Well, it’s not exactly what I expected to create, but one of my goals this year was to get at least two Android apps into the market(s): one free and one paid. Those goals are now accomplished.

My free app has been in the market(s) for a while, and has actually gotten a recent update: Mono Stock Portfolio, which is totally free (and no ads), and was really just a way for me to help learn (and teach) the Mono for Android tool. According to Google, this app actually has a surprisingly large user base: 1080 total installs, and 393 active installs. And I’ve gotten several e-mails from users asking for more features!

The other app, I just threw together this weekend in a sudden fit of whimsy, inspired in no small part by this commercial:

The app is “Yeah Dog!“, which I started creating with Mono for Android, but soon realized that the 5mb+ overhead just didn’t make sense for this app. So I rewrote it, painstakingly, in Java, which wasn’t as unpleasant as I thought it might’ve been (but unpleasant nonetheless). This app will set you back 99 American cents, and is also ad-free.

In the process of creating and publishing Yeah Dog!, I came to find out that I was beaten to market! First, GEICO actually released their own “BroStache” app some time ago, but I discovered that there is a secret “Yeah Dawg” feature in that app. Secondly, some other rascal created his own YeahDawg app (albeit an inferior one!) and published a mere two days before me.

Oh well. Such is the harsh reality of free markets. But in any case, I believe I have enriched myself as a developer, speaker, and businessman throughout the process of creating, publishing, and maintaining these apps, so that alone makes it worth it.