The Unofficial LEGO Minifigure Catalog now available for Android

 

  • The Unofficial LEGO Minifigure Catalog now available for Android

    Posted by Huw, 13 Dec 2011 05:21. Filed under Software/Games.

    You may remember I reviewed the book The Unofficial LEGO Minifigure Catalog in the summer and mentioned at the time that the author was planning to release an iOS version of the book, which I got very excited about at the time.

    Well, in the intervening months, author Christoph teamed up with Brickset member Nic Jansma and together they've developed apps for both iOS and Android. The Android version is available in the Android Marketplace now, for the introductory price of $2.99 (£1.91), and the iOS version has been submitted to Apple for approval and should be available soon.

    I've been beta testing both, on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus and iPad, for a week or so and I'm pleased to say that they live up to my initial excited expectations and are excellent.

    Both versions are pretty much the same in terms of look and feel and user interface and provide features to explore and discover the data and images in a way that just isn't possible in the book version.

    The main means of navigation is via the Browse button that allows you to drill down through the 3655 minifigs, 658 heads and 9466 sets in the database, either by theme or year, until you end up at a page showing details like that for C-3PO above. Minifigs are labelled with their taxonomy (see my review of the book for an explanation) and also the equivalent BrickLink number. Clicking on the small thumbnail will enlarge it to fill the screen, although I believe you need to have an online data connection to retrieve the large image from a remote server, so while the app can be used offline, you won't be able to view the hi-res images.

    One thing I particularly liked was browsing the heads by year. This is a feature that is not available anywhere else, to my knowledge, and illustrates well how their numbers have 'mushroomed' in recent years. From 1978 to 1988 there was just one minifig head -- the classic smiley. In 1989 Pirates were given beards and moustaches to bring the total number of variations to 7. Compare that to 2010 when some 99 different heads were made!

    In addition to browsing, you can search for figs by name, taxonomy identifier or BrickLink number. I didn't see a way to search for sets, just minifigs. You can also mark figs as favourites and then access them easily via a button on the menu.

    Last, and certainly not least, you can hook the app up to your minifig collection here at Brickset, download it and then see 'My figs' on your phone. You can modify your collection on the phone and upload the changes back to Brickset.

    This is a very cool app and well worth the few dollars asking price. This first version is very functional but there are improvements that could be made to make it even more attractive and useful, and I'm sure that Christoph and Nic will continue to develop it in response to our feedback, particularly if enough people buy it!


    17 comments, latest one posted 17 months ago. (Commenting has ended on this article)
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Comments

Posted by ChicoCheco in Norway, 13 Dec 2011 06:26

Looks promising. Lego apps is one of the reasons I will maybe go for android device in future.

Posted by joao in Portugal, 13 Dec 2011 06:47

Tried to install it but doesn't download. I'll try again later. Can anyone tell me if this is a good tool to identify sets where minifigs came from? I just got my collection back from when I was a kid and I have a bunch of torso's that I hope will help me identify the sets that are supposed to be in my collection.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Dec 2011 06:56

I downloaded it earlier today but then had problems downloading something else so maybe there's a marketplace problem.

Posted by redblurr in United States, 13 Dec 2011 07:35

Do they have any plans to release a WP7 version?

Posted by pitfall69 in United States, 13 Dec 2011 08:16

Just downloaded the app. No problems.

Posted by bluemoose in United Kingdom, 13 Dec 2011 08:23

Huw - is the iOS version 'universal' or is it optimised for iPhone/iPod only? (ie does it run properly full-screen on the iPad?). Thanks.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Dec 2011 08:56

It runs full-screen as a proper iPad app but doesn't take advantage of the extra screen size (other than fitting more items on the page, for example) apart from when viewing the full-sized images.

Posted by kylejohnson11 in United States, 13 Dec 2011 11:13

I downloaded it for my Android, Droid 2, this morning. I plan on going through it in detial on the bus ride home. Any idea when the nexted planned database update is? I noticed Collectible Minifigures are through Series 2.

Posted by Huw in United Kingdom, 13 Dec 2011 11:23

I don't know what the plans for that are. As far as I know this is the same data as in the book, which goes up to the end of 2010.

Posted by nicjansma in United States, 13 Dec 2011 12:25

joao: Please let me know if you continue to have problems downloading the app. You can email support@minifigure.org for support. For each minifig, it lists all of the sets that it comes in, and vice-versa. One of the features we plan on adding is a "Idenity" mode, where you select aspects of a minifig you have and we try to identify it. We plan for that mode in a future version.

redblurr: No plans for a WP7 version yet, unfortunately. We're using Appcelerator Titanium, which builds cross-platform iOS and Android phones, but it doesn't yet support WP7. We will consider it if there is enough requests.

bluemoose: The iOS version is universal, but we are working on a tablet-optimized version.

kylejohnson11: Christoph has already started gathering data and images for 2011. We plan on publishing updates several times a year.

Posted by legodrive in Hungary, 13 Dec 2011 14:15

The Unofficial LEGO USB Minifigure flash drives: www.legodrive.com

Posted by meyerc13 in United States, 13 Dec 2011 15:50

What would be really cool is if it had functionality similar to Google Goggles, where you could take a photo of a minifig and search the database using that image.

Posted by AitchJay in Australia, 13 Dec 2011 21:09

I just bought this app, thanks for the heads-up Huw!
Very pleased with what I've seen so far, easy to navigate and import my collection, well done devs!

Posted by andywalker6 in United Kingdom, 14 Dec 2011 10:41

HI, I don't quite understand the technology, but can I run this on a windows PC?

Posted by kylejohnson11 in United States, 14 Dec 2011 12:07

@nicjansma Thank you for the update. I look forward to it when it comes out!

Posted by adello25 in United States, 14 Dec 2011 22:46

Anyone know when this will be released on iOS?

Posted by bartneck in New Zealand, 15 Dec 2011 20:44

We are proud to announce that the iOS version is now available in the AppStore:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-unofficial-lego-minifigure/id486578707

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