Lots of people ask me what I think of the various smartphone platforms. Rylan came up with a super hero for each smartphone. Here are his picks:
iPhone::Batman – is loved for his human limitations, gadgets, style and willingness to play by his own rules. The iPhone will continue to be loved by millions.
Blackberry::Wolverine – both are from Canada and are very old (80 years old I think). Neither are much to look at, but they are very scrappy. Both are notoriously difficult to work with.
Windows Mobile 6.5::Captain American – was once relevant during WWII, has no special powers and is generally irrelevant to most Americans today. Windows Mobile will continue to become less and less relevant.
Windows Phone 7::The Phoenix – rose from the ashes and is disturbingly powerful. Windows Phone has a real chance of being a hit.
Palm WebOS::Robin – forever in Batman’s shadow. At one point Robin died and was replaced. There is some hope for Robin as he did eventually become Nightwing. Perhaps with HP’s support WebOS has a chance.
Android::Apocalypse – has complete control over the atomic structure of his body, looks like a robot and has limitless potential. Android’s strength is also its weakness, it can be everything to anyone.
Symbian::Arm Fall Off Boy – was so lame he was rejected by all of the other superheroes. Enough said…
Our team is really kicking some butt on the ShopSavvy app. The progress we made this week was worthy of a blog post:
- We released substantial improvements to ShopSavvy’s scanner for 2G/3G iPhones. Sometimes it’s faster than on the 3GS. It is currently “In Review” in the App Store as Snappr. This is essentially our beta-launch. Once our live tests all check out, we will push it out as ShopSavvy proper.
- We released QR Code scanning for ShopSavvy on the iPhone (still “In Review” by Apple).
- Our Scanner SDK for the iPhone has 200+ developers integrating it in their apps and more than 400+ evaluating it! This week we added improvements that made it even faster and the load lighter on the server. With these new changes our servers can handle about 10x more load.
- We released our Ad SDK and it is now being distributed with our Scanner SDK.
- We released our Scanner SDK for Android.
- CNET Scan & Shop now has QR code scanning.
- CNET Scan & Shop now has AdMarvel ads integrated.
- CNET Scan & Shop’s mysterious force-close error has finally been discovered and fixed.
So Verizon launched a new phone called the Motorola Devour. We wrote a post last month explaining that the camera (non-AF) on the Devour did not allow ShopSavvy to scan barcodes. We have been working on a fix – i.e. blurry barcode scanning on Android. Last night we released a test app (found here: http://bit.ly/scannersdk-android) that allows a Devour user to test the scanner. We bought a Devour on ebay to test on, but when it arrived WiFi was inoperable (neither Verizon or Motorola had loaner devices available). Since we cannot test our new scanner on a Devour ourselves we thought we would ask Devour users to test it for us. Assuming it worked we would launch it in ShopSavvy tomorrow. Holy Cow – did I start a sh*t storm.
I posted a request for ‘beta users’ in the Motorola forums and the moderator there warned Devour owners “…this is not a supported Motorola test.” and “…this is a “buyer beware” situation and Motorola is not responsible for any fallout if something here goes wrong.” Ouch.
Then I posted my request for ‘beta users’ in the Verizon Devour forums and the moderator there immediately deleted my request and sent me this email:
I happen to know that hundreds of Devour users were SHOCKED to learn that apps like ShopSavvy wouldn’t work on their Devours. We spend hundreds of man hours creating a new scanning library that we think will resolve the issue on the Devour (as well as the HTC Tattoo and HTC Lancaster) and we just need some real world validation before we launch. We have 26 folks testing right now and hopefully we will have good feedback. If you have a Devour please try to scan a few items with our test app and email us at support@biggu.com with the results. Thanks!
UPDATE: Verizon let me know that they won’t allow developers to work with users to get their apps running:
Jake just checked in the updated (and tested) version of our free barcode scanner SDK for iPhone: http://bit.ly/scannersdk, please replace your existing files with these. There are a few bug fixes as well as a few treats (performance on 2G and 3G phones is now faster than 3GS). Enjoy! The Android SDK should be available tomorrow tonight (knock on wood) and our Blackberry and Windows Mobile version should be available any day.
We are looking for a new permanent home for the Dallas Startup Happy Hour (sponsored by Architel), but we have found a great location for this Monday’s event. The folks at CoHabitat have graciously offered to allow us to host the happy hour at their facility.
The Dallas Startup Happy Hour is the talk of the startup community in Dallas. Check out the coverage in the Dallas Morning News here: http://bit.ly/aKTJDq As a result of the events, several startups have found a) employees, b) co-founders, c) angel investors and d) had a few free drinks.
Who: This event is open to all DFW area startup founders, startup employees, investors, people thinking about doing a startup, etc. As a courtesy to everyone in attendance, we ask service providers to not just show up to pitch their services.
Last week we announced the launch of our barcode scanner SDK – i.e. so any developer can include barcode scanning in their iPhone app for free. We include a single ad after each scan based on the location of the user and the product scanned – we call it a UPC-GPS Intent Pair. Some of you asked to see a demo of the ad and I asked Jake to demo it for us. Here is the video:
Several of you assume that the barcode scanning library we released earlier this week is the same one we use in ShopSavvy. This is not the case. The current version of ShopSavvy uses our OLD library that doesn’t decode on iPhone 2G and 3G phones. We are in the process of ‘eating our own dog food’ and installing our library in ShopSavvy for release in the next few weeks.
Our new, free, scanning library includes a demo app that allows you to test our decoder before you install it. When doing your testing take a minute to play with the demo app and NOT ShopSavvy. You should be pleased with the accuracy and speed of 1D and 2D decoding on the iPhone 2G, 3G and 3GS.
We thought it might make sense to create a distinct home for our free barcode scanning libraries and thought http://www.freebarcodescanner.com would work. If you need a scanning library for your mobile app and you don’t have a lot of money, consider using our free library. We use it for ShopSavvy – the world’s leading price comparison application – I bet it would work for your project too.
Gina Trapani has a great piece in Fast Company that covers ShopSavvy titled, “Work Smart“. Here is a snippet:
Did you know that you could include barcode scanning in your app for free? We have released our barcode scanner SDK.
Our scanner library works really well on all flavors of iPhones (2G, 3G and 3GS). You guys are getting EARLY access to this new library (it isn’t even released on ShopSavvy yet). The SDK support 1D (UPC and EAN) as well as 2D (QR and Datamatrix) scanning.
If you previously requested it I emailed the link earlier today, for the rest of you feel free to download it right now. There is no cost, but you will need to execute our license agreement within 30 days.
If you have any questions please email support@biggu.com and include the following information: name of app, description of app, your name, email, phone and your issue. Support will be provided to all licensees (i.e. if you haven’t executed our license agreement please do so before requesting support).
We are really excited to see what you all come up with using our library – definitely keep us posted and let us know if we can help you be successful. There will be a second release of the library next week that includes some additional features (FYI – our license requires that you update within 30 days of a new release).
Our team is really kicking some butt on the ShopSavvy app. The progress we made this week was worthy of a blog post:
Jake just checked in the updated (and tested) version of our free barcode scanner SDK for iPhone: 
We are looking for a new permanent home for the Dallas Startup Happy Hour (sponsored by 
Several of you assume that the 