For two weeks straight, I spent every waking minute trying to finish my first free app. But it’s finally here, and here’s the big announcement: it’s ready for downloads from Amazon’s “Apps for Android” Store. Unfortunately, it’s not available yet for the Kindle Fire (or for any Apple devices). But you can still download it now to your Android tablet — or even to an Android smartphone!
tinyurl.com/500Quotes
Yes, the app is called “500 Inspiring Quotes,” and it came out much better than I expected. My girlfriend took a wonderful photo during a visit to Alameda’s Crown Beach, and the night that I finally released my app, I surprised her by including it as the app’s “cover photo!” For over a year I’ve been struggling to learn how to write a computer program. That night was my chance to prove that I could really do it.
Everything in the app was meant to be both simple and positive, and I read thousands and thousands of quotes searching for 500 that could always deliver a real lift whenever you sat down to read them. There’s quotes by everyone from Oprah Winfrey and Jerry Seinfeld to Winston Churchill, Voltaire, and even Cervantes. But I also worked in quotes from some of my favorite authors — like Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, Henry Miller, and Mark Twain.
There’s not any ads in the app, since it was never meant to make money — just to share some warm moments of inspiration. And ultimately, it was a very personal experience, since I was weighing the words of the greatest minds of our civilization — and then trying to cherry-pick the words which would mean the most to the people who read them. I found some surprisingly great quotes from unexpected sources, like Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy and even tennis player John McEnroe. And this also gave me a chance to include some nice thoughts from both Roger Ebert and Annette Funicello, who both died this year, but are living on in their words.
In the end I even spent part of my birthday looking for more inspiring quotes — since it took a long time to find over 500 of them. So this app represents a personal triumph for me in more than one way. I finished all the quote-gathering, and finished all of the computer programming too. And now instead of downloading apps for my device, I can upload one instead, to share it with everyone else!
It’s ultimately given my app a very interesting relationship with Amazon. More than two years ago, Amazon started an Android store so they’d have their own place for selling apps when they eventually launched the Kindle Fire (back in the autumn of 2011). But all of those apps in Amazon’s store are also available on other Android devices, which is how you can download my app to other non-Amazon tablets and Android smartphones. Because my app is an Android app, I also uploaded it to Google’s own app store (the Google “Play Store”), which ended up with a very funny twist for this Kindle-loving man.
Even though I was trying to build an app for the Kindle Fire, so far (through the Google Play Store), it’s only available on the Nook!
tinyurl.com/500Quotes