The Daily Llama

Algebraic (for Android)

I’ve decided that the app will be available free for the first week of its existence. After the first week, the free version will be removed from the Android Marketplace, and Algebraic will cost 99¢.

I’m thinking that there might also be a possibility of releasing a free version that remains free, but I don’t know which one or two of the (currently 4) features should be included. You can vote for the one or two features that will remain available for free in this poll.

Anyway, enough with pricing – Let’s get to features:

You may notice two changes here. If not, I’ll point them out so you can pretend you noticed them first. The first change is that I alphabetized the modes. The second is that I added graphing.

Wow, that was hard, wasn’t it?

The graphing mode supports everything that solver and calculator can do, plus, it graphs stuff.

By default, it will render the graph from (-10, -10) to (10, 10), but you can drag the graph around and zoom in and out (the zooming buttons appear when you’re dragging the graph).

Of course, the graph above isn’t of the best quality, but there’s good reason for that. When you drag, zoom, or change the equation, the graph goes into low quality mode. This lets it render faster while you’re making changes.

Of course, not everyone wants an ugly graph, so after a few seconds of no activity, it switches to high quality mode.

There’s a snapshot of a zoomed in and a zoomed out graph. If you get lost when you’re navigating around the graph, double tap to re-center the view.

This is the landscape mode for the calculator. As you can see, I have nothing on the left side. This is for two reasons: I’m lazy, and I can’t think of anything to put there.

When you click the equals sign, the view flips to this one, where you can choose between decimal and fraction answers. The calculator makes an intelligent decision as to which one should be the initial view (basically, if you included decimals in your input, the default output is a decimal), but you can flip back and forth by clicking the buttons.

Algebraic (for Android)

Mr. Orange has always been telling me, “Hey Ben, make an App for Apple! Make millions! I could be your business manager!”

I looked into it, and in order to make an App for an Apple product, I need to buy a Mac. But there was also Android, which I looked into.

I quickly found out that the Android SDK was available on all platforms and that Android Apps are programmed in Java, which unlike Apple’s Objective-C, I have experience in.

My first attempt at an App was Sporepedia for Android. The way it ended up looking, coupled with the fact that nobody in their right mind would buy an App that just displayed a list of things from a website led me to release it for free.

Mr. Orange then told me that I had missed the point and that the reason he wanted me to make an App was to make money, not to make an App.

I knew that nobody would ever use Sporepedia for Android if it wasn’t free, so I thought and thought, and eventually settled on the idea of an App that would do algebra.

Enter Algebraic. When it’s released, it will cost 99¢ and have a full suite of algebra tools. At the time of this post, it has fully working integer factorization, a semi-working polynomial solver, and a mock-up of a calculator.

Let’s start with the factoring part.

Both factoring modes use Pollard’s rho algorithm, which is both extremely simple and fast. It uses the Java BigInteger class to hold the numbers, so it can handle any number you throw at it, including negatives, as long as it fits inside your phone’s memory.

Algebraic - Polynomial Solver

Then there’s the polynomial solver. Currently, it can only solve 0^th and 1^st degree polynomials, but it can simplify any equation you throw at it.

Algebraic - Calculator

At the time of this post, the calculator works just as well as a real calculator without batteries. The buttons don’t do anything – yet.

My plan is to do what most computer calculators do, but in a much more discoverable way. By default, it will have the basic layout, but if you turn your phone sideways or extend the keyboard (depending on which phone you have), it will turn into a scientific calculator.

Calculator mode will use the same custom algebra library as the polynomial solver.

I’m also planning on adding a graphing mode to Algebraic.

So, what do you think? Is there something you’d do differently? Would you buy Algebraic for 99¢?