To say that we've been happy about the roll
out<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/26/announcing-the-official-wikipedia-andr…>of
our new Wikipedia Android
app <https://market.android.com/details?id=org.wikipedia> would be an
understatement.
In just over two weeks time we've:
* Had *827,236* total installs of our app
* Become the *#1 search result* for 'Wikipedia' in the market
* Held the* #1 trending spo*t in the whole Google Android market for our
first week
* Held both the* #4 & #5 spot in top free Books and Reference*
* Made it onto the *top 100 free apps* in the Android market
* Maintained a *4.5/5 star* review
* Held a consistent *87% install retention rate*
And that doesn't even include our non EN numbers.
For a new app these are some truly impressive numbers and Yuvi, Brion, and
the rest of the mobile team deserve all sorts of great credit for pulling
this off. They've made our reviewers truly happy
Here are some of my favorite comments:
"Great Ad-free, therefore awesome."
"Très bien Fait le job et fonctionne sans problème sur Galaxy Nexus."
"Por fin la oficial Esta muy bien y sin ningun fallo (samsung galaxy ace)"
"Plaisir libriste Nous l'attendions tous bien que ce ne soit pas sur une
plate-forme Libre comme il se doit ! Topissime et plus pratique que de
faire une recherche Web avec le SearchAgent le temps que firefox se
lance... Merci !"
"Super. Dzięki tej aplikacji mogę łatwo zmieniać język artykułu, czego
brakowało mi w ich stronie minionej."
"Brilliant! As someone who uses wikipedia in multiple languages, the ease
of the Read in... feature is fantastic. Thank you,wikipedia!
"Works great Looks great and works smoothly!"
But we certainly had our fair share of criticisms for a nasty launch bug
that held on to the GSM radio even after you left the app and certain
missing Android niceties like the Quick Search Box and URL intents. We
fixed the first quickly and have iterated on the others to where an alpha
release for them will show up shortly.
We had also long wondered if people were going to use our near by
functionality. Thankfully with new stats from geonames we can easily see
that were getting over 20,000 req/day (http://bit.ly/wUVHAI) for just our
map functions. Soon we'll have even more stats about how many users are
accessing our sites through the Android app.
There is still a lot to
do<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/roadmap>but i'm
pretty happy with our first dedicated push into the Android
eco-system. Next stop, fixing up our iOS app to do the same.
--tomasz
Greetings All,
Off the really great success of Wikipedia V1.0 for Android (
http://bit.ly/xvoPrR ) and its impressive roll out (http://bit.ly/A5mva7)
the mobile team is now moving full speed with V1.1
For those that just want to get started you can download the new build from
here:
http://dumps.wikimedia.org/android/WikipediaMobile-1.1-alpha1.apk (
http://bit.ly/ACcxV6) (088b3e8bc8bb4cebe5e597e0fd7cea0e)
We've been reading feedback as quickly as we get it and numerous features
have bubbled up to the top for our next major release.
With V1.1 we've added :
- Integration with QuickSearch in Android (Pending hardware buildout)
- Open Wikipedia links from other apps in the Wikipedia App (URL Intents)
- OSM replaced Google Maps for nearby view
- Added Did You Mean? to search results
- Moved to jQuery off Zepto
- Touching co-ordinates inside articles shows map overlay
- Full text search
- Added 'Clear History'
- Added 'Clear Saved Pages'
- Localized a few messages that were missing
- Enable app to be saved to SD card
- Major code-refactor, still needs more love :)
- Improved tablet experienced
- Move to using Hogan.js for templating
Up to date changes can now be found at
https://github.com/wikimedia/WikipediaMobile/blob/master/CHANGELOG
While we still have a ways to go before V1.1 is ready for the market we
really need your help in testing our alpha versions. Consider the alpha
releases as bleeding edge as you can get as a tester. Were targeting them
as mostly feature complete but in no way 100% stable. We need you to tell
us where the app is crashing, misbehaving, and in general providing a poor
user experience. Expect that across our alpha, beta, release candidate
cycle, that your feedback can significantly alter the features that we've
added.
Test this extensively and file bugs under
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Wikimedia%20Mobile. Hammer
on these builds mercilessly so that we can get all the kinks out before our
next major market release.
Key points to test for this version
* Test the quick search box integration. Tap the 'G' to show all of your
data providers. Tap the config icon at the top right of the new window.
Scroll to the bottom of the 'Searchable items' menu and check 'Wikipedia' .
Search for 'San Francisco' and/or any other term. You may have to turn off
Web searches until you train your phone to surface Wikipedia results
more prominently.
* Open the native web browser. Load google.com. Search for 'San Francisco'.
Tap the result that points to our mobile site. The app should pop up an
intent menu. Choose 'Wikipedia' as the default app.
* Tap near by in the App. Navigate around the map and select whatever pins
you might see. Tap a pin to go to the article detail page
* Search for 'Mumbai' in the App search bar. Go to the article. Scroll to
the bottom of the info box. Tap the GPS coordinate. You should then see a
map with geographically related articles
* Search for 'Charile Sava' in the App search bar. Note that no relevant
match shows up. Tap the magnifying glass to the a full text search and note
that 'Ann curtis' comes up
* Search for 'San Francisko' . Note that the app catches
the misspelling and offers up 'San Francisco' as a spelling correction. Tap
the spelling correction to go to the article
* In the app tap menu, history, and the left most X button to clear your
browsing history
* In the app tap menu, saved pages, and the left most X button to clear
your saved pages
* Starting from the home screen tap menu, manage apps, scroll to
'Wikipedia'. Tap move to USB storage.
* All of our test cases from V1.0 - http://bit.ly/vpbhQe
* .. and whatever else you may want try out
Known Issues
* Navigating from QSB to Saved pages can crash the app
General Feedback @
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects/WikipediaMobileAndroidFeedba…
(edit
away) .
There are bound to be bugs but don't think that someone will file them for
you. If you don't file it then chances are that we wont know its an issue.
If your not sure of wether its a bug or not then come join us on
#wikimedia-mobile (freenode) and we'll sort it out.
--tomasz
Good news out of the gate. Even though we've done little publicity (on
purpose) we've already seen some nice uptake on the android app. Here are
some fun stats
- 1,187 total installs (users)
- 989 net installs (devices)
- 15 - 5 star reviews
- 4 - 4 star reviews
- 4.9/5.0 star total
Were most popular on the Samsung Galaxy S2. Our audience of primarily
German and USA but we show a lot of potential to reach India given the
category that were slotting in. I've attached the full Android market
report for anyone who wants more details. It would be great if Google just
let me make this public.
We've even been reviewed
http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/books_and_reference/wikiped…
have gotten positive marks.
Our geo functionality finally has some strong numbers to tell us how many
people use near by me. Were seeing 15k reqs/per day. And thats just for the
basic version. There is lots more that we could do. Hourly stats here:
http://www.geonames.org/img/charts/ws-creditsH8163-NhBKEPcu6P86DGxC7SYivA.p…
--tomasz
Cross-posting. Just wanted to make everyone aware and if any android
developers have interest in helping with the offline wikipedia for android,
check it out!
Jessie
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Emmanuel Engelhart <emmanuel(a)engelhart.org>
Date: Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 8:06 AM
Subject: [Kiwix-developer] Kiwix for Android
To: "kiwix-developer(a)lists.sourceforge.net" <
kiwix-developer(a)lists.sourceforge.net>
Hi
A Kiwix version for Android was a long-standing feature request: a lot
of users wanted to enjoy ZIM file on their Tablet or Smart-phone. With
the explosion of devices using Android, implementing this feature was
always more pressing.
With the help of the WMF which is granting me for that project, I have
started to work on the Android port of Kiwix.
The idea is to re-use as much a possible the code we already have and
base this future application like the other on the Mozilla framework.
This is a challenging decision because we do not have a lot of
documentation and ifwe achieve we certainly will be one of the first
project to do it. You can get more details on this page:
http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Android
Hope to get a first running version around end of February.
Regards
Emmanuel
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--
*Jessie Wild
Global Development, Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
*
I was reading up on Android 3 & 4's 'action bar' (sorta replaces the older
menu styles) and got inspired to make some mockups for a layout for the app
that might fit in better on Android 3 (Honeycomb) tablets and Android 4
(Ice Cream Sandwich) phones.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_mockups_for_Android_style
Any thoughts? I included a tablet mockup using sidebar space for keeping
the search/history/saved pages lists open, and also experimented with a
'table of contents' drop-down (not fully pictured). These are just image
mockups for now, nothing live or usable. :)
The split-style mockup (with bars at both top and bottom to make more items
available) might also be a good base for an iOS design, where we'd need the
toolbar space more actively since there's not a standard menu convention.
-- brion
On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Philip Chang <pchang(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Brion, on first glance, it's not clear how to run this. Is there a link?
>
Sure, I've thrown together some quick notes:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile/PhoneGap
-- brion
!
jewelz
Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>On Jan 13, 2012 12:21 AM, "rupert THURNER" <rupert.thurner(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> as I was asked last time and I had no good answer to it: what are the
>keywords to let one find the the beta version on market?
>>
>
>It is not possible to download a beta from the Market.
>
>However, thankfully on Android you can download apps not on the market if
>you choose to. There are links to use (.apk) in earlier emails to this
>list, just search the archives.
>
>On Jan 13, 2012 12:59 AM, "Brion Vibber" <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 3:31 AM, Tomasz Finc <tfinc(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Brion Vibber <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org>
>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I was reading up on Android 3 & 4's 'action bar' (sorta replaces the
>older menu styles) and got inspired to make some mockups for a layout for
>the app that might fit in better on Android 3 (Honeycomb) tablets and
>Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) phones.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_mockups_for_Android_style
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Neat. I'm liking that were starting to look closer to what Holo Android
>users are going to expect
>>>>
>>>> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/01/holo-everywhere.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> There's actually a couple nice screenshots of an SDK sample program that
>shows what might be another good way to change the layout:
>>>
>>>
>https://developer.android.com/resources/samples/HoneycombGallery/index.html
>>>
>>> That's a sample photo-gallery type app that has, in tablet layout, a
>left column where you select individual items and then the rest of the
>screen is the photo view. On the actionbar, the first thing after the icon
>are some navigation selectors where you choose between various categories
>of things to show in the items list.
>>>
>>> We could have a similar layout where the navigation options are search,
>saved pages, history, and nearby -- then in tablet mode you can keep the
>list portions open so you can easily get back to them.
>>>
>>> In small-screen mode, these could be two separate screens: one with the
>navigation selectors and the lists, and another with the article view and
>minimal controls to get you back to the navigation.
>>>
>>> -- brion
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Mobile-l mailing list
>>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Mobile-l mailing list
>> Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Mobile-l mailing list
>Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
While we've been readying the Android release, I've also been doing some
work on making the new app run on iOS.
One significant thing that needs doing is replacing the Android-native menu
with something more portable. When run on iOS or in a web browser[1], we
now have a provisional toolbar at the bottom of the screen, currently with
six icon buttons for:
* back
* forward
* read in...
* output -> opens popup menu with 'Save page', 'Share page'
* bookmarks -> opens popup menu with 'Nearby', 'Saved pages', 'History'
* settings
This will get merged into a top-toolbar for tablet view on iPad, and may
end up merging implementation with the next-gen Android-style action bar.
We still need more iOS-style icons for some of these; I filled in a couple
generic ones with icons from glyphish.com temporarily.
[1] You can run the app in Google Chrome by launching Chrome with the
--disable-web-security option and loading up the index.html in the source
tree. Don't do other stuff on the web in the same Chrome session, as it'll
allow web pages to access each others' data. ;)
Things that don't currently work on iOS or web view:
* saved pages (currently requires an Android-specific urlcache plugin,
could be redone in native JS?)
* nearby (currently implemented as a native Android view, should either
redo as native JS with OpenStreetMap or do a native iOS implementation)
* share page (currently implemented with an Android-specific plugin, can be
replaced by an iOS-specific one[2]; need a web stub also to offer
copy-pasting the URL maybe)
It might also be useful to set things up with a simple proxy PHP script or
something so it can be run in a regular web browser mode for testing.
Running in a browser makes a lot of style & toolbar tweaks MUCH easier to
prototype and debug, except for the browser-specific issues of course!
-- brion
