Who wants to buy some Screebl? Print

Now that ADC2 is over and Screebl has been polished up for the most part, with the most often requested features added and most of the biggest defects squashed, the question remains:  what to do with Screebl now?

I'm currently shopping Screebl to a number of manufacturers, trying to get the technology behind Screebl bundled with core mobile distributions.  Things are at a very early stage, but there is some interest from a few fronts.  There are a number of reasons that integrating Screebl with the core platform would make sense.

Most notably it would raise some cash to fund my next big and very exciting extra-curricular mobile application (more on that in a few weeks).  From a technical perspective, it would make sense because a few of the more challenging technical issues surrounding Screebl could be dealt with head-on.  For example, Screebl (in its Android form) suffers from the zealous Android memory conservation semantics, sometimes resulting in the service process of Screebl being killed to free resources.  This seems to be happening more to users with older devices sporting less memory.  If Screebl were able to be bundled as a core process that couldn't be killed this problem would go away. Other platforms (such as iPhone) don't have the concept of application-controlled background processes, and so distribution as part of the core O/S is the only option that would work.

Many people have asked if there will be a pay version of Screebl coming to the Android market.  The truth is, I haven't decided yet.  To date, I've been looking at the Android distribution of Screebl as a public beta, with the end-game being licensing of Screebl to manufacturers.  I've gotten terrific feedback from hundreds of users, some great ideas, and found lots of bugs.  That has improved the quality of Screebl immensly.  There are some requested features that are a bit more advanced (e.g., Locale integration) and there may be a version of Screebl that offers those for some nickels and quarters.  We'll see.

In any case, Screebl's user base continues to grow quite rapidly, and that's good for a fun ride if nothing else.  Of course, if you know of anyone who would like a big plate of steaming hot Screebl, by all means, let me know.