Colin's Journal: A place for thoughts about politics, software, and daily life.
ExpenseClam
Easy-to-use business expense tracker for Android.
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April 8th, 2012
Blackberry Playbook
I’ve recently acquired a blackberry playbook by porting ExpenseClam to this platform. The physical format of a 7 inch tablet seems to work very well. It is still small enough that carrying the device around is very easy, and holding it in one hand is entirely comfortable. Meanwhile the screen is just large enough that websites can be viewed in their desktop format, without having to zoom in and scroll.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the quality of available apps is very low. Most of the big name apps are missing (e.g. no Skype). There are many ported Android apps, but these work only partially. Native Android features are missing and they have a tenancy to hang.
Native apps that I have found suffer from a clunky keyboard implementation, and flaky UI widgets. The Web browser is reasonable, but occasionally suffers from unresponsive UI elements.
My overall impression is that the tablet would be far more useful and interesting if it was running Android ice cream sandwich. This leaves me wondering whether I want to get either a 10 inch tablet our something around the 7 inch mark.
To sum up: when writing this post, I started on the tablet, but the application hung, and I ended up retyping it on my phone. It is hard to see the playbook platform being a success given it’s current state.
January 5th, 2012
App rankings in the Android market
For an app that only recently moved into the 100-500 downloads range, the paid version of ExpenseClam is doing remarkably well. As of writing this, ExpenseClam is number 65 on the list of top grossing apps in the Business category on the Android market.
Looking at the next lower ranked app however I think this is down to how the market treats apps that change categories. Number 66 is an app called SMS super faker, which appears to have always cost the same as ExpenseClam, but is in the 1,000-5,000 download range. According to AppBrain it switched from the Communication to the Business category on the 23rd of December 2010, 6 days before reaching the 1,000 downloads mark. The only explanation I can think of for having a lower gross revenue than ExpenseClam is that it has had far fewer downloads in its new category than previously.
Similarly number 70 (calendar scroll widget agenda) also has far more downloads than ExpenseClam, but has recently changed category.
The lesson to learn from this appears to be that changing category within the market is penalised, at least as far as the top grossing lists are concerned. Whether this impacts app exposure is another matter. How many apps are purchased as a result of browsing the lower echelons of the top grossing list, versus searching and picking from the featured and staff choices lists is unknown.
January 1st, 2012
Tablet versus NetBook
I’m struggling to decide on whether a NetBook or a tablet would be better suited for me. The tablet would be an Android one, probably the new transformer prime from Asus. It would allow me to test tablet specific designs for ExpenseClam and would provide a more convenient form factor for web browsing than my phone. The transformer also has a keyboard attachment, so writing blog posts and even some web site design should be easy.
A NetBook on the other hand would allow me to do Android development while travelling, and even at home on the sofa, rather than isolating myself away in the study.
In theory I could use VNC, or some other remote desktop software to control my desktop from a tablet, but in practise I expect this to be clunky at best. I could get both a tablet and a NetBook, however I know that when travelling I would only want to carry one, not two machines with me.
At the moment I’m leaning towards the tablet. While ExpenseClam works fine on tablets, it uses the same layout as for phones. I should be able to design a layout that really takes advantage of the extra screen space available on tablets. It also feels like a more modern investment than what is essentially a small laptop.
This post is a bit of an experiment as it had all been written on my phone using the latest WordPress app. Overall not a bad experience, mainly thanks to the Swype keyboard.