iStock Tools / Apps: LiveStock - an iStock contributor app for your Android phone

Posted Thu Nov 20, 2008 8:48AM

Updated: 2013-01-27 new version (2.11.24) available via the Android Market/Google Play

You can follow http://twitter.com/LiveStockIStock for LiveStock-related announcements.

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Are there any contributors out there with an Android-based phone?

I've written a little app which lets you keep watch on your account and notify you of sales. It also shows you assorted statistics, sales details, and lets you read your iStock sitemail. It's free.

I have no plans to write a version for other platforms - sorry iPhone, Blackberry, Palm Pre, Windows Phone users.

Login Screen screenshot on phones from version 2.11.8

Main Screen screenshot on tablets from version 2.11.2

Main Screen screenshot on phones from version 2.11.2

Monthly Stats View screenshot from version 2.11.2

Yearly Stats View screenshot from version 2.11.2

Sitemail View screenshot from version 2.6.16

Getty Images and Partner Program Recent Sales View screenshot from version 2.10.8

Recent Uploads screenshot from version 2.11.22

Home Screen Widgets screenshot on phones from version 2.11.8: 4x2, 2x2 and 2x1 widgets

It is available (for free!) from the Android Market. Just start the Market application on your phone and search for Livestock.
Or if you have a barcode scanner on your phone, just scan this:

As for privacy, you can be assured that I have no interest in you or your data . Here's the full LiveStock Privacy Policy.

The current version is 2.11.24 (as of 27th January 2013).

Edited to refer to the latest version.

(Edited on 2013-01-27 09:53:22 by theasis)

Posted Sun Nov 23, 2008 3:41AM

Updated LiveStock to correctly track Dollar Bin sales.

Edited to remove obsolete (and misleading) information.

(Edited on 2009-05-29 02:02:15 by theasis)

Posted Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:41AM

Updated to give better information (size and royalty earned) for recent sales.

Because this involves scraping data from more webpages, the very first time you run the application it will spend quite a while in the "Talking to iStock: Gathering data..." phase.? How long depends on quite a few factors including, of course, how good a signal your phone has and whether it's connected by 2G, 3G or Wifi.? Best to set it running and go make yourself a sandwich and a cup of tea (or a pie and a pint if that's more your thing).? Subsequent refreshes will be much faster (unless you have hundreds of sales and don't refresh for days).

Edited to remove obsolete screenshot.

(Edited on 2009-05-29 02:01:17 by theasis)

Posted Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:29PM

i really thank you for writing this app, finally somthing for the G1, but anyway im visiting the page from my phone but cant find any application link!! is it deactivated, the page i see is exactly like the one on my PC no difference..

maybe im missing something..

Posted Sat Dec 20, 2008 5:10AM

Hi there
Posted By thesuperph:

i really thank you for writing this app, finally somthing for the G1, but anyway im visiting the page from my phone but cant find any application link!! is it deactivated, the page i see is exactly like the one on my PC no difference..

maybe im missing something..

That's odd. I just checked with my phone to make sure that it is still active and all looks fine. I took a look through the web logs and I don't see any Android browsers connecting for the last couple of days. My first thought was that you might be using one of the 3rd party browsers that are in beta-test, but I don't see any connections from them, either. Do you remember roughly what day and time you looked with your phone's browser (and what timezone you're in!) because I'd really like to get to the bottom of it if there's a problem on the server.
However, on a different note...now that I have an API key from istock, I'm completely rewriting the application. It might be worth holding off for a little while whilst I knock it into shape.

Thanks a lot for your interest,
Martin

Posted Sat Dec 20, 2008 3:06PM

well im checking now at this moment and only from my G1.. you can get the time from this post time..

still the same thing (i refreshed three times), also the browser that i use is the default built in one..

?

anyway i think the best thing o do is to wait for your newer one really thanx again for your effort

Posted Mon Dec 22, 2008 5:53AM

Thanks for trying again. My best guess is that there's a cache somewhere between your phone and the livestock webserver and it's feeding you old pages. My phone doesn't seem to give me a cached page, so I wonder if it's a difference between the USA and UK services, or if you're on some non-standard service.

When I have a stable version of the app I'll submit it to the Android Marketplace (it'll still be free) and any such problems should go away. Sorry that it's being a pain for you in the meantime

Posted Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:13PM

i have it now installed on my G1.. bugs are there but its cool to have something IS related on my mobile

ill be waiting for the final version, and thanks alot for your efforts..

Posted Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:28AM

Is this still in the works?? This would be especially useful now that the iStock page is slightly mangled in the Android browser (the main toolbar gets wrapped around under the search bar).

Posted Mon Feb 16, 2009 10:29AM

Development of LiveStock is on hold for the time being. I'm hoping to put some time aside in the next few weeks in order to knock it into a decent shape.

If I don't find time to do that, I'll put out the version that's currently on my phone. This doesn't do much more than let you know you've had a sale and what you've earned.

Sorry for the delay on this - real life sometimes gets in the way

Posted Tue Apr 7, 2009 11:49AM

Any update on this interesting project? Is real life still in the way?

Thanx for your effort.

?

Posted Thu Apr 9, 2009 4:12AM

Posted By Mac99:

Is real life still in the way? ;-)
?

Heh - actually, the reasons for delay have changed somewhat. The chap in the Glasgow store where I got my phone told me that I was one of the first people to get a G1 from them, and that I was definitely the first to bring one in for repair. I don't expect it back for at least another couple of weeks...hopefully I can then make some more progress.

Thanks for the patience!

Posted Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:29AM

A positive update, at last.
My G1 has been repaired and returned. I'm re-implementing LiveStock, building on what I learned about programming for the G1 first time around. I'm planning on releasing an alpha version of LiveStock2 in the next few days:
- the new version will be simpler than the old version to avoid using up the G1's resources so quickly - this should result in fewer bugs and better battery life;
- I'll be releasing through the Android Market rather than my own web pages - that means installing and upgrading between versions will be more straightforward. I understand that it takes a little while for an application to work its way through the Market after release, so I'll not announce its availability until it's actually visible.

Thanks for your patience!

Posted Fri Apr 17, 2009 10:02AM

I'm happy to announce that a new version of LiveStock is now available.
It is available (for free!) from the Android Market. You'll find it in the Market in Applications->Tools, or just search for "livestock".

The current version is 2.0.14 alpha (as of 17 April 2009); this is a complete rewrite of the previous version of the application. Although it is usable and, I think, useful, I'd like to stress that this should be considered alpha quality software.

I am aware of a few flaws. In particular, the first time you run it it can take a long time to pull some of your information from the istock servers. This pull really should happen in a background thread - because it doesn't, your phone may warn you that LiveStock is taking a long time to respond. If that happens, just touch the "Wait" button. This is the item highest on my priority list to fix.

The first time you run it, it will ask you to enter your istock login details. I strongly recommend that you touch the "Test" button before saving so that LiveStock can attempt a connection to the iStock servers to check you entered them correctly.

The main screen will display some current stats and your most recent downloads.

From the main screen, just touch the refresh button and it will pull your current details from istock.

This is still an early version and there are many things I want to improve and features I want to add. First on the list of things to fix is the horrible delay the first time you pull data from istock. The next most important feature is to make LiveStock run as a service so that it automatically pulls data from istock at regular intervals. Once that is done, it will be able to notify you as sales happen.

Of course, this isn't istock-supported software so please direct your complaints, plaudits, requests, rants, bug reports, etc to me either in this thread or via sitemail.

Enjoy.

Posted Fri Apr 17, 2009 2:15PM

Oh wow i just found it in the market browsing recent apps!
I have not read this thread before but i was looking for such an app.

It works really good THANK YOU!
You've made the G1 a much more interesting phone

Posted Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:13AM

I've just pushed a new version (2.0.15) to the Market. If you look for Livestock in the market and you already have 2.0.14 installed, you will be given the option to update.

The main change in 2.0.15 is that the disturbing silence (or even more disturbing Force Close/Wait dialog) when refreshing the list of recent downloads is now replaced by a progress indicator - no more wondering whether or not there's anything happening. A lesser, but related, change is that there is now a "Refresh recent DLs" option from the Menu button to force an update of the recent downloads list.

Please let me know if these changes don't seem to work for you, or if other issues appear.

The current plan is for the next release to run as a service and automatically inform you of sales - no more having to hit Refresh.

Posted Thu May 7, 2009 9:45AM

I'm pleased to announce that I've just pushed a new version (v2.1.0) of LiveStock to the Android Market. If you search for Livestock in the market on your Android phone you have the option to install or, if you have an earlier version installed already, to upgrade.

There are a number of changes in this release:
- the list of recent downloads does not update automatically. You can request an update simply with MENU->Refresh Recent DLs. This was made manual as updating the DL list involves a fair amount of network traffic which helps run down your phone's battery.
- you don't need to request that Livestock checks to see if you've had a sale. Instead it runs in the background and automatically checks for any changes to your balance. If your balance changes, you get a notification. (But see my note below!)
- a few minor cosmetic changes.
- quite a few small bugs have been squashed.

Automatic Checks
Every 20 minutes or so, LiveStock will check to see if your balance has changed. If it does change, LiveStock posts a notification.

If your phone is in sleep-mode (i.e. when the screen has blanked), LiveStock will not wake the phone to check the balance. Waking the phone seems to be relatively power-hungry and it runs the battery down far too quickly. I hope to improve this in future. However, if some other application wakes the phone then LiveStock will take the opportunity to do its checks.

I hope you like the changes. Please do let me know of any bugs or strange experiences, or feature requests you may have.

Edit: I should add, this has been tested on both the older version of Android (1.1) and the new "cupcake" release (1.5).

Enjoy!

(Edited on 2009-05-07 10:08:02 by theasis)

Posted Tue May 12, 2009 4:01AM

Hi,

Most of the time if i open your app it says "stats updated" and if i close it and then open it it will give the new stats. I have never seen a notification about automatic stats update after 20 minutes. It only gives this message if i have the app opened. Am i missing something?

I love this app! thanks for your hard work.

Michel

Posted Tue May 12, 2009 5:27AM

Hi Michel
Thanks for the feedback.
Posted By micheldenijs:

Most of the time if i open your app it says "stats updated" and if i close it and then open it it will give the new stats. I have never seen a notification about automatic stats update after 20 minutes. It only gives this message if i have the app opened. Am i missing something?

Hmmm...I've seen the same thing some days, but not always. In a future version I'll try triggering the notifications a different way and see if that helps.

If I can get to the bottom of it, I'll put out a new version in the next couple of days. If I can't find the problem immediately, it will probably be a couple of weeks before I put out a new version due to other commitments.

Many thanks for the report!

Posted Wed May 27, 2009 5:09AM

I've completely rewritten the automated checking and it now works in a way that I think you'll like. The checking also does less processing, which means less drain on the battery. Which means LiveStock can now check for and notify you of sales even when the phone is sleeping.

I'll delay releasing it until after Thursday night's downtime just in case there are any site changes that would affect LiveStock.

Source: http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=80029&messageid=6854677&source=rssforums

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