I had always been interested to program an app, but I needed the app to be practical, to fix / improve the deficit of something.
At that time (2014) he played a lot to Magic The Gathering and used the services of CardMarket (reference website in terms of buying / selling cards from different board games). One of the defects of the service is that it didn’t have the web interface adapted to mobile devices. In 2014 they announced the publication of a webservice that allowed the consultation of their data by third-party applications and I took the opportunity to create an App for Android that would solve the defect. Ideally, if the app was successful it would also do so through the Apple App Store or make a multi-platform version.
The app was called MKM Android and implemented all the functionality allowed by the webservice (search with many filters, management of the shopping cart, display data of the purchases and sales of letters, access to profile data. .)
I took care to minimize the use of exclusive instructions from the latest versions of Android so that it was compatible with the maximum number of devices (Android> = 2.0) and I made sure that the interface was scalable regardless of the device screen size.
Based on the good feedback I initially received from both friends who regularly used CardMarket services and from early users I decided to implement an Adsense system through provider Smaato.
Unfortunately, a few weeks after the publication (08/2014) CardMarket decided to restrict access to the webservice so that only companies that they decided to approve could use it. and how could it be otherwise, they didn’t like my app enough, arguing that it wasn’t from a company. A few months later, they themselves implemented the “responsive” web interface.
Looking at it positively, it served as an “excuse” for me to learn how to develop an Android app and learn about the possibilities and difficulties.
Beyond technical issues, possibly one of the biggest difficulties is to be aware of changes in requirements by the Play Store that are becoming increasingly demanding and difficult for small developers.
If you wan take a look of the code project, you can at my GitHub.