Life as a Failed Android Developer

Teaser Post: This was drafted months ago and I just found it doing a sweep up-now regard it as a teaser post for a later app when I will cover the awesome Android marketing Skills Of the Legendary Kreci! :So life as a developer, now that I had 'cracked the big time!' I had to work hard time wise and thinking wise to get our app to market. Joao my business partner was already published on the Brazilian Android Market with
Our idea was that we would take his Portugese version of Hangman and add new categories and words to make an English version. All in all it probably took about three days of work on both our parts to get this to market.
Joao of course concentrated on the programming side and I used knowledge gained from a previous life as an English teacher to conjure up categories(transport; clothing;colours;food;animals and more to come in the future) and words. When my creativity ran dry I would turn to the internet for inspiration. But all the time vetting and editing to decide which words would go into the easy; medium or hard categories.
I would have found it a much less worthwhile task unless I had made some crucial desicions right at the beginning. I found it so important to have a design philosophy for this Android app. The overarching decision was that words would not just be categorised according to difficulty of spelling but also as to how obscure the words were.
The app was finally published on the Android market and now it remains to see how much of a success it will be. UPDATE: Not very! The free app has between 500-1000 downloads and the paid for app less than 5!
I think it's time to call in the expert on Android market optimisation Kreci- who we will certainly cover in a future post!

Augmented Reality Apps for Android

What is Augmented Reality?

Wikipedia defines augmented reality as :"Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented bycomputer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data."

What does Augmented Reality mean for Gamers

Augmented Reality Apps start to show potential

Games have been interlinked with technology for over thirty years now, and as anything when  a new technology emerges it can only be left to the imagination of the technology's promoters and the users of that technology as to how much can actually be done with it. With a modern smartphone , whether that be an Android or Iphone or any of the other popular names out there we are in possession of some very powerful technology. With our phones having rapid web connections , GPS, cameras and a host of other sensors and tech loaded on them the smartphone industry is filled with creative app developers who are taking our phones in awesome and exciting directions. This post will explore one of the more creative uses that of augmented reality apps and some of the best examples of augmented reality on phones today.
Augmented Reality for Travel

1. Wikitude World Browser

 

World Browser is an augmented reality browser based on location-based Wikipedia and Qype content. This is handy for planning your trips and finding about attractions wherever you visit. Using the GPS or by address functions including the “Augmented Reality” cam view can be used to search over three hundred thousand attractions

Layar

Layar is probably one of the best known augmented reality apps out there and is quite amazing in its functionality.

Get more out of AR!

Layar is a mobile app for discovering information about the world around you. Using Augmented Reality (AR) technology, Layar displays digital information called “layers” into your smartphone’s field of vision.

With the introduction of Layar Vision, these layers can now recognize real-world objects and display digital AR experiences on top of them. Interact with the world around you by scanning images, such as magazines, restaurant menus and advertising posters with Layar Vision.

As always, choose from our catalog of over 3,000 layers and experience the world like never before!

Samsung has chosen Layar as one of the applications to be pre-installed on certain Samsung devices, along with many other applications such as "Maps" and "Calendar." As per Samsung's policy, none of these pre-installed applications can be removed by the user and are automatically updated by Samsung.

Shopping with Augmented Reality

Of course such powerful smartphone  technology will always an dineluctably be used for commercial purposes , so we are going to feature one of the better know AR shopping apps.

The World's First Augmented Reality Voucher App!

Savings Within Sight!

vouchAR saves you more! With over 40,000 vouchers on our system you can find local discounts on Dining Out, Hotels, Bars, Event Tickets, Fashion & Beauty.

vouchAR connects to high street stores and local retailers.

Daily Deals from Groupon

vouchAR.net
twitter .com/vouchAR
facebook .com/vouchAR

Brilliantly you can just point the phone's camera and shops with discounts will show up!

VouchAr-Point your phones camera and find discounts!

Google Goggles

This AR app by Google has a special section all to itself as it really does change the way we see the world!

Search the real world by taking a picture.

Search by taking a picture. Goggles uses image recognition technology to recognize objects and return relevant search results. Identifies products, famous landmarks, storefronts, artwork, and popular images found online. Goggles can translate words in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese & Russian.

Google Goggles

Features:
- Scan barcodes using Goggles to get product information
- Scan QR codes using Goggles to extract information
- Recognize famous landmarks
- Translate by taking a picture of foreign language text
- Add Contacts by scanning business cards or QR codes
- Scan text using Optical Character Recognition
- Recognize paintings, books, dvd, cds, and just about any 2D image
- Solve Sudoku puzzles

Augmented Reality Games

Augmented Reality Driving

And Finally the AR games. We wouldn't be Gametrender if we didn't at least mention a  few.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but believe me these are all worth checking out. Playing an AR game on your smartphone is a unique and thrilling experience.

iSnipeYou

Droid Shooting

Look forward to reading about the future of  Smartphones

What Games can learn from comics

Suddenly

comics are cool again

, led by the massive charge of Spiderman a few years ago and suddenly the floodgates were opened with amongst many others including The Incredible Hulk and Ironman quickly becoming blockbuster movies.

Well not too long ago these geeky franchises were a far way from cool, their reboot and reinvention have pushed them to the height of uber cool. This process has made its way into games in recent years with sequel after sequel bringing something new to the table.And the occasional total change such as with recent Batman games and the upcoming Tomb Raider totally recooling their franchises. Well we believe that its time for developers to revent some of their best products for the smartphone  market.Our

Android phones

and Iphones are desperately needing cool and interesting franchises It couldn’t be easier or cooler, so get to it developers.

App gaming goes to the Movies

Ever since the first pixel ponged off of a virtual bat and the first time an invader entered our space, video games have been founded on the twin pillars of fun and technology. Gamings swift rise in the use of technology is remarkable and very similar, but much swifter then the early days of film.
Movies over a series of decades progressed from black and white silent film, to many tens of years later soundtracked colour films and eventually the third dimension as we have it today.
Video games quickly rose from black and white symbolic graphics to the almost photo quality, three dimensionally capable, gesture controlled, triple aaa soundtracked, hundreds of million selling franchises that we have now.
But for both forms of entertainment we seem to have a new is better attitude. A new game or movie will come out and all the hype, hyperbole and excitement surrounding it will push thoughts of other old games out of our heads.
In the movie industry, whilst not desirable, it is not damaging to the industry. The reason why is that in the course of a year an unfeasibly large amount of blockbuster movies aren't released. There are enough released that they can co exist quite contentedly together. If a patron wants to watch all of a seasons top movies then it is quite possible that they can. It is also quite feasible that older but no less brilliant movies like Star Wars and The Godfather et al can also exist and be viewed alongside the latest blockbusters as the weight of their names has enshrined them in the public consciousness, to such an extent that even though they are made with outmoded technology and techniques they are still very much enjoyed by viewers today.
Video games however have the problem that sometimes the technology of bygone years is so far removed from todays that it would be very hard to enjoy a relatively old game. Just as it would be unlikely for a modern person to watch a circa 1900 silent movie, so would it be unlikely that a gamer would enjoy a game of Pong other than out of curiosity.
Gaming still needs to mature its technologies to the point, at least from a graphical perspective, that a game created today could still be enjoyed in fifty years time and not be absolutely cringeworthy and embarrassing to play. Just as a game of chess by its very nature is not technologically dependent, this is the position that gaming needs to be in.
However when it comes to mobile gaming there is another hurdle to games enshrining themselves in our consciousness as evergreen heroes, aside from monoliths like Angry Birds. That hurdle is both Android and I phones strength and Achilles Heel. As mentioned previously in any one year it is fully possible for a film buff to enjoy all the big releases. However with smartphone gaming there are so many big releases that it would be almost impossible for a gamer to keep up with them all
So whilst gamings rise can be correlated to that of movies from a technological and state of the industry perspective we still have a long way to go.