Processed Receipt

I have been meaning to try the Shoeboxed app for the iPhone, and a recent business trip to New York was the perfect opportunity.

The idea behind Shoeboxed is solid, it is definitely a utilitarian app that aims to make your life easier. Rather than having to keep and then transcribe your receipts, all you have to do is snap a picture of your bill (you’ll need the autofocus of the 3GS) and then upload it. From there, it is magically sent to the Shoeboxed folks on the wings of a dove, where it is then sprinkled with magic pixie dust and catalogued by the receipt’s total, date and place. Maybe “pixie dust” is too technical of a term for you, so I’ll just say that they are probably processed through OCR or maybe even with human eyes on handwritten cab receipts. Let me just say, Shoeboxed does what it’s supposed to do and is brilliant at doing it.

In my experience using the app, the receipts were uploaded quickly, and processed usually by the next time I had another receipt to upload. To see the pixie dust on Shoeboxed’s end work its magic is really freaking awesome, or stonking as Ewan might say. Shoeboxed has that “WOW” factor to it that is essential in all apps on which I bestow the “brilliant” superlative. I found myself showing it off to my friends, unprovoked.

Once the receipts are processed, you can select which ones you want to be compiled and then send a report via email, complete with pictures.

I am not a frequent traveler, but if I were, Shoeboxed would be an even more useful app. It is easy to use, and very intuitive, which is also the hallmark of a brilliant app. If your app isn’t understandable unless you’ve read a manual about it first, then your app is simply not brilliant.

However, even a brilliant app can be imperfect, and there is one gripe I have with Shoeboxed.

The last receipt that I photographed on my trip wasn’t really a receipt at all, it was a BART ticket to the airport, with the amount printed on it in small text. Now I don’t blame the Shoeboxed folks for not being able to process this, but there is a flaw here. Having all the text entered on your behalf is usually great, but in extenuating circumstances (like my BART ticket) you should be able to be manually override the automatic processing. However, currently with the Shoeboxed app, you can’t edit a receipt until it has been processed, so this “receipt” wasn’t processed by the time that my expense report was due. Alas, I lost out on that $7.95.

Un-processed, un-editable

This is a small gripe, and one that could be changed by the Shoeboxed folks in the near future. So as long as you’re okay with the service costs (rate plans here), and you are a road warrior with an iPhone 3GS, Shoeboxed is a no-brainer.

There is a free trial if you’d like to try before you buy.

Funambol (previously covered by Ewan here) is kicking off the OMS show with some early news.

Later today, Funambol will announce its acquisition of Zapatec, a provider of AJAX Web 2.0 solutions (not a prescription heartburn medication as you might glean from first glance at their website).

The full info is in the release below. I’ll have to track the Funambol people down tomorrow so they can tell me more about this in plain English.

Funambol has no comment on acquisition price.

Funambol Acquires Zapatec to Usher in New Generation of Rich
Mobile Browser Native Apps That ‘Sync & Push’ Billions of Devices

Funambol open source mobile sync & push plus Zapatec AJAX web 2.0 framework uniquely provide all required ingredients for open mobile native apps to address device fragmentation

Redwood City, Calif., November 4, 2009 – Funambol, the leading provider of open source mobile cloud sync and push email for billions of phones, today announced it has acquired Zapatec, Inc., a leader of AJAX web 2.0 frameworks. The acquisition enables Funambol to uniquely address the industry pervasive device fragmentation challenge that plagues developers and requires building native apps for too many platforms. The combination of Funambol’s open source mobile sync and push server, with Zapatec’s AJAX web 2.0 technology, will foster a new generation of open, rich mobile browser native apps for billions of smart- and feature phones. This provides the best of both worlds — rich mobile web native apps that ’sync and push’ and that work on all devices.

“Future mobile apps will resemble PC AJAX apps, they will be web-based yet will sync data with mobile devices and have push notifications,”

said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO. “We are very pleased to acquire Zapatec, the leading provider of AJAX web 2.0 frameworks. Together, our technology allows us to create the next generation of open, rich mobile browser native apps that sync and push billions of devices.”

There are four billion mobile phones today, growing to five billion over the next few years. These phones represent a major device fragmentation problem for the industry, as they are splintered across numerous platforms and manufacturers, including iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BREW, Java ME, mobile Linux and several proprietary offerings. Further, entire new classes of wireless devices are emerging, such as e-book readers, wireless digital cameras and printers, netbooks and appliances, with their own operating environments. This makes it extremely challenging for developers to build rich mobile apps that work across a wide range of devices.

Many industry experts believe that the next generation of mobile apps will be web-based, similar to AJAX web 2.0 apps for PC browsers that provide desktop-like capabilities and ease-of-use. Funambol recognizes that just providing rich mobile browser apps will be insufficient. Apps must also sync data and content locally with mobile devices and have push capabilities similar to push email. They must also be integrated into the core apps on devices such as their address book, calendar and messaging clients.

The integration of Funambol and Zapatec technology provides all of the required resources to build the next generation of open, rich mobile browser native apps. It combines Funambol’s open source mobile data sync and push server platform, with Zapatec’s AJAX web 2.0 framework. This will enable Funambol, its customers and open source community to create a new generation of open, rich mobile native apps that ’sync & push’ billions of devices to address the device fragmentation problem. As part of the acquisition, Dror Matalon, Zapatec CEO, is joining Funambol’s leadership team as Vice President, Emerging Technology.

“Open source is on fire in mobile, and Funambol is at the forefront,” said Dror Matalon. “Together, our technology can make it easy for people to build rich mobile native apps that support all major platforms.”

About Funambol

Funambol is the leading provider of mobile open source cloud sync and push email for billions of phones. Funambol open source software has been downloaded over three million times by 50,000 developers in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol has been deployed by the largest device manufacturers, mobile operators, portals, service providers and ISVs in the world, including AOL, 1&1, EarthLink and CA, Inc. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, California with an R&D center in Italy. For more information, please visit http://www.funambol.com. You can follow Funambol on Twitter at http://twitter.com/funambol.

Ahoy!

I’m heading out to the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco tomorrow.

Have a look at the agenda and tell me, dear MIR readers, whom should I make sure I talk to?

I’ll probably write up a post at the end of the day tomorrow, and I plan do be doing some real-time updates on my twitter stream.

So let me know in the comments, or shoot me an @reply on Twitter, who do you need to hear from?

Killer robots sent to destroy WinMo

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece about CTIA in which I said that Android could be the next Windows Mobile.

Obviously, this story was read by Saul Hansell of the New York Times (although he did not comment on the post), because today he published an article in the Times saying pretty much the same thing.

Except he added fancy quotes from execs, analysts, and used things like “proper grammar” and “research.” Whatever (sentence fragment).

He also followed the piece up with a post to the New York Times Bits blog, where he didn’t really beat around the bush in asking if Google had made Android only to harm Microsoft and kill their business in mobile (which they tell me is the future).

So let’s not beat around the bush either. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Is Google only using Android as a tool to kill Windows Mobile? Is that being, errr.. evil on their part? Does Microsoft deserve it for having such an outdated product?

I know at least Ewan has an opinion on this one. Have at it.