Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Finance for Android App

Just over a year ago, during a user experience research trip for Google Finance, we were at the home of a stay-at-home mom / day trader. She was frustrated that there were "personal blackout periods" in the trading day when she was entirely disconnected from the stock market -- for example, while she was ferrying kids around or at lunch with friends. Her situation wasn't unique. During our research visits, we had been hearing similar concerns from people who need to stay connected to the market. With the hope of resolving this dilemma, we started to design and build a finance application for the Android platform in our Google 20% time.

As the Finance for Android application took shape, and the team of 20% engineers grew, we added more features with the aim of allowing users to get stock quotes, market data, and news as fast as possible. If you are following the markets throughout the day, check out the real-time streaming quotes in your portfolio, fast stock look-ups with search auto-suggestion, and 'recent quotes' to make it even easier receive quotes on-the-go. For each stock, you can see detailed quotes, charts and news, and any change you make to your portfolio automatically syncs up with the Google Finance website. So now you don't have to worry about setting up a separate portfolio on your phone.

If you're in the US, you can now download Finance for Android from Android Market.











Posted by Arun Mathew, Lead engineer, and Nick Fey, User experience designer
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30 comments:

  1. FalbhanMarch 3, 2009 at 6:00 PM

    Android isn't quite far enough along for me to jump ship, but I would looove something like this for my Blackjack II.

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  2. Robb RailMarch 3, 2009 at 9:28 PM

    Tried it, loved it. Just got a G1 with android and it is amazing how many good new apps have come out this week.

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  3. MarianoMarch 3, 2009 at 10:14 PM

    Why just in the US? Is that the new black at Google? Like only US developers can post paid apps?

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  4. benMarch 4, 2009 at 2:27 AM

    Can we have the list of functionnality provides by this app?
    Can we follow other market place or just NASDAQ and DowJones?

    ReplyDelete
  5. NikMarch 4, 2009 at 2:54 AM

    Please, please get this working for London Stock Exchange shares. My portfolios are listed in this app, but no values are shown as you are currently NASDAQ only.
    Why can't you show the same data as the Google Finance Web site?
    Other than that, great app!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Alan MarMarch 4, 2009 at 8:57 AM

    I installed this last night, but I'm not syncing with my online Google Finance Portfolio. The portfolio tab just shows a blank screen with an "add ticker" button. When I press the button, nothing happens. Weird...

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  7. Jay LiewMarch 4, 2009 at 9:54 AM

    Will this app be coming to the iPhone ? :)

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  8. AnonymousMarch 4, 2009 at 12:17 PM

    Please don't forget about us BlackBerry users. Love ur stuff ...

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  9. gerrrgMarch 4, 2009 at 7:07 PM

    Here's what is missing: volume, popular technical indicators.

    Google Finance as a whole, is lacking on the technical indicators, so it's more a critique of Google Finance than this app. But I'm not sure why volume was left out of this app.

    This app has a ways to go before it matches the quality of...ahem...Quote Pro, my favorite stock app.

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  10. U&S Consult BVBAMarch 5, 2009 at 12:02 AM

    I downloaded the app, it seems to be very good.
    However I can't login with my google account (my google account has a non-gmail domain).

    Regards

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  11. FergieMarch 5, 2009 at 1:19 AM

    Great app, much better than any of the existing ones. Just need the team to add support for UK and other European markets please :-)

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  12. UnknownMarch 5, 2009 at 10:39 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  13. UnknownMarch 5, 2009 at 11:03 AM

    A great app , well done.

    Is streaming done via a comet implementation or frequent polling?

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  14. HusbandMarch 5, 2009 at 1:11 PM

    You guys really need to make a Google Finance App for Windows Mobile Devices, such as many of the popular HTC phones.

    At the very least, a mobile stock page would be nice. The current full-size page doesn't fit very well on the 240x320 resolution of a WM device.

    Thanks!

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  15. UnknownMarch 5, 2009 at 7:04 PM

    Quote pro is much more advanced than google finance, there is a wide variety of tools google finance lacks. There are no ways to compare the stocks with other stocks, or indicators.

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  16. MattMarch 5, 2009 at 8:21 PM

    I would love something like this for my BlackBerry, I'm always visiting the full Google Finance site on my browser and then have to zoom in to see my portfolio or the charts and it takes much longer to load. This would be awesome though!

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  17. UnknownMarch 5, 2009 at 11:23 PM

    A version of this for iphone and Blackberry? Pretty pretty please? :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. V Ellis TsaiMarch 6, 2009 at 12:22 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  19. MarianoMarch 6, 2009 at 2:44 PM

    Me again. I read your sentence

    "If you're in the US, you can now download Finance for Android from Android Market"

    as if you made the app only available for the US for no special reason. Hence the comment about this being the new black.
    After I just found out that I can download the app from outside the US I take my comment back and like to say that the app rocks. Thanks for that.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Abigail ShawMarch 7, 2009 at 8:03 AM

    Wow. Does Google Finance offer APIs or web services so I can create this feed/app behind my company's firewall? Must check this out -- please advise a non-tech tech admirer.

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  21. AnonymousMarch 7, 2009 at 4:21 PM

    Sucks.

    I have a Google Apps account with my own domain AND a regular Google account. But I can't log into this app because I don't have a @GMAIL address. Shit, why should I have THREE google accounts? Makes no sense anyway because I can log in to Finance on my PC using the non-gmail regular account. Can't anybody get anything right the first time?

    ReplyDelete
  22. Andrew SchmittMarch 9, 2009 at 8:27 PM

    Must... have.. iPhone. App....

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  23. ReidMarch 9, 2009 at 9:20 PM

    I think I speak for us all, you need to quit wasting time on Google Finance and Get Latitude on the iPhone. We are all tired of waiting for you. Every day that passes you become a little bit more like Microsoft.

    We will start calling you Google-Soft... with the emphasis on SOFT.

    ReplyDelete
  24. HusbandMarch 9, 2009 at 9:46 PM

    No Reid, I think you speak for yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  25. DadMarch 11, 2009 at 7:16 AM

    I also am wondering when you will bring this to the iPhone. I realize that now with Android on the market Google will likely develop for it first, but please don't forget about the iPhone users.

    I seriously considered the G1 when I bought my iPhone last December. One of the reason I chose the iPhone over the G1 was coverage. In my area, New Orleans, T-mobile's coverage is so small that it is almost useless and it is not one of their 3G cities. AT&T on the other hand has 3G here and the iPhone was a better choice for me personally.

    I feel that Google is not biased the release of Android but your actions up until now are making me reconsider.

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  26. UnknownMarch 12, 2009 at 9:50 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  27. SeanMarch 24, 2009 at 12:17 AM

    Vote # 201987 for a BlackBerry version of this App. As always, keep up the great work!

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  28. AnonymousMarch 26, 2009 at 11:58 PM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  29. AnonymousMarch 28, 2009 at 2:56 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  30. AnonymousMarch 30, 2009 at 11:03 PM

    My G1 is logged into my Apps for Domains account and syncs my email and calendar perfectly. But I have to use a regular google account to log in to things like Finance and Picasa. Worked great when I first downloaded them. But when I changed my log in email address in my regular google account, things stopped working. Finance and Picasa Uploader try to login with the old email address. There's no way to change this in the app - no way to update the login information for my regular google account. Therefore the google-developed Finance and Picasa Uploader apps are rendered useless. Any response? I just signed up with Tmobile. I'd rather not cancel the service. But I need you to tell me how to change the log in for Finance and Picasa Uploader (and other google-developed apps that I assume will have this problem too) and still have my phone sync with my Apps for Domains email and calendar.

    Please advise.

    ReplyDelete

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