You’ve asked for it, then pleaded for it, then begged on your hands and knees. We finally got our act together and are ecstatic to announce the beta release of the Android App for Sports Card Album. And we are celebrating this news by doing some big giveaways…tune in to Sports Card Live, hosted by Doug & Dan from MojoBreak and Ryan from Sports Card Radio. Click HERE to tune in “live,” or to download the podcast later. Some of the giveaways will not require you to listen “live.”
Hey Sports Card Album fans, Technology Co-Founder John (@smplejohn) checking in here with all the details.
We’ve flipped what we knew of the iOS app upside-down and started from the ground up in developing this. The focus of this app, besides uploading and organizing your sports card photos, is on the actual cards themselves. With a larger viewing area for the card and smaller, flat icons for favoriting, commenting and sharing, this app has turned out more beautiful than our original plans.
You’ll also notice that the profiles for all users have been completely revamped. With a more streamlined approach to displaying user stats all of the information available for users is easily viewed without distracting from their collection. Oh, and the albums. The albums are gorgeously displayed in a thumbnail view with the first card from each album showing proudly as an album cover. Simply click on that icon to view the full album list.
Now, on to some details about the beta.
Here’s how it’s going to work. At the bottom of this post you’ll see a link to the .apk file. “What’s an APK file?”, you ask. It’s the file type that Android uses to install an app on your phone. For the beta we’re not quite ready to throw it on Google Play for the world to see, but for our dedicated users, we’re more than happy to share the progress. And we have to do so by giving you a file to download.
Once the file is downloaded you will make sure your phone allows files from external sources to be installed. If you’re an Android user you are more than likely used to this as we like to tweak our phone’s a lot. If you’re not too familiar with that, follow the instructions listed here.
In this beta you can expect to…
- UPLOAD CARDS!
- View the Sports Card Albums cards feed including all sports, recent uploads and user-specific cards and albums
- Search all cards, user-specific cards or users
- Edit cards
- Message users
- Comment on cards
- Favorite cards
- View backs of cards
- Share cards on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere Android allows
- Follow users
- COPY IMG CODES!!!
- Add new albums
- View all albums / sub-albums
What we’re working on…
- The back button: We want you to be able to go back to the last feed you were looking at because that’s what I would want to do.
- Editing profile information
- Deleting a card
- Notifications of comments, likes, follows and messages
- Back of card uploading
- Rotate cards
Reporting Bugs
This is a BETA and I can’t be any more clear about that. Although we have thoroughly tested it on our array of Android devices (Moto X, Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus) there are a ton of Android devices out there. It is a possibility you’ll run into a bug that we haven’t seen. If you do, please comment below this post with your phone model and the specific problem you’re encountering.
After the Beta
Once the beta is completed, we will be blasting from the mountaintops that the app is available on the Android store (which won’t be long.) When that happens, simply delete your app and install it from Google Play to continue receiving updates for your favorite card collecting app. No data will be lost in this switch.
Enough talking, here’s the link…
If the button above does not work for you, try this alternative link: ANDROID APP DOWNLOAD
Jesus Arreguin
Couple things I’m having problems with.
-I’m selecting a sub-album (football> Luck) but it saves it as (football> Cubs) no matter how many times I correct it.
-Uploaded a vertical pic but it shows up horizontal.
I was able to edit both on the mobile site, but couldn’t change it via app.
Keep up the good work. Really excited for the app.
sensei322
Thanks for the report, I’ll be looking into this for the main release NEXT WEEK!!! We’re excited here
Jesus Arreguin (@gzus32)
Twitter share link doesn’t work. I clicked the icon and it brought up my twitter, but all it shared was a partial description of what the card is. No link or pic.