AppsVu

AppStoreHQ links

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:58:00 -0400

AppsVu now offers a third option for the Android Market mirror. AppStoreHQ now joins Cyrket and AndroLib links for each search result. This is what the results look like now:

Clicking on the [AppStoreHQ] link will take you to the app detail page. AppStoreHQ offers a clean, clutter-free interface and this new addition will definitely help searchers quickly search for, decide on, and install the right Android apps.

It may take some time to propagate through the cache, but it’s up and working right now.

Some Query Statistics

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:12:00 -0400

AppsVu crossed 100,000 queries a few days back and it’s time to look at some interesting numbers around the querying and filtering habits of Android users.

Below you can see the 5 most popular queries (normalized so that the most popular query, “games”, is 100):

You can see that the falloff of the power-law head is quite steep. This jives with the really long tail, with several hundred unusual queries that have been searched only a single time.

Also interesting is that the number of queries for [facebook] is about double that of queries for [twitter].

AppsVu offers the ability to filter any query so that only free or paid apps or shown.

Of all the queries that were filtered either by Free or Paid (there are other filtering options), Paid filtering only accounted for about 9% of the number of times the Free filter was used:

This really underscores the need for Android developers to offer a Lite version of paid apps. The discoverability is much, much higher for free apps.

7% of visitors used the free filter, vs. less than 1% enabling the paid filter.

More Filters

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:32:01 -0400

AppsVu now offers the ability to filter apps based on rating as well as Free vs. Paid at the same time. So you can now find paid apps with a rating of 3 Stars or better for any given query. The filters are added just below the regular filters you’ve already been using:

The filtering is done at the same speed as the other filters, so you won’t see any performance degradation while using these new filters.

Screenshots & Reviews

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:33:00 -0400

AppsVu is all about helping you search for, decide on, and install the best app for your needs as quickly as possible. With this in mind, the first few results (typically three) have a [screenshot] meta link that will open a screenshot hosted at Cyrket.com in a separate window. This step, along with many others, is designed to help you quickly make a decision without leaving the site.

Also new is a review section that searches across all the major Android app reviews sites and presents up to four results. These review results are slotted in after the first few relevant Market results. This is in addition to the previously mentioned review links shown below the pagination links. These are all designed to help the searcher discover the right app as quickly as possible. Scouring both the Android Market as well as hand-picked app reviews helps tremendously with this.

Review site snippets

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:16:01 -0400

AppsVu now shows a sample of search results from review sites like androidtapp.com for every search along with the standard Android Market results. For now, these appear only at the bottom of the first page of results, below the pagination links. Like so:

The example results above show up when you search for the keyword “finance” on AppsVu. Not all searches show these results (because the vast majority of Android apps haven’t yet been reviewed). However most common keywords, and especially keywords that match common categories, will show results.

More work to be done, but a good start on including the burgeoning Android apps review community in AppsVu search results.

Switched QR Code and Market links

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:52:16 -0400

The [market] link is now the last and right-most link on search results. Before this, the [QR Code] link was positioned as the right-most link. Several Android users searching on AppsVu from their smartphones would hit the [QR Code] link, which only makes sense if these were accidental clicks. Now it’s much easier for mobile users to simply hit the last link on the right without the fear of missing and hitting a useless link.

A case can be made for not showing [market] links to non-Android users at all. However, most visitors first visit through their PCs, notice the [market] link, and then start using AppsVu from their Android devices. So there’s no easy to way to expose the functionality and retain the discoverability while taking the [market] links out for non-Android users.

Even more Snappiness

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:37:32 -0500

Now even novel queries should be much quicker in presenting results, not just the popular ones. In addition, sorting and filtering have been speeded up substantially for all queries as well.

More speed improvements

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:42:21 -0500

Popular searches now load significantly faster. Several different optimizations have been completed and they should all work together to deliver a faster experience for most visitors.

Please continue to offer Feedback.

More Reviews integrated

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:42:00 -0500

You can now find many more sources of Android Apps reviews in your search results. Starting with Android Tapp mentioned previously, there are now 4 other review sites integrated. So almost a thousand Android Apps have 3rd party “[review]” links showing up on search results.

Integrating more authoritative review sites and improving the existing experience continues to be a priority here at AppsVu HQ!

QR Code as a Lightbox

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:05:35 -0500

Previously, the [QR Code] link to the right of every search result on AppsVu popped up a new window with the image. Now, the QR Code shows up as a nice javascript lightbox overlaid on the search results page itself. Like this:

We’re out of the dark ages now.

Reviews from Android Tapp

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:38:00 -0500

Android Tapp is an excellent review site for Android Apps. A typical review there shows nice large screenshots, goes through the pros and cons of the app, and gives you both a user-rating as well as an Android Tapp staff rating.

Now, you can find links to Android Tapp reviews right here on AppsVu search results. If any of the apps on your search results have been reviewed on Android Tapp previously, you’ll find a little link saying [review] right next to the [market] and [QR Code] links all the way to the right of each result. This is what it looks like:

You can see this feature on three of the results for [Streaming radio]. There’s still some work to be done, but this should be plenty helpful right off the bat. Obviously, the vast majority of the 20,000+ apps on the Android Market haven’t been hand reviewed, so you’ll find these links on select apps only.

The feature is still in beta and more sites will be added moving forward.

Higher Contrast

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:38:00 -0500

The link color on the search results is now much darker. The earlier ones had a washed out look. The increase in contrast should mean people searching from their Android phones no longer have to squint to see the results.

Please continue offering awesome feedback.

Caching

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:19:00 -0500

The Android Market search on AppsVu now caches search results, so you should see a healthy speed improvement for most popular queries.

"Quality" Filter

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 05:16:06 -0500

You may have noticed some changes to the filters and sort options in the left sidebar of the search results page.

You can now mix and match filters and sort options. Now you can find Paid Streaming Radio apps sorted by Popularity and other such combinations.

Also new is the “Quality Filter”. Basically, a “Quality” app in this filter is defined as any app that has a rating equal to or better than 3.5 Stars, and has been rated by 100 or more users, and has been downloaded by at least 500 people. An App passes the Quality Filter only if it satisfies all three conditions above.

The Quality Filter basically removes the crud and almost guarantees that you will not be disappointed by an app that passes the filter. Sure, it may not suit your tastes, but a “Quality” app won’t have something fundamentally wrong with it.

It won’t be surprising if most users start defaulting to enabling the Quality Filter in most of their searches.

Android QR Codes

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:45:00 -0500

You’ll notice that every search result on AppsVu has a link to the right labelled “[QR Code]”. On clicking it, you’ll find a small new browser window popup with a squigly picture on it, like this:

“QR Code” stands for “Quick Response Code” and was developed by a Japanese company called Denso-Wave back in 1994. A QR Code is a type of barcode, except that it uses two-dimensions instead of just one in a standard barcode.

QR Codes can contain arbitrary types of information, including physical and email addresses, prices, and URLs.

So what does all this have to do with your shiny new Android phone? Well, a QR Code can also contain a link to specific apps or categories on the Android Market. So when you point your Android device’s camera at a QR Code, special software can “read” the QR Code and execute specific actions. There are many Android apps out there that can read QR Codes.

The QR Code pictured above has instructions to tell your Android phone to open the Android Market application and go to the Pandora Radio app. Other codes can perform a search on the Market, or pull up a specific category, and so on.

To read QR Codes with your Android phone, you will need:

An Android phone with a camera
A QR Code scanning app. A good app to start with is Barcode Scanner.
A QR Code!

That’s it. When you see a QR Code, just do the following:

Launch the Barcode Scanner app (or equivalent)
Point your camera at the QR Code (even if the code is on your computer’s screen)
Wait

The Barcode Scanner app will automatically detect the QR Code and execute the relevant action. If you do this with the QR Code pictured above, you’ll see that the Market app is launched and the Pandora Radio app is pulled up.

Happy Scanning!

Filters

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:26:00 -0500

The left sidebar on any AppsVu search contains filtering options with which you can narrow down your search results:

These filters are present on all searches with a reasonable number of results. Clicking on a particular filter will highlight the selection. Once any filter is clicked (enabled) a new option pops up: “All (clear)” which will clear all filters and take you back to an unfiltered search.

Stemming

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:17:44 -0500

AppsVu now does stemming for Android search. Results are now much more comprehensive, and there’s a much higher chance that any given query will show results.

Results structure

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:00:00 -0500

Here’s what a typical result on an AppsVu Android search looks like:

In this post, I’ll go through what each component does.

The big “Pandora Radio” link in blue goes to the Pandora Radio description page on AndroLib.com, which is a mirror of the Android Market.
The smaller [Cyrket] link, also in blue, goes to the Pandora Radio description page on Cyrket.com, which is another mirror of the Android Market. It has a cleaner and different interface.
The [market] link on the right is for those of you who are surfing from your Android phone. Clicking on it will launch the Market app on your smartphone and take you to the Pandora Radio app page.
The [QR Code] link will launch a small new browser window with a nice big QR Code on it. You can use Barcode Scanner or any other QR Code scanning app to read it by pointing your Android phone’s camera at it. This action will automatically launch the Market app and pull up the Pandora Radio page.
The 5 Star rating comes from the Android Market rating for Pandora Radio.
The (Free) in braces and bolded text is where you’ll see the price of the app.
The rest of the text is pulled from the Android Market description of the app, usually the first few lines.

Note that the results are structured for easy and quick decision making. The name of the app, rating, and price are all clustered close together so you can quickly decide whether an app is worth investigating further or not. Also, the price and ratings for all the results are vertically aligned, so you can quickly scan through the search results and pick the ones that pass your own mental filters.

AppsVu blog.

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:38:34 -0500

Welcome to the AppsVu blog.