How long does it take you to type?
We all know that typing on mobile phones can sometimes be a headache -- especially if the phone in question has a small 9-key keypad. On those kinds of devices, we estimate that it takes an average of 40 seconds and 41 key presses to enter a query. When it comes to key presses, that's more than double what it takes on other phones!
In an effort to help our mobile users, we studied the effect of incorporating a feature like Google Suggest on mobile phones with 9-key keypads. We found that these users respond favorably to query suggestions: Users who were shown suggestions while typing their query rated their overall enjoyment higher and perceived workload lower than users who were not shown suggestions. Users who were shown suggestions also reduced their overall key presses by half. Surprisingly, the time to enter a query for these users was not significantly less than the average time needed to enter queries for users who were not shown any suggestions.
You can find a more complete discussion of our results and findings in the PDF version of "Query Suggestions for Mobile Search: Understanding Usage Patterns." It was presented at the CHI-2008 conference last month. Also, we've incorporated Google Suggest on Google's iPhone interface, so try it out if you haven't already!
AndroidGlobalTime
We are pleased to announce that a new open source sample application—called AndroidGlobalTime — has been added to the apps-for-android project.
It's a 3D world clock developed by an engineer at Google and may serve as an illustrative example of how to use the OpenGL ES APIs in your Android applications.
Just a quick word on how to use AndroidGlobalTime. When you launch it, you'll see a spinning globe showing day and night regions. Pressing the space bar will overlay an analog clock with the time corresponding to location you're currently examining. The arrow keys allow you to spin the Earth and traverse through different time-zones while the clock is displayed. Pressing the center key in the emulator toggles between a 3D and 2D view of the earth. Pressing the L key will turn the city lights on or off. You can also zoom-out by pressing 2 and zoom-in by pressing 8.
Android Developer Challenge Judges and Top 50 Details
It's been a busy few weeks here as we've wrapped up the first round of the Android Developer Challenge. We'd like to share a couple pieces of information with you:
- The full list of judges is now available. It was fun to work with such a diverse group of judges from different companies all around the world.
- A slide deck of the Android Developer Challenge prize recipients is also available. The deck includes descriptions and screenshots of the 46 recipients who consented to sharing their information and is a great way to get a feel for the quality of apps submitted.
The prize recipients' entries were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of great applications submitted, and we'd like to thank and congratulate everyone who entered the challenge. We look forward to seeing all of the application in the hands of consumers with Android devices.
A Challenge in More than One Way
Well, the submission deadline for the first Android Developer Challenge has come and gone, the apps are in, the judges are finished, and the waiting is over. We got a lot of great submissions, and I can tell you personally that the competition was fierce. I didn't see all 1,788 submissions, but I saw quite a lot of them, and I uttered more than one wail of despair as some of my favorite submissions didn't quite make the cut, by razor-thin margins in some cases. But, the judges have spoken.
Speaking of the judges...we'll soon publish a list of who the judges are, but I know many of our developers are still curious: what were all those judges doing? Well, the short answer is that they were judging applications using a custom laptop configuration that we provided. But we thought some people might be interested in the "long" answer, so we put together this blog post. If you're not interested in the gory details of the judging, you can stop here; but if you are interested, read on!
How We Got Started
Making the Challenge fair was by far our primary goal. We knew we had to do whatever we could to make sure that the judges' scores are based solely on their review of the application. We automated as much as possible, to make it easy for judges to focus on judging, and not on administrivia or complicated setup.
The first thing we realized was that we were going to have way more submissions than any single judge could look at. No one could review all 1,788 submissions in a reasonable amount of time. On the other hand, we definitely needed more than one judge reviewing each submission. Our goal was to have each submission reviewed by four different judges, with a minimum of three.
The big question was then: how many judges would we need?
For 1,788 submissions, a panel of 4 judges per application meant that we needed a whopping 7,152 reviews to be performed. Since our judges would have to be crazy to agree to do more than 75 reviews, we needed at least 95 judges. In the end we recruited around 125, including backup judges.
Making Order out of Chaos
The next thing we realized was that judges need to be able to actually review the submissions. Since the judges came from our Open Handset Alliance partners and many are not engineers, we knew that we couldn't send instructions like "run the M5-RC15 emulator, open a terminal window, and run the command adb push geodb /data/misc/location—and don't forget the --sdcard option!" They'd think we were quoting Star Wars.
Besides that, we also knew that once we gave the judges their assignments, what they did was out of our hands. We couldn't control how the judges review the applications, but we could certainly make it as easy as possible for the judges to do a thorough review.
So, we built a program in wxPython that automates judging. This application launches a clean emulator for each submission, supports emulator features like SD card images and mock location providers, and allows judges to launch multiple emulators and simulate calls and SMS messages for applications which need that functionality. We asked our friendly neighborhood Google Tech Stop for 140 laptops, installed Ubuntu Linux and our software on one, and then cloned that installation for use on all the others. We then had a huge shipping party, where we imaged, boxed, and shipped 115 or so laptops in one day.
An important side effect of these custom laptops is that they are all identical. This means that each judge's experience of the submissions was the same, which eliminated the risk of one judge rating an app poorly just because it ran slowly on his personal computer.
Managing All that Data
Once we sent 100+ laptops all over the world, we needed a way to get the data back. Another goal was to eliminate as many sources of human error as possible. With 7,152 reviews to complete, and 4 categories per review, that's 28,608 scores to keep track of. Mistakes would be bound to happen, so filing paperwork or transcribing scores by hand from one file to another was out of the question.
Our solution was the Google Data web API for accessing things like Google Spreadsheets and Google Base. Here's how it worked.
- We wrote a Python program to randomly assign applications to judges for review.
- Using the Spreadsheets API, that program generated a Google Spreadsheet for each judge, pre-filled with that judge's assigned submissions and space to enter scores.
- The program installed on the laptops also used the Spreadsheets API to fetch a given judge's assignments.
- When the judge scores a submission, those scores were posted back into the spreadsheet.
- After the judging period concluded, a separate program walks over all the judges' spreadsheets, computing the final scores.
This approach had two great things about it: first, it didn't require any new server infrastructure to make it work. Second, our "database" had a built-in rich "admin" UI for managing the data — namely, Google Spreadsheets itself. If any of our judges ran into problems or needed help, we could simply open that spreadsheet in our browser and review or fix problems.
This approach worked quite well, and I'd bet that the judges didn't even know the Spreadsheets API was being used, unless they actively poked around.
Tying Up the Loose Ends
Of course, our work wasn't done once we retrieved all the submission scores. We couldn't just average up the scores, you see. First, judges could recuse themselves from scoring specific submissions; perhaps they were assigned an application similar to one their own company is working on, or perhaps they realized they knew one of the authors. Second, despite our best efforts there was a chance that some judges might have a problem — for instance, if one judge had a poor network connection but reviewed an application that requires the network, then that judge might have scored the application unfairly poorly.
Here are the major outlier scenarios that we were concerned about:
- Cases where judges recused themselves.
- Submissions where one judge reported a problem with the application, but all the other judges reported good scores. (It seems odd for only one judge to have a problem.)
- Cases where one judge's scores were an outlier compared to the other judges' scores.
For the first two cases, we simply discarded the outlying data points, if we had enough. For instance, if three judges reported good scores and one recused herself, we simply dropped that fourth score. If dropping the conflicting score would have brought the application below three reviews, we sent it back for review by a new judge to bring it up to our minimum number of judges per application.
The third case is more subtle. Just because a judge rated an application differently than others doesn't mean that that review is invalid, so we can't simply discard outliers. Instead, we took the highest and lowest scores in each category and gave them half weight. The effect is to bring the average scores a bit closer to the median scores, which helps minimize the impact of unusually high or low scores. This process was applied to all submissions (not just "suspicious" scores) since it has a minimal effect on submissions that don't have a large outlier.
We actually ran the whole process above twice: first we ran it to choose a first cut of the top 100 submissions from the original 1,788, and we then sent those 100 to a second group of judges for selection of the final 50. (Actually, the "top 100" were really "top 119", since we added a few more submissions to accommodate scoring ties in the first round.)
Wrapping Up
Now you know what we've been spending all our time on, and what's been keeping us up at night (sometimes literally)! Throughout, our key objectives were to keep the process fair, let the judges focus on judging, and give applications the benefit of the doubt in cases of scoring outliers.
What's next? Well, the 50 submissions that were awarded a prize now begin the refinement process for their Round 2 submissions, which will award the final, larger prizes to the top 20 applications. I also hope that the developers of the other great apps that didn't receive prizes will consider the second Android Developer Challenge, which should begin later this year.
To everyone, I'd also like to say thanks for participating, and congratulations on your hard work!
Early Android Developer Challenge results
The Android team has announced the selection of the top 50 applications of the Android Developer Challenge. Each of the top 50 apps will receive $25,000 and is eligible to receive further recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards in the final judging round. A total of 1,788 total submissions were received.
While the team is working on a more detailed description of the top 50 apps, you can read a general summary of the apps on the Android Developer blog.
The Top 50 Applications
As you may have heard, the results from Android Developer Challenge Part 1, Round 1 were announced to all the participants late last week. We're still working on pulling together a more extensive listing for each application that made it into the top 50, but in the spirit of releasing early and often, here's a list containing the name of the application and its author(s):
- AndroidScan - Jeffrey Sharkey
- Beetaun - Sergey Gritsyuk and Dmitri Shipilov
- BioWallet - Jose Luis Huertas Fernandez
- BreadCrumbz - Amos Yoffe
- CallACab - Konrad Huebner and Henning Boeger
- City Slikkers - PoroCity Media and Virtual Logic Systems
- Commandro - Alex Pisarev, Andrey Tapekha
- Cooking Capsules - Mary Ann Cotter and Muthuselvam Ramadoss
- Diggin - Daniel Johansson, Aramis Waernbaum, Andreas Hedin
- Dyno - Virachat Boondharigaputra
- e-ventr - Michael Zitzelsberger
- Eco2go - Taneem Talukdar, Gary Pong, Jeff Kao and Robert Lam
- Em-Radar - Jack Kwok
- fingerprint - Robert Mickle
- FreeFamilyWatch - Navee Technologies LLC
- goCart - Rylan Barnes
- GolfPlay - Inizziativa Networks
- gWalk - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus ten Hagen, Christian Klinger, Marko Modsching, Rene Scholze
- HandWx - Weathertop Consulting LLC
- IMEasy - Yan Shi
- Jigsaw - Mikhail Ksenzov
- JOYity - Zelfi AG
- LifeAware - Gregory Moore, Aaron L. Obrien, Jawad Akhtar
- Locale - Clare Bayley, Christina Wright, Jasper Lin, Carter Jernigan
- LReady Emergency Manager - Chris Hulls, Dilpreet Singh, Luis Carvalho, Phuong Nguyen
- Marvin - Pontier Laurent
- Mobeedo - Sengaro GmbH
- Multiple Facets Instant Messenger - Virgil Dobjanschi
- MyCloset - Mamoru Tokashiki
- PedNav - RouteMe2 Technologies Inc.
- Phonebook 2.0 - Voxmobili
- PicSay - Eric Wijngaard
- PiggyBack - Christophe Petit and Sebastien Petit
- Pocket Journey - Anthony Stevens and Rosie Pongracz
- Rayfarla - Stephen Oldmeadow
- Safety Net - Michael DeJadon
- SocialMonster - Ben Siu-Lung Hui and Tommy Ng
- SplashPlay
- Sustain- Keeping Your Social Network Alive - Niraj Swami
- SynchroSpot - Shaun Terry
- Talkplay - Sung Suh Park
- Teradesk - José Augusto Athayde Ferrarini
- The Weather Channel for Android - The Weather Channel Interactive Inc.
- TuneWiki - TuneWiki Inc.
- Wikitude-the Mobile Travel Guide - Philipp Breuss
- Writing Pad - ShapeWriter Inc
Those of you following along carefully at home (or who bothered to read this far) will notice that there's only 46 in this list. 4 winners opted to continue their efforts in secret and so while we congratulate them too, we can't list them here.
Regardless, congratulations to all those who made it this far!
Android Developer Challenge: Round I Results are In
The last few weeks were both extremely intense and rewarding. Based on feedback from the judges, it was apparent that large number of applications were compelling, innovative and well implemented. The quality of these entries clearly reflects the creativity and hard work that developers have invested in building their apps.
In addition to developers' participation and contributions, over 100 industry judges around the world spent weeks reviewing these submissions. I want to thank all the developers and judges who have worked incredibly hard over the last few months, making the Android Developer Challenge such a success.
Many of the top submissions took advantage of the geo and social networking capabilities of Android. These applications allow friends to share their personal experiences and favorite content such as vacations, photos, shows, music, cooking recipes, restaurants, and much more as they relate to certain locales. I've also seen applications that connect people during emergency situations and others that allow users to share information on how they can reduce their carbon footprint. One developer even turned a real city block into a playing field where gamers can role-play and chase after villains.
Furthermore, some of these applications provide rich interactive experiences by combining web services and mash-ups to bring together data that's on the web with data that's on the mobile device. One application combined weather, pollen and allergy information in the context of a map that is relevant to a user's location.
Though many applications use a traditional "download" model for data, many also enable users to publish content, such as photos or even voice memos, for others to use on other mobile devices or the web.
This is just a brief snapshot of the many impressive applications I've seen. The 50 highest scoring applications will receive $25,000 each and go on to compete in the final round. We plan to publish a list of these applications as soon as we receive the developers' consent. The real winners, however, are the consumers who will benefit from the work of these talented developers.
Fast and easy access to Google on Sprint phones
Today we're happy to announce that we'll be working with Sprint to provide quick and easy access to Google search, Google Maps for mobile, YouTube, and other Google mobile services on Sprint's new generation of consumer devices. Google will also be the default search provider on the Sprint portal, and Sprint will enable users to take advantage of location data for Google search and Google Maps for mobile on certain devices.
On some of Sprint's upcoming devices, you'll be able to get to the web with even greater ease with one-click access to Google search from your phone's home screen. In the spirit of openness, you'll be able to add, change, or delete your preferred search provider at any time. Also, having more location data available for Google Search and Maps will make it easier and faster for you to get directions and search results for nearby restaurants, shops, services, and more.
We're always looking for ways to work with carriers, device manufacturers, software providers, and others to help you get the information and content you need, whenever and wherever you need it. To learn more about how Sprint and Google will be working together, take a look at our press release.
We also announced today our investment alongside Sprint, Comcast, Intel, Time Warner, and others in a new wireless broadband company, Clearwire. The company is developing a nationwide mobile WiMax network that will adopt open standards and policies that can ultimately make your mobile broadband experience more internet like. Read more on the Official Google Blog.
Google on the iPhone makes News, goes around the world and to your Apps domain
Google fürs iPhone jetzt auch in deutsch! Et en français .. en in het Nederlands and in many more languages. When we launched our new Google interface for the iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco last January, a number of you approached us at our booth and asked when you could use our new interface in your home country. (Yes, San Francisco IS a very cosmopolitan city.) I am happy to say: the time has come. Today we're launching our new integrated Google experience for the iPhone and iPod Touch in 33 new markets and 16 new languages, from Argentina to New Zealand, from Swedish to Chinese.
Google on the iPhone is a great way to access your most used Google services. Some of its benefits include
- Fast and fluid search with one-tap access to News, image, local, or web results and search query suggestions when you start typing
- Automatic delivery of Gmail messages (no need to refresh your browser!), and auto-completion of email addresses when typing
- A combined month-and-current-day view of your always-in-sync Google Calendar, and the ability to share pictures with friends and family using Picasa Web Albums
To try out the new Google interface, just point your iPhone or iPod Touch web browser to www.google.com.
Furthermore, if you use Google Apps - now is the time to use your domain name on the iPhone as well. Just bookmark http://www.google.com/m/a/YOURDOMAIN for fast one-click access to Google. Please make sure to replace YOURDOMAIN with your actual domain name.
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