This Android Life » Android News » Interview with Swiss CodeMonkeys, the team behind AppBrain

Interview with Swiss CodeMonkeys, the team behind AppBrain

18 March 2010 No Comment

We here at This Android Life have, of late, been messing around with a free app called AppBrain. AppBrain comes in two parts: a webpage (at http://www.appbrain.com) and a free Android Market app. From the site, you can browse the Android Market, viewing the apps that others have been downloading, see screenshots and check out user comments. But it’s the way the site ties in with the free app that sets the site apart. You can choose the apps you’d like to install from the site and then sync the app and AppBrain will locate each app in the Android Market for you and then offer you the chance to install each in turn. It’s a pretty handy little app, and installing apps from a browser is something that a lot of Android users have been asking for for a while.

The official description reads:-

“Finally it’s possible to install Android apps from a web interface!

Browse the app market on www.appbrain.com from a desktop computer and use this app to install and uninstall the apps you selected on that website!

Appbrain.com has: Related apps, fast search, popularity lists, wishlists, and sharing of app lists!”

We contacted AppBrain’s creators, Swiss CodeMonkeys, to see if they’d be interested in giving us some of their thoughts on Android development and the Android Market. Here’s what they had to say:-

Firstly, can you tell us a little bit about your team and it’s development
background?
We (Uwe Maurer and Mathijs Vogelzang) were both working as software engineers at Google Zurich. We got G1 phones as Christmas present in 2008. We then started developing the Swiss Codemonkey apps in January 2009 as a hobby project to have some fun with our new phones. In summer 2009 we decided to do this full-time since it was so much fun and our apps were so successful.

Your company has released quite a number of apps to the Android Market,
ranging from free novelty apps to premium apps such as Photo Effects. Which
has proven to be your most popular?

Our most popular apps are Funny Jokes and Steamy Window. Both are free and have way over 1 million downloads each. We prefer working on free apps because it is exciting to reach such a large number of users, which is not possible with paid apps.

Which devices do your team use for testing apps, and, which (if any) do they
use for personal, day to day use?
Personally I use a Motorola Milestone, Mathijs is using a Nexus One.

For testing we use our G1s, a HTC Tattoo and a Samsung Galaxy.

One of your apps, AppBrain, has filled a request that a number of Android users have had for a while, namely allowing users to browse the Android Market and install apps from a web interface. Where did the idea come from?
We are very passionate about Android apps. We experienced that it became harder to discover great apps when the number of new apps increased so much during 2009. The existing market app and app directory websites were insufficient to sift through all these apps. Also there was no way to manage your apps from the desktop. We decided to provide a solution for this and started working on AppBrain.

We first built a website to browse and select apps, and sync it with the phone. We also added related apps, fast and relevant search, new browse pages like for price reduced apps. Since we launched this first version we added personalized recommendations, and the possibility to share apps with others and browse their favorite apps.

Was AppBrain straightforward to code or were there any issues? Was it simple enough to link up with the Android Market?
It was hard to decide what to include in the first version because we have so many ideas how to improve app discovery and the market. Â Our goal is to provide the best Android app discovery service to the users, and even though we didn’t implement all ideas yet it was important to launch the service to get feedback from the users.

So far the reactions of the users have been extremely positive, and we are working on making the service better everyday. So keep watching http://www.appbrain.com

Do you feel that Google have the right idea with the Android Market, or are there any improvements you think need to be made?
We think the Android Market is a wonderful idea. A central and open place for developers to distribute the apps is great for both developers and users. Developers can focus on developing their apps and don’t have to worry about distribution. Users can find all the apps in a single place directly on their phone.

However there are a lot of things that could make it easier to find, share and install good apps. That’s why we made AppBrain and we will continue to add features to improve app discovery. Unfortunately we are a bit limited by how we have to integrate with the Android Market app. It would be great if Google would offer an API to the Android Market, to allow for instance installing all apps a user selected on AppBrain with a single click.

What are your favourite free and paid apps at the moment (other than your own of course)?
I really like Google Maps, Â Robo Defense, Twidroid and SchottGunn.

Mathijs likes the Gmail apps, Seesmic and My Tracks.

Are there any apps you’d love to see being made available for Android?
I would like to have the “I am T-Pain” app like on the iPhone. And more cool games would be great too.

What’s next for Swiss CodeMonkeys? What can we expect from you over the next few months?

We will focus a lot on AppBrain and we will keep releasing new features which make it easier for users to get great apps on their phone. We also have a number of ideas how to improve our existing apps and also ideas for new ones, hopefully we soon find the time to implement these too.

Thanks to Uwe and Mathijs for giving us their time. AppBrain is available for free on the Android Market. The main AppBrain site can be found here.