Full-featured Android app might finally arrive - if YOU help make it happen
Many forum users of this form has probably been waiting for an Android app that could rival ZotPad. Finally, a realistic and ambitious project has been launched that will bring us such an app - including automatic syncing of attachments and annotated PDFs!
The preliminary name for this app/project is "Zotero Reader", but the name might change due to trademark issues. A few details are available on their IndieGoGo-page, where they try to kickstart the project through crowdfunding: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zotero-reader-android-app/x/3250899
Already a couple of hundred dollars have been raised, and that with little or no PR (this is actually the first time the project is mentioned here). I literally stumbled upon it today, and donated C$ 25. I suggest YOU do the same before 20 June, so that we can finally have a good Android app for tablets. And if you cannot afford a large donation, you may donate as little as C$1. Every little donation helps!
Not does this project seem decent, they actually also have a rough working PROTOTYPE of it up here: http://zoteroreader.com/
There you can see how the interface will work, and the general design overview. But keep in mind that the native Android app will have many more features, including automatic syncing of attachments.
Are you guys excited? I certainly am :-D
The preliminary name for this app/project is "Zotero Reader", but the name might change due to trademark issues. A few details are available on their IndieGoGo-page, where they try to kickstart the project through crowdfunding: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zotero-reader-android-app/x/3250899
Already a couple of hundred dollars have been raised, and that with little or no PR (this is actually the first time the project is mentioned here). I literally stumbled upon it today, and donated C$ 25. I suggest YOU do the same before 20 June, so that we can finally have a good Android app for tablets. And if you cannot afford a large donation, you may donate as little as C$1. Every little donation helps!
Not does this project seem decent, they actually also have a rough working PROTOTYPE of it up here: http://zoteroreader.com/
There you can see how the interface will work, and the general design overview. But keep in mind that the native Android app will have many more features, including automatic syncing of attachments.
Are you guys excited? I certainly am :-D
If this becomes reality, we would be able to read, highlight, and annotate all our academic (or other) PDFs on an Android reader and have it all in sync. For me, this is a dream come true.
Anyone who is interested should pledge a few dollars (you only pay, if the project is fully funded within one month from now). I think it should be worth it for many of us! Go to http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zotero-reader-android-app/x/3250899 and pledge a few bucks.
a really fantastic project that would really improve the use of zotero on tablets, my biggest problem at the moment!
--> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/zotero-reader-android-app/
I wish zotero.org had blogged about this on their front page or something. I think there's plenty of people willing to pay more for a decent Zotero Android client with Evernote or Springad-like features!
I'm not an entrepreneur, but apart from problems getting the word out, I felt the min. 25$ contribution - I guess you could give less, but it seemed like it started at 25$ - might have been a mistake. That's a pretty high hurdle to get involved, considering that most apps are under $10.
For me, $25 for a full-featured client is not too bad for something I would use practically every day, but yeah, it is a steep price for an android app...
They didn't promote this very actively - me and several other people who do a lot of Zotero stuff retweeted their stuff, but I don't think there was much of a push from their side - very understandable, they're graduate students and don't do this full time, but that might mean that a strategy that doesn't rely on lots of people hearing about this quickly, but rather a more gradual funding model that requires less in-advance trust may work better.
That's what mronkko has done with his ZotPad for iOS, which I'm pretty sure has by now brought in more than 6k (at least I really hope it has).
Also 6k is not enough to develop anything robust and fully featured. Based on experience developing ZotPad, it will not take a lot of time to get something useful done, but have a fully featured and robust app takes months.
Also, if you consider hiring someone, that is actually quite expensive. In Finland, where I live, the recommended salary for an entry level programmer with masters degree is 3.5k/month, and when you add all the side expenses (mandatory pension and health insurance etc), you get close to the 6k.
But as a hobby project, 6k is probably in the right range.
As far as ZotPad goes, the sales indeed exceed 6k, but I would not characterise it as a gold mine. I set up an LLC to make it easier to license third party software, and have not paid any salary for myself yet apart from the initial sales that were recorded as personal income prior to the LLC. I plan to include technology from iAnnotate in the next major version, and if I were to sing the deal today, the sales would not be sufficient to cover the cost but I would need to spend some of the initial investment. (Which is fine, because I expect to break even in the long run and my goal was never to make ZotPad a real job for myself, but to develop as good iPad app as possible.
Cheers,
Dave
I've been using zotreader for a while and my library of PDFs is stored in the cloud and synced to my tablet. does anyone know if there's a way to access my locally stored PDFs from zotreader. many thanks!
Re: the cost. Although it's certainly relevant from the developer's strategic perspective, it really doesn't make sense to compare the price of this app to most other apps. This is a very niche market, and they won't be selling millions of copies. Researcher-specific tools are always going to be more expensive than Angry Birds. If you would use this on a weekly basis for your job, $25 is peanuts.
Thanks for the feedback. We didn't get funded, but with hindsight the timing for the fundraising wasn't very good - summer vacations means a lot of interested people weren't available. We tried the kickstarter route first because it seemed risk free - no money down for us beforehand.
However, I'm now pursuing plan B - hire an offshore developer with my own money and sell the app (around 5$ a pop) to recoup the investment. I would program it myself but I don't have the time (finishing PhD, then postdoc). I would be highly satisfied if I had a finished product that did what I wanted it to do - that is, comfortably view and annotate papers on my tablet while keeping in sync with my Zotero library - even if that means a small risk of losing a few k$. Hopefully it should be done by early next year.
that is very good news! For zotfile and zandy I often saw the problem that there is no way through the API to tell zotero servers that the attachment has changed (--> annotations in pdfs were added, for example). Has that been resolved yet?
@adamsmith: The level of support from the kickstarter campaign and the reports from the Zandy and ZotPad developers here make me confident that the risk of losing money is fairly small.
---
I came up with a wireframe for the main view, as you see it's much less cluttered than the prototype:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ps6vawv0cm1ldkt/mainview.png
Right now it's very derivative of the Gmail native app but it should come on its on once features are added. Clicking on the page icon will bring up the relevant PDF immediately while clicking elsewhere on an item will bring the detailed view.
Feedback appreciated.
There might be some help from this route as well and maybe someone has some time and the necessary skills to support/ bring up a base, etc.
Just my cents, but might help as well to bring this project forward and make it more public!
@patrickmineault:
The screen looks really great from the users perspective. Keeping it up simple but still intelligent I guess is the right concept!
Kindly keep it up and let us know any progress, support and help needed (refering to the 1st paragraph of my text).
Some update on Zotero Reader?
This would be a godsend with webDAV support, even if just the web version.
I really hope to see some development on this.