We are often asked to what proportion the various mobile operating systems are represented by our users. The last statistic is nearly one year old, so it’s now time for an update. Below is the evolution of the various mobile platforms at barcoo:

You will have noticed the striking Samsung bada dent in the middle of last year. This is due to the fact that we supported bada from the start, that the Samsung devices sold well and that their app store was pretty empty. Therefore users downloaded most of the few apps available to them in the store. This temporary high market share could not be kept indefinitely. With a current overall market share of 5%, but nonetheless increasing steadily, the bada platform should still remain of interest to some app developers.

Nokia Symbian is a tragedy (see analysis by Tomi Ahonen). From August 31st, barcoo will cease supporting Nokia Symbian. It was a very painful decision: we’ve invested again and again in this platform, but now it’s enough. It’s all over.

In the graph, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry are hardly to be seen. Here also, because of the continued lack of use, we have been compelled to discontinue support for these platforms. We are currently not planning any WP7 or webOS version either. Anyone interested in detailed statistics will find the historical data in Google Docs.

The evolution of the current market share, compared to the average for 2010:

No surprises. It should be quite clear where we’re heading. Or not? Nokia will be (most likely) purchased soon. A lot is possible then: Maybe MeeGo after all? Exciting.

Since barcoo’s inception in January 2009 (in Germany), we’ve made an insane amount of changes and developments in just about everything but our app’s design (the very format of the information), which has stayed more or less the same. But the ever-accumulating information on barcoo’s database too often ended up diffusing into endless snaking chains and word blocks, which became quite the eye sore.

Now, after having thoroughly analyzed barcoo’s usage, we’ve developed a whole new design that will enhance your usage of the app. Here’s what it looks like:

There are three so-called ‘tabs’ that structure all of the contents: information, prices and evaluations. The product information is preselected by default (with the food traffic light, the sustainability traffic light and lots of other background information). However, the core information of the other two tabs is still visible in the top righthand corner. This design is immediately available for each of the two million people who’ve already installed barcoo! Marcus is looking forward to your Feedback.

As we have mentioned, our goal is to offer the award-winning barcoo transparency to as many consumers as possible.
No matter what smartphone, it should be possible to access green, price and background information everywhere you want.

However, lately we have gotten a little behind on the promise concerning our loyal Nokia customers – but today that will change: A new touch-enabled barcoo version for Nokia 5800 (Express Music), N97, N97 mini and other S60 5th edition devices can be download for free from Nokia Ovi Store.

The new version speeds up scanning and simplifies the user experience. Price- and product information, for example food traffic light and sustainability information, and everything else are now shown directly in the app. Gone are the days of having to fiddle with jumping between the built-in browser and the scanner.

We are committed to further invest into the Nokia platform and are looking into specifically supporting the upcoming Symbian^3 devices such as the Nokia N8 and C7.

We’ve been preparing and working on it for months and now it’s finally ready: barcoo launched in the UK and in France! But do these countries really need yet another barcode scanner? Absolutely, because so far barcoo is the only app worldwide to bring cosumers transparency in all dimensions:

- of course (local) price comparison
- product reviews and user comments
- nutritional traffic light system
- sustainability footprint (corporate social responsibility of producers)
- information about fish population and sustainable consumption
- crowdsourcing: you add new products, images and prices using your mobile phones
- Social Elements

And naturally we’re rolling out our platform spanning strategy and launched on iPhone, Android, Nokia and bada right from the beginning. Bonjour la France – Hello UK! Spread the word.