Several beta testers commented that they thought we must have ‘bloated’ the code base to be able to deliver such a rich experience on Android. They couldn’t believe we could make an Android app as visually appealing as an iPhone app without really screwing it up. This is the farthest thing from the truth. The 4.0 code base is 98% new and is MUCH more stable than the old version. We use a stat tracking tool called Flurry to help us understand how users are interacting with ShopSavvy and I am please to be able share with you that the team has delivered a VERY low crash rate. Here is the latest chart from Flurry:
98% of the sessions didn’t include a single error or crash and 2% of sessions had only 1-2 errors or crashes. Our old rate wasn’t great and we didn’t spend much time publicizing it, suffice to say this very is relatively error/crash free. Of course our goal is to get to 100% error free. Our iPhone 4.0 version is STILL not this stable. Of course the best part about Android is the ability to be able to release as often as necessary – we released our beta on Sunday and then today we saw the errors detailed above and were able to resolve ALL of them in a quick update earlier today. I have no doubt we will uncover new bugs as users begin to explore new features and settings inside of the app – but I have give a shout out to Brian and the team for doing such a great job with this release STELLAR work!
Just a quick update to our beta testers (i.e. anyone who upgraded to 4.0). We have a new update in the market (posted in the last hour) that provides a quick fix for a couple of issues:
Live Product Feed. Lots of you liked the live product feed, but wanted the ability to turn it off. This is especially true for our European users with metered data plans. Great news, in settings you can select ‘live scan mode’ or ‘history mode’. In live scan mode you will see the scrolling ‘scans happen now’ screen. In history mode you will see the products you have scanned. Hopefully this solves the issue for everyone.
Localization. Now that we removed background processes – most specifically pre-fetch – we don’t know where you are until your phone has obtained a GPS fix. You guys didn’t like pre-fetch because it left ShopSavvy on in the background. We confirmed it didn’t harm battery life, but the battery meter showed it as a big battery waster (it wasn’t accurate). Anyway, we don’t want to fight this battle and decided to turn off the feature. Now we look at your phone’s country of origin and set the currency and such to it (i.e. help for UK and Germany users). Next in the settings menu we allow US users to add their postal code (this is coming for Europe too, but we didn’t have enough time to set it up for this release). Hopefully these two changes will mitigate this issue. UPDATE go ahead and enter your European postal code, while we can’t get lat lon – we can get close so add it and when we can get better resolution we will add it server side.
Hopefully you guys see that we are trying to build the best possible experience for users and when you have issues we will do our best to solve them. Take a minute and update the app market if you gave us a negative review related to either of these issues. Cool?
When Rylan entered ShopSavvy in Google’s Android Developer Challenge it was called GoCart. After ShopSavvy won the Challenge, T-Mobile told us they hated the name and hired a branding company to come up with something better. ShopSavvy was their choice and despite the fact that we liked the GoCart name, we decided getting millions of dollars in free advertising was worth making the change. Now that we are updating ShopSavvy on Android and the update is a complete departure from the old version of the app we decided to release the 3.6 version of ShopSavvy as GoCart in honor of the original name. So if you are a HUGE ShopSavvy fan and like the ‘classic’ version of the app – GoCart is for you. We are pretty sure you would prefer the new version if you gave it a chance, but instead of arguing with you we decided to give you exactly what you are asking for – both versions. Enjoy!
> GoCart (just like ShopSavvy 3.6)
> ShopSavvy 4 (similar to ShopSavvy 4 on iPhone)
In November we released ShopSavvy 4 on the iPhone and it was well received primarily because our older iPhone version sucked left a lot to be desired. Lots of our Android users were frustrated they weren’t getting the 4.0 update on their phones. To be honest we were VERY scared to update ShopSavvy on Android because it was, perhaps, one of the best known and most loved Android apps. ANYTHING we did would tend to piss off our loyal and numerous Android users. Back in 2009 we updated the icon and received hundreds of complaints (the original icon was for our old name – GoCart and didn’t make sense when we changed the app name to ShopSavvy). We knew ShopSavvy 4 was going to be hard for our Android users to swallow and we didn’t want to do anything to interrupt the holiday season. Now that the holiday season is over we decided to start rolling ShopSavvy on Android as a beta.
The response was overwhelming. People hate the new version. They don’t hate it because it is faster, uses less battery, has more data and supports more phones – they hate it because it is different. I received LOTS of calls and emails over the weekend from really distraught people. Interestingly, every phone conversation I had ultimately turned out pretty good. I explained why we made the changes we made and how we thought it would improve the app. Almost every user I talked to calmed down and was pretty intrigued by the update. The emails were less successful. Most users were stuck on one issue or another and could not be convinced that the new version was better. Users in the support forums were even more frustrated.
One important thing to remember is that when your app is popular (ShopSavvy has more than 10 million users) frustration voiced by a small number of users – in our case if only 1% of users voiced a concern via email or in the market you are hearing from 100,000 people. 100,000 negative comments can make you doubt yourself and your decision – I know we were burning up the phone lines this weekend. The truth of the matter is that 99% of users may actually like the update.
We will be officially launching ShopSavvy 4 on Android tomorrow and we are already working on giving users some options. The easiest option is to allow them to keep the old version of the app. We decided it would be fun to revert back to the original app name and icon – GoCart – so that our most ardent fans could keep the old version. It doesn’t work as well, it doesn’t scan blurry codes, it doesn’t follow current Android conventions and eventually it won’t work at all.
So, if you are a current Android user I apologize in advance for the change, but we really believe this change is for the best. We hope you will give the new app a chance.
Developers with qualified applications can use the fourth row AdOns to promote their applications. Sold on a pay-per-download model we only present your app to users who would actually be interested in downloading your application. Displayed as an option in the ‘fourth row’ of ShopSavvy our program is available on iPhone and Android. We can’t guarantee millions of downloads, but we can guarantee your app will only be presented to users when it is relevant to their current activity. In the past we have experimented with paid download programs with limited success. Even the best program only yielded one actual user per 16 downloads. We believe our targeting will result in REAL users who actually want and need your application.
• If you are a brand whose products have UPCs and want to promote your app this program is for you.
• If you are a retailer who sells products with UPCs and want to promote your app this program is for you.
• If your app has information about products with UPCs this program is for you.
• If your app is related to a brand with UPCs this program is for you.
How much? If your app is free we charge a $1.00 per download; for paid apps we can give you a quote – just let us know. Please complete this form (or email sales@biggu.com):
ShopSavvy collects a LOT of product photos. In November we released the 4.0 version of ShopSavvy on the iPhone and gave every user the ability to edit any product photo they wished. Lots of you have contributed product photos. There are more than 21,086,705 product photos in the system today. About one per minute gets added by users. Today we are using 97,858 user generated images that are available to all users.
ShopSavvy 4 on Android is currently in beta, but watch out! When our entire user base has the ability to add/edit new product photos we expect the rate to increase four fold. Feel free to add/edit any photo in ShopSavvy. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Here is the breakdown of what is new in the updated ShopSavvy beta on Android:
- Product search enabled from anywhere inside of the app using the hardware search button.
- Different widget functionality.
- Fixed the homescreen design for the Galaxy Tab and other large screen devices; recently scanned products should now load in the correct place.
- Worked on background processing for editing a product picture/store/price/title.
- Should fix several reports of slowdowns we received from end users and give us much better pictures from G1 and other small devices. This probably needs the most testing for this release.
- Fixed the GPS issue that was causing the GPS to stay on with various phones, including the Samsung Fascinate.
- Fixed several homescreen crashes from the recent scanned products gallery.
- Fixed QR code problems, QR codes of all kinds should work now.
We are aware of the crashing issue on the MyTouch 4G. We’ll need to find someone with one so we can test and figure out what is going wrong (T-Mobile? Any help?) We had six bug finders who are getting t-shirts. Be the first to find a bug and we will send you a ShopSavvy t-shirt! Download the beta here: http://bit.ly/shopsavvy4androidbeta
We just updated our beta to include both hi-res and low-res Android phones – so it should work on ALL Android devices with a camera. This beta is NOT for normal users – just those brave souls who want to help us squash the remaining bugs. Take it for a test drive and report your bugs to bugs@biggu.com – if you are the first to report a bug we will send you an official beta tester t-shirt. You will note that Android is getting a few cool features that our iPhone users won’t see for a few updates. Android makes it much easier for us to stay ahead. Anyway, let us know what you think. Download the beta here: http://bit.ly/shopsavvy4androidbeta
Well it is finally ready for beta testers (normal users should avoid this version). If you would like to help us out AND you have a newer Android phone like an Evo, Nexus One, Incredible and the Nexus S this build should work for you. (older phones will have to wait until the next build to work). Take it for a test drive and report your bugs to bugs@biggu.com – if you are the first to report a bug we will send you an official beta tester t-shirt. You will note that Android is getting a few cool features that our iPhone users won’t see for a few updates. Android makes it much easier for us to stay ahead. Anyway, let us know what you think. Download the beta here: http://bit.ly/shopsavvy4androidbeta
AdOns were first made available in ShopSavvy 4.1 and originally designed exclusively as our advertising framework. AdOns can leverage native features of the app using deployable HTML5 code. New features can be deployed without time consuming updates to the base application. Additionally, AB testing on the iPhone and Android is now feasible.
AdOns allow us to leverage UPC+GPS Pairs delivering coupons, rebates, warranties, games, facebook like programs, app promotions, targeted video, compare/contrast features, user generated content, loyalty card integration and so on. Finally, integrated with QuickPay, Adons can allow publishers to integrated a wallet into an app by simply dropping in our easy to use SDK.
