Notebloc: Organisation at your fingertips

We understand that it’s one thing to develop an app, and another to actually launch your app onto an app marketplace. That’s why as part of our Apps UP initiative, we decided to sit down with some of our developers who have successfully built an app, and launched it on to AppGallery.

In this week’s edition, we will be speaking to Bente Malmberg and Maria Trullàs , who founded Notebloc , a scanner and document organization app used by the educational community. Notebloc helps students stay organized and exchange documents such as homework, exams, receipts etc. Notebloc was launched on to AppGallery which enabled students to use it on the Huawei Matepad, providing them with an interactive medium to highlight, annotate and draw on scanned documents using its accompanying pencil.

Where did the idea for the app come from?

In 2014 we started out by making physical paper notebooks that we distributed to university students in Barcelona, which were free as they also contained advertising. We included a survey inside the notebooks asking students how they thought we could improve them. From this, we received a plethora of different ideas, with several students asking us to digitize the notebooks and develop an app. Then, in 2015, we launched the first version of our app.

What would you say is the perfect situation for someone to use your app?

If you are studying and quickly need to digitize your notes or homework and send them to your teacher. You can email them the PDF directly or for example upload it in any school platform like Moodle.

How did you go about creating it?

We started out by thinking of the functions we needed in the app and after that we started to draw wireframes. From there we then started to look for developers that could help make the app come to life.

Which programming language/framework did you create it with?

The first version was released using Java, C/C++ and Android support library. Now Kotlin is included in application.

One of the requirements for Apps UP is to integrate HMS Core kits into your app submission. What HMS Core kits did you integrate into your app and how did you find integrating them?

We integrated HMS Core, Login with Huawei and Drive Kit into our app, which we found very easy to integrate. We also had great support available if we needed it from the Huawei Developer team. We really appreciated Tao from Huawei as he brought ideas on new HMS Kits we could use.

What have been your biggest learnings after releasing Notebloc?

We have had so many different learnings. One important learning is to be open to pivoting and listening to the market. When we first made the app, it was intended to only work with our paper notebooks (you could not scan other documents). But after seeing comments from our users, we decided to make it open to scan any type of document. This proved to be the right decision to make as shortly after we started to see an increase in downloads.

What are the key trends you're excited about or are looking forward to hearing about in the future?

Since Notebloc Scanner is somehow a link between the analog world and the digital world, we are very excited to hear and learn more about Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, which we believe could be very useful for an app like ours in the future. We also expect more and more digital learning tools and apps with a focus on education to be available in the future, as this would be great for inclusiveness.

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We would like to thank Bente and Maria for giving us an insight into how their app idea come to life, and grow to become a successful essential app in the educational field.

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Do you have an app that you would like to bring to life or have an app ready to be launched? Would you like to do this while also being in with the chance of winning from our $200,000 USD prize pool? Then look no further as we are currently looking for the most innovative apps integrating HMS Core to enter in to our Apps UP competition! Whether you have an existing app or have a great concept for a new one, simply integrate HMS Core for a chance to win in one of our award categories, ranging from Best Game, Best Student Innovation, Tech Women’s Award, to Best Social Impact App (to name a few!). Register now for a chance to win HERE !?