We know there is a huge demand for the ShopSavvy experience on the iPhone and we have been working on an iPhone release for some time. Our biggest hurdle has been to perfect barcode scanning using a fixed focal length camera. We are very close to finalizing our solution called Meatloaf. We looked at various ’server-side’ options - i.e. taking a photo, sending it to our servers here in Dallas and then sending the results back to the phone - but we determined that the ‘live’ scanning that our Android users are accustom to was the right direction. We had to come up with a solution that was 100% accurate and FAST - we call the project Meatloaf.
Many of you have surmized (via email and even on TechCrunch) that we will be able to launch on the iPhone 3Gs since it has a variable focal length camera (10cm). While our current solution would work fine on all of the new iPhones it would leave the 40,000,000 existing devices (Apple’s number, not mine) without a solution. Meatloaf; however, will work on both fixed and variable focus cameras - 100% coverage on all current and legacy devices.
Meatloaf will be even more important on Android because, as some of you likely noted, more and more Android handsets will ship with fixed focal length cameras. For example, AT&T is launching an Android phone called the HTC Lancaster which sports a ‘2 mega-pixel fixed focus camera’. Ouch. Any Android application that relies on the ‘traditional’ camera we have come to know and love on the G1 and Magic will be DOA on the AT&T devices. AT&T is the second-largest mobile provider in the US and the largest smartphone provider - your Android app needs to work on their phones, period.
Along with an updated solution for barcode scanning, the iPhone version of ShopSavvy will get a complete UI makeover. Smartphones are not equal and they each have strengths and weaknesses. Porting ShopSavvy over from Android would leave a lot to be desired so we spent a LOT of time making sure that ShopSavvy took advantage of all of the iPhone features and UI users have come to know and love. ShopSavvy is still ShopSavvy, but it is optimized for iPhone. Make sense? Here is a screenshot to give you an idea:
We are looking for local (i.e. local to their country) country managers to help us add online and local retailers to ShopSavvy. Our mobile price comparison application is one of the most popular on Android in the US and UK, but we need help everywhere else. It was easy to add retailers in the US since we live here, figuring out which to add in Australia is a lot harder for us. That is where you come in. Watch this short video and if you are still interested fill out our short application.
Several of you have asked that we host another AndroidDevCamp here in Dallas. How about we host a MobileDevCamp (iPhone/Android/Palm) on a Saturday sometime this summer? Maybe July or August?
My thought is that we host a three track event:
Keynote: 10AM
Track 1: iPhone
11:00-11:30AM Session One iPhone
11:30-12:00AM Session Two iPhone
12:00-1:00PM Lunch/Break (Together)
1:00-2:00PM Workshop (Together)
2:00-3:30PM Session Three iPhone
3:30-4:00PM Session Four iPhone
4:00-5:00PM Networking/Drinks (Together)
Track 2: Android
11:00-11:30AM Session One Android
11:30-12:00AM Session Two Android
12:00-1:00PM Lunch/Break (Together)
1:00-2:00PM Workshop (Together)
2:00-3:30PM Session Three Android
3:30-4:00PM Session Four Android
4:00-5:00PM Networking/Drinks (Together)
Track 3: Palm Pre
11:00-11:30AM Session One Pre
11:30-12:00AM Session Two Pre
12:00-1:00PM Lunch/Break (Together)
1:00-2:00PM Workshop (Together)
2:00-3:30PM Session Three Pre
3:30-4:00PM Session Four Pre
4:00-5:00PM Networking/Drinks (Together)
If you are interested in hosting one of the sessions please ping me ASAP. Just explain what you plan to discuss and tell me a little about yourself (a short bio would be nice). Email: amuse@biggu.com
We need your help! We get one or two emails each day from users who can’t find ShopSavvy in the Android Market. There are mentions of this problem in the Android Market support forums, but our contacts at Google can’t replicate the issue (we were able to replicate it once very early on, but not recently). This is worrisome, because most users won’t even realize that ShopSavvy is missing because they aren’t looking for it. How many downloads are we missing? No one knows.
We get lots of emails - positive and negative - and we have learned to take many of them with a grain of salt. But yesterday, our friends at Amazon reported the ‘missing Android app issue’ and they were adamant that ShopSavvy was missing from their Android Market application.
How can you help? Please visit the market right now. Look under All Applications and sort by popularity. Take a picture of that screen (screen grab or just a plain photo) and email it to support@biggu.com - let us know if ShopSavvy was missing. Your help is much appreciated. If we can replicate the problem on a large scale a) we will know there is a real problem and b) our friends at Google might be able to figure out what is going on. In the meantime if you don’t have ShopSavvy and can’t find it in the market just Download ShopSavvy Here.
Update: lots of you have reported the problem since this post. Thanks for your help. Here is an example of ShopSavvy missing from the Android Market:
The ever popular open source phone platform, Android, will make its way onto AT&T sometime this year. They plan to offer Android on the HTC Lancaster handset. Lots of details on Gizmodo. Here is a picture of the phone:
FYI - some commenters suggest that ShopSavvy won’t work due to AT&Ts decision NOT to include a variable focal length camera. Not so fast! Our work on project ‘meatloaf’ - i.e. getting ShopSavvy to work on fixed focal length cameras was originally done so that we could offer ShopSavvy on the iPhone. Thankfully, we can simply port that work back to Android and presto - ShopSavvy will work on AT&T phones! Rock!
Big in Japan builds cool applications for mobile devices, including Apple’s award winning iPhone and Google’s open source Android platform, think of us as the mobile idea factory. Our most popular application is ShopSavvy.
We need your help! We get one or two emails each day from users who can’t find ShopSavvy in the Android Market. There are mentions of this problem in the Android Market support forums, but our contacts at Google can’t replicate the issue (we were able to replicate it once very early on, but not recently). This is worrisome, because most users won’t even realize that ShopSavvy is missing because they aren’t looking for it. How many downloads are we missing? No one knows.
