Dindy, My First Ever Mobile App, Is Out!

Happy day today – the release of Dindy 1.0.0, my first mobile application ever, for the Android platform. I won’t repeat the specifics of what it does here because there’s a page for Dindy on this very site where you can read about it.

Dindy costs UK£ 0.75 (don’t ask why it’s in British Pounds. Really… don’t ask) but if I know you and you have an Android-based phone you can get it completely free of charge.

A lot of people ask me why I chose the Android platform. The initial reason was that it was the easiest platform to develop for. Google makes it really easy to install the SDK (on Windows, Linux or Mac) and test the applications to the fullest prior to moving them to the phone. Even debugging on the phone itself is a snap.

Publishing an application on the Android App Market is also a no brainer (except maybe for having to be an authorized merchant) and the initial fee is only USD 25, unlike the draconian rules of Apple with iPhone development.

Android is an emerging platform. Lately Gartner Inc. predicted that by 2012 the Android platform will be the number 2 OS in the global smartphone market. The thing is that the upcoming version of Android will support small and big screens as well, so it’s not just iPhone-like smartphones I’m aiming at with Dindy (e.g. the smaller HTC Tattoo.)

I’m at least hoping to get my money back for the HTC Hero I bought to test Dindy on, but as always my biggest ambition for software that I develop is that as many people as possible will find it useful.

27 Replies to “Dindy, My First Ever Mobile App, Is Out!”

  1. Way to go…
    I am sure you feel very proud (you should).
    I guess when you see that someone actually bought it you will feel elevated.

    I am happy for u :)

  2. Can you post the link to the application in the market place?
    Or people can see the market only from an android phone?

    Suggestion: Add a button in dindy’s home page to send an email with the link to the application (in the market place). This way Android users will open dindy’s application download page more easily (only if they get to you home page).

    Also, what about some promotion?
    What about publish the application somewhere.
    Perhaps google for some popular Android applications and see where they are mentioned and try and promote your application there?
    Perhaps google for similar applications and add yourself there as well.

    I’ll see what I can do 2morrow…

    I’ll ask a friend from the cellular field about promoting you application.

    Is that ok by you?

    Damn, I wish I had an Android to check out your app…

    Good luck!

  3. Kila:

    So many good questions :)
    1. The market place is generally available only through the phone, but there are websites that extract market place information (like this one: http://uk.androlib.com/android.application.net-gnobal-dindy-zqjE.aspx )
    2. A market place link is a good idea. I tried to embed one in my application but for some reason it didn’t work well and I forgot about it. I’ll put it on my todo list.
    3. I didn’t invest time in thinking about promotion. I wanted to see how things are going without it first (looks very gloomy so far.) I need to decide how much more money I’m willing to invest in it. I don’t expect this small app to make me rich, so I have to think realistically if and how much I’m going to make out of it.
    4. Sure, please promote it anyway you can (no need to ask me.)

    Thanks a lot!

  4. Man, great job! Start…profile is much better. I think it’s a good idea to put 2D barcode on Dindy’s page referring to the market directly.

  5. Everybody should purchase this App, even if you have an Iphone or a Symbian mobile, since owning Dindy makes you cool and we’ll let you hang out with us (you know you want to!)

  6. rom: you’re right… added to my todo list
    Itai: WHAT? :)
    Shaul: Right… also, friends still get a (more advanced beta) free copy :)

  7. Itai: :D hilarious… not the first time I’m seeing this but I didn’t remember the “except in Nebraska” finish

  8. Vader: Obi-Wan never told you which App you must use.

    Luke: He told me enough! He told me to use the one that sounds funny.

    Vader: Yes, you should use Dindy.

    Luke: Yes Yes, it’s true it does sound funny

  9. Balmer is such a caricature. How did he became a CEO?

    Anyway, I talked to a friend and he said that the Android market place is more degenerated than the iphone app store.
    He says that it is very hard to push a product through Android’s market place.
    iphone app store has a sophisticated pushing mechanism based on rating and response.

    Another friend said that the idea is a bit problematic.
    He said that Nokia already has a feature that upon an incoming call, if you decide not to answer, nokia creates a template SMS for to be sent to the calling number.
    The process is manual where as Dindy’s is automatic, but they address the same prblem.

    What about specific numbers that you never want to miss, like the wife (driving on a highway and wants directions:) or Mom?
    If you need to configure specific numbers to bypass Dindy’s mechanism, than the solution becomes much more complicated, where as users love simplicity.

    This takes me to personal characteristics.
    Dindy is great for me. If i’m in a meeting and the phone vibrates, my ears automatically gets shut from the meeting and I sometimes miss little though important pieces from the meeting. I don’t won’t any interruptions – unless urgent.
    Itai, on the other hand, can do tons of things simultaneously, so perhaps he prefers to always see the incoming calls, silence them, write a response to the wife and still not miss a single word from the meeting.

    How many people are there out there that are more like me?

    Perhaps I’m missing something…

    Amit, hope that doesn’t take the wind out of your sales – I sure could use Dindy.

  10. Regarding the too few paid locations.
    What about releasing part of the app as a free one and sell the complete one – just like one of the open source pricing models.

    This will help you get to all the available countries. The begining is the tough one and you need a crowd.
    Also, it will perhaps give you a good reputation for good products and the next one will be much easier to sell (I know – better sell the first one, so it’s just an idea).

    Example:
    Only paid customers will be able to configure the returned SMS message.

  11. I think you should open a twitter account, follow some Android fanatics and push your app through twitter, it’s the best way to virally promote this app.

  12. Alik, thanks a lot for the input. And here are my answers:
    1. The Google market is about to get closer to the iPhone app store in the next version:
    http://gizmodo.com/5352346/android-market-16-update-finally-brings-app-screenshots

    2. Actually, Nokia’s solution is a simplistic one. In reality there are free SMS responders that let you do automatic SMS responds even for Android. Dindy’s strength is in letting the caller decide whether something is urgent or not, and this is also its defining feature (by the way, you can still use Dindy as a “simple” auto-responder as well… see example in answer #4.) Automatic SMS responders can’t help you when you’re sleeping, for example.

    3. The issue of whitelists/blacklists has been brought up before. In general, I didn’t see a way of adding them without making the interface much more complicated. But I also don’t think they’re really needed.
    As for whitelists I think they completely miss the point of Dindy. The only overhead introduced to callers is having to call twice. Having a caller defined as “always urgent” seems very “Israeli” in nature to me. Only here do we “plan for disasters” by being available 100% of the time on our mobile phones.
    And blacklists… don’t get me started on those. If you have someone that will always call twice because he/she thinks it’s urgent, I’m sorry to disappoint you but you have a different problem that isn’t related to mobile applications. As a friend of mine put it: “Dindy will not help the user solve personal relations issues” :)

    4. People like Itai can always set Dindy to vibrate on both first and second call, essentially making Dindy a “simple” auto responder (as I mentioned before)

    5. Releasing a free version is a good idea if sales are really slow, as they probably would be. There are quite a few ways to cripple Dindy, even though it’s a very simple app.

  13. Shaul… I might consult with you about the Twitter option. I’m trying not to get into marketing in the early stages of this app for now, though (originally I just wrote this for fun. Marketing seems a bit too serious for me)

    I thought about letting Android application review site review the app, for example.

    We’ll see.

  14. The reason I had to specify a price in British Pounds is that I am listed as a British merchant with a friend’s address. There is no way to be an Israeli merchant yet, for some reason.

  15. Amit,

    How do you detect that the person is in a meeting/car? Does the user need to change the state?
    What about integration with GPS? You could move to a meeting state if the GPS coordinates is inside the meeting rooms.
    You could also detect Car mode if the phone is moving more than a few KPH.
    What do you think?

  16. The user indeed needs to start and stop each profile on his/her own. The general idea that instead of setting your phone to silent or vibrate-only you use Dindy as a “smarter” silent mode.

    Your ideas to use location-awareness for settings are very good and actually implemented in the highly-rated and free application Locale. It would be nice to integrate with Locale, since it does its job already very well. I’ll put it on my TODO list to check whether this is possible or if the developers of Locale would expose such an interface to other applications.

    As for car settings, that’s also a good idea which I’ve looked into. In fact, Android 2.0 contains the ability to detect that the phone is connected to a car adapter and I wanted to use that without breaking compatibility with Android 1.5 and 1.6.

    I don’t know if and when I’ll get to implementing these features but these are very good suggestions so thanks a lot!

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