Lots of people ask, “Why is ShopSavvy more popular than _____?”  As the second most popular application is Google’s Android Market, we thought it might be important to give credit where credit is due.  The answer is simple, “Because we have a great partner – T-Mobile.”  Every T-Mobile store in the US and UK has a kiosk that highlights the G1 and more importantly (at least to us) ShopSavvy.  Check out a couple of versions:

The original kiosks:

(note: ShopSavvy on the right side of the display)

(note: of course the first version wasn’t perfect, the barcode wouldn’t scan – i.e. it was fake care of the marketing folks)

The Christmas kiosk version:

(note: the barcode is gone, and a screenshot from ShopSavvy replaces it)

Also, lots of literature from T-Mobile showcases ShopSavvy:

Thanks T-Mobile! What an amazing partner you have been…

Lots of first time ShopSavvy users send emails asking, “How do I get local results for items I scan with ShopSavvy?“  When I say lots I mean HUNDREDS of users.  I figured it was worth a simple blog post.

If you are like most ShopSavvy users with issues getting local results, you just bought your G1 and spent the better part of an hour scanning random items in the mall.  These first few scans are made before you figured out how to turn on the GPS or WiFi (or before the phone has been able to connect to either at least once).  This means WE don’t know where you are – i.e. so we can’t deliver a local result to you.  There are a few things you need to check:

• You must be in the US or UK to have a chance at local results (in January local results will also return in Germany, Austria, Poland, Holland and the Czech Republic).
• You must have the GPS turned on and it needs to have made at least one good connection (go outside if necessary).
• You must be in a populated area.  Most major stores are already included in ShopSavvy, but small mom and pop stores most likely are not included (they can get in ShopSavvy by adding themselves to Google Base or contacting us directly).

So if you are having problems open the map application and make sure the phone is able to pinpoint your location on a map.  If it can and you don’t get local results on ShopSavvy reboot the phone.  If that doesn’t work and you are in an area with stores like Walmart, BestBuy and Circuit City please email us at support@biggu.com – please include: a) your ZIP, b) the UPCs of several items you scanned (look in your history tab) and c) let us know when you bought your phone and confirm you have checked that the GPS is on and is working.  Thanks!

Why so many updates all of a sudden?  A lot of work went into the latest 3.1.0 release.  One of these items was a handy little feature for the app to “call home” in the background in the event of a crash and send us debugging information.

Now that 3.1.0 is out, it’s already calling home about some obscure bugs.  ShopSavvy is a large program (by mobile standards) and is under constant development, so there are likely to be a few edge cases that we fail to catch in the lab before each release, but with our new error reports we can knock them out quickly and push updates.

We’ve spent Christmas eve morning fixing several of the little buggers, a couple of obscure wishlist crashes, and a few other things.

Okay, we think the Mothra bug somehow affected about 10% of users who updated ShopSavvy. The bad part is that it didn’t affect any of our phones.  Anyway, we pushed an updated version to the Market: 3.1.2 – hopefully this will resolve the issue.  If we keep getting complaints about crashes we will revert back to our last stable release 3.0 tomorrow.  Keep us posted if you have problems.

So, our BIG bug fix release called Mothra seems to be hiding a really annoying bug.  When you scan something the application quits.  It only happens on some devices.  If you REBOOT (hold the red button down for ten seconds or so) after you install the new version the problem seems to go away.  Anyway, we will be ‘fixing’ Mothra shortly.  Damn Japanese monsters!

I am pleased to announce that we are releasing version 3.1 of ShopSavvy – code name: Mothra later today.  Our development team has been VERY busy since our 3.0 release last month.  Our latest version is the result of more than 340 commits to our SVN since 3.0.  Unlike our last release which was full of new features, Mothra is all about usability and bug fixes.  Here are just a few of the fixes:

• Improved memory management – some of you noted that ShopSavvy would crash unexpectedly.  We realized that we were not optimizing images well and as a result ShopSavvy would crash periodically.
• Usability improvement - we changed ‘title search’ to the default instead of ‘manual UPC’ entry.  Now if you can scan for a barcode simply select ‘use keyboard’ and you are asked to enter the title of the item you are searching for.  Hopefully this will increase the utility of ShopSavvy when we can’t find a UPC. (future improvements coming)
• New versus Used filtering – some of you complained that we showed used and new prices in the same results.  This created confusion.  We now offer filtering.  You can show just new, just used or both together.  Hopefully this helps.
• Wishlist improvement – many of you noted that if you added more than 20 or 30 items to your wishlist ShopSavvy would crash and you would lose your wishlist data.  Ironically, this was a result of our poor handling of images.  The memory management improvement fixes this.  Now you can add more than a hundred items to your wishlist without fear of losing your data.  (future improvements coming here too)
• Graphic improvements – you won’t notice, but we improved various icons, colors and images.
• Camera speed – you will notice the camera is now much faster.
• Price Alerts – you can now set price alerts in your native currency (previously UK folks could only enter alerts in dollars).
• Server Side Improvements – trust us, lots of improvements here.

Hopefully our beta testers (3.0.4 and 3.0.5) found all of the bugs. For those of you who participated in the beta – THANK YOU! Let us know if you find any problems with Mothra by emailing support@biggu.com – Thanks for your continued support!

According to Valleywag, Googlers usually get a cash bonus during the holidays ($20-30K) this year the company has decided to give each employee (well most of them) an Android phone (the HTC Dream – marketed by T-Mobile as the G1).  Of course some people are suggesting Google is being cheap; I contend they are overlooking one important fact.  Each Googler can now download ShopSavvy for free (a $20-30K value)!  Here is the internal Google memo:

Googlers,

The holiday bonus is a Google tradition – it’s a great way to thank everyone for their hard work. In the past, we’ve done this in cash. This year, we’ve decided to give Googlers a different kind of present – a Dream phone (this is the same device T-Mobile markets as the G1). We’re really excited about getting the phone to more Googlers in more countries, and also seeing all the cool new things you do with it.

Shipping these special edition phones in such a short time frame (they were designed especially for Googlers with a ‘droid’ on the back) and making sure they would work anywhere in the world was no small feat. So a big thank you to the Android and Legal teams for making this happen. While these phones do not have SIM cards, they are unlocked so they can be used with the network provider of your choice. Plus – thanks to more fancy footwork from the Android team – they’ll work immediately as WiFi devices!

Sadly, despite all our best efforts, there are some countries – India, China, Brazil, Korea, Israel, Russia, Argentina, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mexico, Turkey, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Egypt, Chile, and the Ukraine – where even our legal team could not work their magic. Googlers in these countries will receive the cash equivalent of the phone in their December paychecks, which is about $400 USD. Overall though almost 85% of Googlers globally will be able to receive the phone – including the United States, Western and Central Europe, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Japan.

The holiday gift team in your office will be sending out an email with logistical information on distribution shortly. We know that some of you are already on your holidays – don’t worry – your phones will be waiting for you when you come back! For more information, check out the FAQ here.

Some of you will of course be wondering why we decided to change from a cash bonus to the Dream phone. Here are the reasons. First, we’ve never developed anything like the Android software before and this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement. Googlers globally have been asking for the Dream phone and we’re looking forward to seeing all the different things that you do with them. This is a chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better! Second, as we discussed in our email this week, the current economic crisis requires us to be more conservative about how we spend our money. We felt that giving the Dream phone would be a great holiday present – something we could all celebrate.

Thank you for all that you do to make Google the company that it is. We hope that you will enjoy using your Dream phone in 2009 and have a very happy holiday!

Of course there is no justice or silverlining for Googlers living in India, China, Brazil, Korea, Israel, Russia, Argentina, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mexico, Turkey, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Egypt, Chile, and the Ukraine won’t get the Android phone (you guys only get $400 and NO ShopSavvy).

Check out keyboard software on the G1:

According to Phandroid, Garmin (the GPS company) is releasing an Android based mobile phone in the second half of 2009.  Read more here. This is not a picture of the phone:

The guys at http://android.a0soft.com/ have a new Android application called aTrackDog.  The stated purpose of the application is to help you make sure that you have the latest version of each third-party application installed on your phone.  Basically, the application sends information about the installed version of your application to the a0soft.com servers.  The servers then see if any user has a more recently version number and notifies all other users of their software that there is a more recent release.

aTrackDog has a MAJOR design flaw: if a beta user who is also an aTrackDog user has a beta version of your application on their phone – ALL aTrackDog users get an alert indicating they are running an out of date version of the software despite the fact that they have the most recent public release.  Starting on Friday we began getting emails from aTrackDog users who complained that they could not download the latest release of our software.  Our current version is 3.0.0, but aTrackDog showed that our most recent version was 3.0.5 (an internal alpha version).  We DO have a public beta running at 3.0.4, but the most recent public/stable release (i.e. the one in the Market) is 3.0.0.  aTrackDog is listing 3.0.5 as our latest release so each aTrackDog user receives an alert that they need to update their version of ShopSavvy.  Our users are becoming more and more frustrated as their emails reveal.

Rylan exchanged several emails with ‘Gasolin’ at the company who makes aTrackDog who suggested that we need ask our beta users to click ‘Not Track this version’ in the aTrackDog settings.  Rylan tried to explain that we have no control over what our beta users do or do not do.  If a single beta user fails to select ‘Not Track this version’ in the aTrackDog settings ALL aTrackDog users will get a notice that they are missing an update and the emails will start again.  Ug!  IMHO: This is a design flaw.

Rylan finally explained to Gasolin in the forth or fifth email exchange, “I think your method of version tracking is very clever.  You managed to let your users’ phones do the difficult data-collection for you.  Unfortunately your strategy is not 100%, it’s not sustainable.  When there are 10,000 applications in the Market and half of them are releasing private versions how will you handle the flood of support emails and admin emails coming your way? I recommend that you change your model such that it includes some sort of review process first.  When a new version is submitted to your database, before you notify the world, you should go verify its existence first.  This would include either finding it in the Market or updating the URL for manual download.”

Rylan is much more reserved than I would have been.  Here are the two biggest problems with aTrackDog IMHO:

a. Any decent application (most that we have seen in the Market, including ShopSavvy) has their own simple version checking system.  With fewer than ten lines of code the application developer can have your own application check to see if there is an update and allow for a quick, single click update.  Why would you need a third-party application to do this for you?

b. The REAL purpose of the aTrackDog is to gain market intelligence – i.e. how many users are running which applications.  This data is VERY valuable, are they paying you for this data?  My advice?  Uninstall the application as it isn’t useful and will likely cause confusion. Otherwise, suggest they FIX the beta-bug in their process.