Posts tagged FAQ

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:

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

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

1. Launch the Barcode Scanner app (or equivalent)
2. Point your camera at the QR Code (even if the code is on your computer’s screen)
3. 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!

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.

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

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. The 5 Star rating comes from the Android Market rating for Pandora Radio.
6. The (Free) in braces and bolded text is where you’ll see the price of the app.
7. 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.