Database Info

Fragmentation of Apps in AppStore

Social media and mobile apps seem to be the new buzz words over at Silicon Valley. In fact, such apps are now a dime a dozen and one could imagine Apple changing their popular catchphrase “There’s an app for that!” into “There are a thousand different apps for that, all of which have the same basic features, but subtle useless differences.”
The problem isn’t that we are approaching the boundaries of utility as far as mobile apps are concerned, it’s just that once an app or social service gets popular, developers start crowding around its concept and make thousands of clone apps, with little in terms of differentiation. We need more unique and original apps that stretch the boundaries of what we can accomplish with our phones and tablets and make you think “Wow! Who would have thought I could do that with this little thing I carry around with me?!” What we’re getting are the same basic concepts, re-hashed to such an insane degree that app stores get crowded with half-baked clone apps and the really amazing ones are drowned out in a sea of filth.
In my opinion, developers should ask themselves three basic questions before designing an app or a social service:
“Has this been done before?”
“If it has, can I do it in a way that is better/more pleasant to use?”
“If no, would I be able to introduce any sort of useful feature except a wacky name?”
And if the answers to all three questions are unfavourable, then the developer should think twice about coding such an app. It would only add redundancy to the app store and contribute to the rising app discovery epidemic.
I shudder to think about all the high quality apps made by independent developers all over the world that haven’t been popularized simply because of an overly saturated market. The amount of lost potential in app markets today is simply staggering.
Apart from market saturation, redundant apps also tend to cause mental saturation. In this day and age, who among us has the capacity to remember a billion app names? If we can’t even remember such a numerous volume of apps, how can we aspire to use them?
In my opinion, authorities like Apple and Google should monitor the apps in their stores not just for quality, but for identity of vision as well. Apps that feel like cheap copies of pre-existing apps need to be banned! I, for one have had enough of my normal friends playing ruddy Fruit Ninja clones and asking me why it doesn’t look as good as it does on my phone!
There are shining examples of how stupendously done apps with a clear and fresh vision can go viral within days of conception. They are the intellectual property of individuals that have worked hard to develop not just the code for their apps, but the core concept as well. And we owe it to those striving developers to make sure that the integrity of that core concept remains preserved.

k33t said:
Social media and mobile apps seem to be the new buzz words over at Silicon Valley. In fact, such apps are now a dime a dozen and one could imagine Apple changing their popular catchphrase “There’s an app for that!” into “There are a thousand different apps for that, all of which have the same basic features, but subtle useless differences.”
The problem isn’t that we are approaching the boundaries of utility as far as mobile apps are concerned, it’s just that once an app or social service gets popular, developers start crowding around its concept and make thousands of clone apps, with little in terms of differentiation. We need more unique and original apps that stretch the boundaries of what we can accomplish with our phones and tablets and make you think “Wow! Who would have thought I could do that with this little thing I carry around with me?!” What we’re getting are the same basic concepts, re-hashed to such an insane degree that app stores get crowded with half-baked clone apps and the really amazing ones are drowned out in a sea of filth.
In my opinion, developers should ask themselves three basic questions before designing an app or a social service:
“Has this been done before?”
“If it has, can I do it in a way that is better/more pleasant to use?”
“If no, would I be able to introduce any sort of useful feature except a wacky name?”
And if the answers to all three questions are unfavourable, then the developer should think twice about coding such an app. It would only add redundancy to the app store and contribute to the rising app discovery epidemic.
I shudder to think about all the high quality apps made by independent developers all over the world that haven’t been popularized simply because of an overly saturated market. The amount of lost potential in app markets today is simply staggering.
Apart from market saturation, redundant apps also tend to cause mental saturation. In this day and age, who among us has the capacity to remember a billion app names? If we can’t even remember such a numerous volume of apps, how can we aspire to use them?
In my opinion, authorities like Apple and Google should monitor the apps in their stores not just for quality, but for identity of vision as well. Apps that feel like cheap copies of pre-existing apps need to be banned! I, for one have had enough of my normal friends playing ruddy Fruit Ninja clones and asking me why it doesn’t look as good as it does on my phone!
There are shining examples of how stupendously done apps with a clear and fresh vision can go viral within days of conception. They are the intellectual property of individuals that have worked hard to develop not just the code for their apps, but the core concept as well. And we owe it to those striving developers to make sure that the integrity of that core concept remains preserved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah kind of like the lack of remotely interesting original posts on this forum, verses the viral like increase in nonsense that seems intended to do nothing but allow some forum users to boost their post count ....

I think the main problem with this fragmentation is that it is in the nature of Social Discovery apps that there is some uniformity in use. To be able to actually find people through it requires that a lot of people are using the same one.
Only people use them for different reasons and therefor there is an app for any of those reasons. Like some want to use them just to stay in touch with their friends and family, others to meet new people (like me when I am going to a new place) and than there is a group that uses them for flirting or organizing sexual encounters (I am not judging)
I think the best innovation for companies would be to invent an app that combines these functions. I haven't been able to find one.
If you know one, please let me know.

Thank you, I enjoyed reading your view. I do share all your points other than the 'vision policing' part.
"In my opinion, authorities like Apple and Google should monitor the apps in their stores not just for quality, but for identity of vision as well."
If the vision could have been identified by the platform's creator then there wasn't a need for the App Store. The platform creator would have created every possibly visioned apps for its platform and not bother about the participation of thousands of developers on its ecosystem. Basically, to identify the visions one would restrict 'ideas' in which it does not go well with the creativity nature of mankind.

I found something on which you can have several profiles. So you can create one for every function you can have for a Social Discovery app. I think its sort of a good idea, because you don't need like ten thousants of profiles spread around over the net. Just use it however you want. I like that idea.
For me it's perfect because I always have a hard time remembering my passwords
It's called Evry'U. I found it through their facebook page that a friend linked me.
Did anybody heard of it?

[Q] Help me flesh out an idea for new functionality

tl;dr I'm new, I'm not a very knowledgeable developer, I have an idea that I want your opinion about.
Heyo Peoples,
I'm new and I like to think a lot about cool new stuff with mobile devices (web, software, hardware, etc). I've been thinking a lot recently about how people like to use mobile devices, and how we might use them in the near future--thinking past what's being done now, and into what comes next.
I've been wondering for a while why there isn't an existing piece of functionality on mobile devices that allows a user complete control of the device and every piece of information on it. Imagine a GUI except instead of graphics, it's like interacting with a person. (aside: first person to say Siri should be shunned like an Amish girl who went to a movie theater).
Is it outrageous to say that you should be able to pick up your phone and have it find anything, from anytime in the past that you have done with or on it? I know that would take mountains of data, but is it silly? In it's most basic form, this would just be a search feature. In it's most eloquent form it could be an operating system. Imagine being able to ask your phone what you did last Wednesday, or maybe where you were. What if it could recall emails or documents based on date, time, location where you were when you wrote it, keyword, or contact, based on verbal interaction? What if it tracked data usage by application, or allowed you to measure and optimize system performance with a verbal command (ex. "Shut down all apps except for Google Maps" or "How much data am I using per minute").
Is it too early to start wishing for an interface like that computer on Paycheck (horrible movie with Ben Afleck) or Cortana in Halo? Is this type of interface impractical or implausible?
If you were to make something like this, would it have to be a new operating system built from the ground up, or could you develop an app to do this, or could you hack Android to do it? I welcome all of your feedback.
Lots of questions, and I have very few answers.

Jujubes said:
tl;dr I'm new, I'm not a very knowledgeable developer, I have an idea that I want your opinion about.
Heyo Peoples,
I'm new and I like to think a lot about cool new stuff with mobile devices (web, software, hardware, etc). I've been thinking a lot recently about how people like to use mobile devices, and how we might use them in the near future--thinking past what's being done now, and into what comes next.
I've been wondering for a while why there isn't an existing piece of functionality on mobile devices that allows a user complete control of the device and every piece of information on it. Imagine a GUI except instead of graphics, it's like interacting with a person. (aside: first person to say Siri should be shunned like an Amish girl who went to a movie theater).
Is it outrageous to say that you should be able to pick up your phone and have it find anything, from anytime in the past that you have done with or on it? I know that would take mountains of data, but is it silly? In it's most basic form, this would just be a search feature. In it's most eloquent form it could be an operating system. Imagine being able to ask your phone what you did last Wednesday, or maybe where you were. What if it could recall emails or documents based on date, time, location where you were when you wrote it, keyword, or contact, based on verbal interaction? What if it tracked data usage by application, or allowed you to measure and optimize system performance with a verbal command (ex. "Shut down all apps except for Google Maps" or "How much data am I using per minute").
Is it too early to start wishing for an interface like that computer on Paycheck (horrible movie with Ben Afleck) or Cortana in Halo? Is this type of interface impractical or implausible?
If you were to make something like this, would it have to be a new operating system built from the ground up, or could you develop an app to do this, or could you hack Android to do it? I welcome all of your feedback.
Lots of questions, and I have very few answers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is probably not as far off as it seems. The developers of "Utter" have come along way in the right direction. You should maybe approach them with your ideas. Not all of them of course . Save some for yourself.

One problem I see is semantics. "Shut down all apps except for Google Maps" sounds good - but do you really mean ALL apps ? The line that would be walked is one where the developer must train the program to not necessarily do what they ask, but do what they WANT. It gets trickier when you realise that some people who aren't your average users might want to test things and shut down an app (in this case) that an average user would never want shut, where they might mess up their phone beyond their ability to repair if they did.
I think speech is a great tool to interact, though I'm not going to be a person to use it. I don't think speech will ever become a default unless there are other technological advances that change how we interact with the world. It's annoying enough to hear someone gabbing loudly to another human on the phone, do we really want people gabbing AT their phones as a default interface ? I think privacy is a driving factor that will keep sound from being a major interface - perhaps it could work for in home applications, but out in public people may not want to announce to the world who they are calling, what they are looking for, or what site they're logging on to, et cetera. Until there's technology to make voice and sound less "public", I don't see this being the future of phones - it's more of a nice thing to have as an "extra" for when a person is comfortable using it.
But, hey, maybe we'll get used to wearing Google Glass and talking to ourselves all the time - or we'll get in-ear buds or implants where we can choose to hear the outside world or not. Just exploring the possibilities here.
I do think it's a big "outrageous" to have infinite backup. Just take a look at how much data companies like Amazon and Facebook acquire on a per-day basis. Think about how much data you use on a daily basis. I don't have the money or desire to be buying new HDDs every other week. Maybe in the future there will be a technological revolution that allows for mass amounts of data to be stored in even smaller spaces. But current technology in that regard is still very expensive and persnickety - read about high capacity SD cards and how fragile they can be and about data needing to be "refreshed" or they can become corrupt. There are lots of issues that make backing up everything you do impracticable.
And, again - privacy concerns. Do I really want my computer to know what I did last Wednesday and who I was with ? What if someone stole my computer or phone and had access to that information ? If we had the technology to do that, who's to say that current encryption would be "enough" - or that someone wouldn't go ahead and try to hack it anyway if they felt finding out basically everything about you was worth brute-forcing your phone or whatever they'd do in the future ? And have no password or a crappy one - even easier for them to know EVERYTHING about you, now.
Highly visual and talk-activated computers are absolutely great for games, movies, and TV. Why ? They function as narrative devices. They allow the actor to say or explain things they otherwise wouldn't have said out loud for personal, practical, or security reasons. They can become characters in their own right. People like those big screen computer displays where the characters are poking things all over and up and down - it looks cool. But not so cool is having your arms get tired from reaching up and around all the time. Not so cool is having to tell the computer out loud what kind of special images you want to search for when you have house-mates living in the next room over.
Just some thoughts. If you have other or counter ideas, go right on ahead.

[APP][4.0+] Force of Me - Your guide to desired future you

Your guide to desired future you.
This application helps you achieve life goals and maintain general happiness by actively encouraging you to think positive and questioning your beliefs through emotional evaluation.
The Theory
This application helps you achieve life goals and maintain general happiness by encouraging you to think positive and questioning your beliefs through emotional evaluation.
The theory behind this is based on the fact that we emotionally react to our reality constantly in everyday situations. But how we feel about it, is defined by held beliefs shaped through the years of our lifelong education.
The problem
Now, the problem with our belief system is that any belief we hold might conflict with another belief in any situation.
For instance: when someone wishes for more money (popular subject these days, hence the analogy) and subconsciously believes that money can destroy a person, those are two conflicting beliefs concerning the same matter that in combination cannot result in joyful emotion.
Consequently in this situation most likely money won’t happen and person failing tend to blame it on something or someone else without realizing that the problem is his own to start with. As well as the power to do something about it.
Another problem arises when people tend to focus on absence of wanted instead of what they want. Focusing on your problems not only will bring more problems
but will also shape your beliefs into more conflicts.
The solution
This application provides a solution by actively reminding you that you alone are responsible for your own reality and motivates you into believing in yourself.
It challenges you to question your own beliefs, identify conflicting ones, stay and think positive and in general move up the emotional scale.
But at the end of a day it’s still up to you to make it happen. As explained above – you alone are responsible for your own being,
and I hope this app will help you realize that this might be easier than you thought.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Major update:
- Get awarded for feeling good, see your progress.
- New functionalities on context evaluation. See the influences your actions have on certain activities.
- Better tagging
- Option to delete tags
- Choose notification sound
- Community pages
- Updated external libraries
- Tons of minor improvements and fixes

How to become a good android developer?

Developing a good android application is not an easy task (neither impossible ) especially if you have small or no team. It requires many skills and talents, such as coding, designing sense, music sense, marketing skills and list goes on. You have to keep an eye on everywhere since lack of any aspect can result in poor response form users (which is the last thing an android developer want).
Recently I have developed an android game (Fruiteria) in my spare time and launched it recently on Google play store (see link at the end of this post). It took me about 74 days to build it from scratch. It was a challenging task but I learned a lot from my experience. I would like to share my experience with you today!
Let's discuss what are the things one should never avoid while developing application :
1. Concept and implementation of application
As I said above, there are many aspects to application development. But no matter what you do, You will not be successful by selling poor quality application. So, first thing everyone should think about is a good concept. Your concept can depend on your goals such as business advertising, social work, marketing or simply making money! Also, having a good concept on paper is one thing but it's implementation need patience and constant efforts. If you have a nice concept and willingness to put efforts into it, then consider you are already at the half way!
2. Grow your concept with time
Second point I would like to mention is try not to be stubborn!! If you think that you have the best concept in the world, but the world thinks the other way, then you are in big trouble. After all you are building the application for people. Take suggestions from users and your friends to change and grow application concept. Believe me, it works like magic!
3. Research
Before building your application, try to do some research on what is the market for your application, who are the competitors in market and why they are successful (or unsuccessful), who are your target audience and what do they exactly want. Working on such things will give you a better idea on what needs to be done exactly.
4. Marketing
This one is tricky! If you are an individual, or a small company with almost no capital, then it is hard to put much money in marketing. Especially when there are already giant companies present as your competitors. But that is not the end! Think about creative ways to make your application popular. For example Give it to your friends to use, and tell them to spread it. If you are in college, then sponsor a small event in exchange of application publicity which will not require much money. Make discount coupons and distribute them. In essence, do every little bit of thing that you can. You might not see the effect on first sight, but over time it will accumulate on large scale.
5. Keep in touch
Last thing I want to share is don't leave your application after launching! Keep updating it regularly by adding exciting new features and fixing bugs if any. Respond to user comments and reviews. It gives personal touch and they will start thinking that you care about them. It will definitely increase the user retention and hence the growth of your application..!
I personally have been implementing these principles in my application since the idea came to my mind. Finally I succeeded in development of a good android game (or at least I think so!). But as I said earlier, my success depends on how you respond to it! I am sharing the link for game in case if you are interested in checking out my game. Please let me know how you find it by reviewing it on Google play store!
All the best for your android endeavours. My best wishes are with you!!
Fruiteria link : (I am unable to post outside link on this thread) Please go to google play store and type 'Fruiteria'

Non-emergencey contact to personal device security research institutes collaborative thread

This posts here to increase the effect of sending my phones and other devices targetedly hacked files and file contents to the correct places to help forward the progress of patching the in routes and exploits used to conmlrimise my devices. im not mass generically hacked like all content marketing oriented loa pricepoint device users are. im also targetedly hacked, being a poster of evidence of organized crime. how i know this is surveying the various search results of numerous parts of code grep'd through for everything from 'usually' to 'when the' and the like and finding undocumented code); analytics traces reports screenshots etc i need to send to the correct agencies labs and engineers to effetiely take an opportunity one rarely has, not a whole lot more luck needed just to expose what ive found to get help swnding it all to the right researchers.., here to also overstep and des mceibe a social engineerig aspect to this criminal co-perogative that seems to be boiled down to a method or science always changing specific tech understanding apartide line that one would say would be inperceptible if not being lóoked for. These effects are already known, ask any journalist or researcher whos benefitted from the use of tor. do u ever get o ly search results fro. 2013 2014? ueah thats not right its 2022 and those are whats been whiddled down as passable as results to you that will derail your presumptive expectation to find usefull relevant info. like free black market oligarchay totalitarianiasm censorship of good info by masses of evil black hearted tyranical rulers. What is or was being done was not unlike untargeted hacking, wasnt unlike stalking, wasnt unlike gaslighting, was engineered by heinous psychologists under a larger tech side of a harasment as a service outfit utilizing specific individually itemized psychological attacks managed and administered from a heirerarchal chain of command involong hassers unbeknownst (effectively anyone), and salaried operative sabetuer assailant rights violators harassers, being orchestrated by a few headpieces workong to effect intimidation, harm, debilitation, eventual ruin of targets. im a lucky one to have escaped their heretounforsceen murderous grasp... technical implementation and phychological advice, and the client criminal operations, all likley make io the types involved.. and some .MOs? . A score is kept of each targets perceptable work toward outing the criminal client(most dont continually announce display post what they know under threat to their familys, i fly in the face of these intimidations and threats as ofton as possible, or as necessary. they especoally anger me and i ofton
make sure to give a speech about it if needed bwcause id say thaTs the proverbial time and place for that
the stalker or stalkers will note it all and interfere suggesting or positing jackassedly outloud (the two harasser grouping lends to this) which is being pumped as audio to the tatget , only filtered down to narrow effective frequency bands of audible sound. a effort to disturb distract frustrate is debilitating especially at length. i have audio recorsdngs of this subliminal harassment,¹¹¹i will post and have posted online. Undocmentble and likely undocumented (ie unprovable) aspects of reality, of which there are many, are derived contrieved etc by the stalkers one after the next and projected subliminally to the target as heassments, threats, psychosis induction, all to kéep reports from going to police, knowlede of anythining relevant or related from being learned basically preventing anything the target might do in the course of a day,, randomly or specifically or especially if ostensibly they were heading to the police station printing store etc. a target has to endure : Internet is filtered
friends are threatened and harssed the programs on anyones phone in the vicinity re beiing montoped to know if recording or video apps start running. Im not the only person who knows bout what i videod and posted, many involved are plausibly victims, many benefiting, profiting, buying àre monstors heartless soulless murderous enemys to mankind. How i got targeted? i was attacked by two guards at a high rise, recorded it incidentally, posted it online, in the bckground is evidence of the activities of aug fifteenth sixteenth twentyeighteen, some largescale illegal sex crime party for high rolling invertebrate clients, and not just in the background, but my interactions with the guards upclose are all evidence and the 15 mins of video as i exited the vicinity all contain evidence. They usually keep anything like video taken on a cell phone contained and from ever reaching the net, but i was recording to disk and feeling extra like it was a miracle i survived the attack gonna take the disk out for safe keeping minded also, gonna post immediately minded after evading immedite stalker harassers traveled on foot strategizing for 12 hours, went forward in visiting an art school campus, visiting the library and uploading over a simple Vpn to youtube (browser built in one if i remember correctly). My civil rights activism prior to this gave me some ability to evade gang stalker harassments, and all in all i had been being targeted digitally and had some upload strategy to use because of the same, the civil rights and land use activism i was doing videoing and posting. So the stops were pulled and full scale cmpaigns were deployed to psychologically or otherwise send me into ruin in a way that would be indetectible in any way as being foul play or at least un reportably or documentably, because tens if not hindreds had to have noticed the oddities of patterns and diversions from the norms of everything everywhere variousley i frequented. stalkers effirts were all made with intention to have effect but also to effectively obscure what was being done, why, what crime there was to reported if any, and any routes or reasons provable that i might have to seek relief from foundations for the crimes against me, so as to be able to persist and continually attack playing any and all angles of various of psychological and physiological attacks through incetivatized or otherwise achieved malfunction or alternate to normal operation of things ... this is where conputers come in, my devices were and still are if im being realistic used for and integral in facilitating this, but not without a lot of code paper trail i was expected not ever to be able to ascertain knowledge of or obtain. Largescale distributed obscured attack on individual targets isnt always viable, but ofton is it would seem... In the curse of weathering this attack i achieved slowely progress in my life , trancendance above and beyond the thercheous pitfalls and all that laid out figuritvely to ensnare me, and have atained for myself many if not a few more of my life goals as well. I have explained and exposed the immediate harassments and stalking to those being subjected to its immediate and side effects, and a page long list of other focused intentional sometimes subtle corrective or stimulating vitalization of some sort to the social and interpersonal climate within which i live life ive been, seeing as how it was being accurely poluted. it wasnt always easy or obvious but certainly something of the needed necessary and natural reaction type of measure i believe either way i know i have succeeded in the various ways i went about keeping my life from falling apart. Somewhere in these outcomes, milemarkers, graduations and self afirmations i categorically became, non susceptible to a certain category of sheer wall affront to a person who is targeted. socially, technically, socially correctovely, verbally, orationally, (speech giving?), attritionally effectively strategically, in one too many ways they cant effect their zero click exploit on one Kyle Varela, as it were, and now im here, right pretty much where id be, only here in my hand is alot of the info needed to disenfranchise those who this computer based evasion of my privacy and much worse was undertaken by, to help potentionally a lot of people, to help the world operate one incriment less innificiently... But i have to delve into realms unknown to turn in the files and doing so will continue to make it self aparent in its non accomplishability approached alone by just me. ...Leading to my posts reason.
Stated: source help, advice, and leads into and about the most suspicious of the many entrys and code snippets within the uploaded files all taken from systems i was using, and i believe is likley to contain evidence provingthY the disfunctionalityt of my devices software and hardware was intentional identifiable and ultimately hopefully reportable and patchable.
This post will be finished with attachments after getting initial post up. Just a moment