Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Treasuremytext wins in Android Developer Challenge

That's me bottom left in the Pink Shirt!

We won! Not the main prize that went to the fantastic Meter Maid app from Martin Koel en Alida Roskam (makes real easy the paying for parking around Amsterdam and other places I believe). Those two won a deserved return trip to San Francisco.

We though we’re thrilled to be win one of the other 4 prizes in a tough competition. Plus it’s fantastic to actually be able to get a G1 from T-Mobile as our prize. This will let us thoroughly test the Android app properly before releasing it on the Android Market.

It was a great event and lots of credit to Peter Robinett of Bubble Foundry for really starting the whole thing of with the excellent Mobile dev camps he’s been arranging here for the past few months in Amsterdam. We’ve been to a couple and there turning into some of the best meetups in town.

In the last few weeks we’ve become more and more excited about Android and starting to believe in it’s potential. We think it’s going to be a seriously big deal for Treasuremytext and a big part of our future. This is the first time we’ve been able to develop an app for a phone which we’ve dreamed about doing for a while now. It completes the Treasuremytext service, makes it seriously much easier to use and integrates seamlessly with your handset for the first time.

For all of those who’ve been asking about automatic backup to Treasuremytext with support for original dates and contact info, start looking at getting yourself an Android phone from T-Mobile as soon as you can.

We gave a small demo of the app which was recorded and will be placed up on T-Mobiles G1 site sometime today we’re told.

We’re finalists in the T-Mobile Android App Competition

On Thursday 29th T-Mobile are holding a press event for the launch of the G1 otherwise known as the Google or Android phone for the Netherlands.

After the recent Android Dev Camp in Amsterdam details of a competition for Android Apps was announced. The prizes range from G1 Phones to a trip to San Francisco.

After attending the event we got pretty excited about Android and realised we could build our dream Treasuremytext app on this phone. One which can automatically save your SMS in the cloud at Treasuremytext without you having to do anything.

We went back to the office and got to work and on Monday with 20 minutes to spare we submitted our Android app for the competition. Today we got a phone call and we’re amongst the 10 finalists and the winners are going to be announce tomorrow.

We’ll be there, we’ll let you know how we got on. Those of you with G1’s look out for Treasuremytext in the Android Market soon.

Here’s a bit of blurb from our submission which describes the app.

Treasuremytext for Android

Treasuremytext for Android is a tiny background app that provides a seamless solution to archiving your messages on the Web from your T-Mobile G1.

Utilizing Android OS support for background services and deep integration with mobile SMS services the app is able to automatically forward each SMS as it is received. After setup it requires no action from the user. Messages can later be accessed on the Treasuremytext web site.

A Streamlined Mobile/Web Experience

The app communicates with Treasuremytext in the cloud using a REST based API. Many web services rely upon a token based authentication scheme (OAuth) including Treasuremytext.

This can prove cumbersome for the mobile user as it generally involves a round trip to the services website. With the access provided by Android to both Internet and SMS communications channels the developer has been able to implement the entire authorization between device and Web service with a single tap.

The users password is never required and accounts are setup automatically on the service if needed for access another time.