to have a willingness to pay more than a couple dollars for apps. Piracy appears to be an increasing problem. A quick search for Car Locator on Twitter reveals links where people can download the .apk file without paying. I tend to have the same attitude on piracy as Balsamiq, so I’m not too worried about it, but I would love to hear some typical statistics on Android piracy. Congratulations to Edward for his newfound success. We're sure you'll see an additional bump as a result of your story hitting the internet! Might We Suggest... 65% of Android Publishers are Located in United States We've seen figures from inside the Android Market. We've seen numbers that show Android's growth. Today, we get to see some numbers that give insight into the people behind the apps. Distimo's...

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AndroidCentral asks: What’s your favorite Android podcatcher? [Contest]

There's somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 applications in the Android Market. And every day we get e-mail after e-mail asking "What's the best app for this?"

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