AndroidGuys

Scott and Jamie were able to spend some time with the developer behind the application called simply “Scan” and find out how it might fit in with our daily lives. It’s a very intriguing program that could put tons of information at the tips of your fingertips.

Thanks for spending some time with us Jeffrey. Would you mind giving us a quick glimpse into your background?

I’m a Computer Science graduate student in Bozeman, Montana. I’ve bounced Android ideas off a few friends, but I did all of the development on my own. I love creating software that helps people interact with their everyday world, and Android has a huge potential in this area.

Tell us what application you are working on. What’s it called and what does it do?

I’ve had a few solid ideas, and I picked one to flesh out for the Developer Challenge. It’s called “Scan” and it gathers pricing and metadata for anything with a barcode. Using the phone’s browser can be slightly clumsy and slow, so Scan creates a mashup from several different APIs, showing the results to the user in a clean and fast interface.

That’s awesome! Where can we see a demo of this in action?

I’ve posted a quick 3-minute video of Scan in action with real barcodes at http://scan.jsharkey.org/

Where do you see Scan fitting in someone’s daily life? Who is the target audience? How will it help?

I see Scan as being a handy utility that you can pull out when you’re walking through a local store, or at a friend’s house. The ability to instantly scan and compare prices online is powerful, allowing you to check if that “sale price” really is a good deal. Scan can also guide you to online storefronts, where you could purchase and have the item shipped in only a few minutes.

Who do you see using a program like Scan?

The target audience is pretty much everyone, from people looking browsing through book stores, to others browsing through a music collection. We’re all consumers of one sort or another, and Scan can help us become even smarter consumers.

How much influence did the Android Developer Challenge have over you?

The Challenge forced me to start writing early. When I first heard about the Android platform, I knew I would eventually be programming for it. Without the Challenge I probably would have waited for actual hardware devices. The emulator is a solid start, but it still doesn’t compare to an actual hardware device.

Have you come across any other applications similar to Scan?

I’ve searched newsgroups and message boards, and everyone seems to be keeping quiet about their entries. I’ve found a few people mentioning barcodes and price comparison tools, but nothing really concrete.

Even without knowing my competition, I still wanted to stand out from a simple mashup. This is why Scan searches for nearby brick+mortar stores and local libraries around your current zipcode. Scan lets you call the store directly to make sure they have it in stock or reserve a copy. Another thing I added was the ability to play sample music clips right on the phone. It took quite a bit of scraping through the guts of Amazon to make this work perfectly. They don’t even have an API to support this kind of mashup yet.

How do you anticipate getting the word out about your program?

For now I’ve just been posting comments on various blogs and forums. The guys over at HelloAndroid have a good start to an application database, so I’ve posted it there as well.

What’s the plan for distribution?

Once the Challenge is finished in early-May, I’ll be open-sourcing both the Android and Python server source code under GPLv3. For now, I’ve been keeping the APK and source code under wraps to make sure that my API accounts don’t get overloaded before they’ve had a chance to judge the application.

Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today Jeffrey. Good luck to you and Scan in the Android Developer Challenge. We’re excited to get our hands on this program and start scanning barcodes! We wonder how often we pay the best price available for stuff.