adschwein's blog

30 developers attend Walgreens event to integrate QuickPrints technology into prototype photo applications in under 5 hours

Hack day highlights company’s continued efforts to foster mobile innovation through relationships with third-party developer community

DEERFIELD, IL – Aug. 13, 2012 – This past Saturday, Walgreens hosted its first Mobile Photo Hack Day at its downtown Chicago office. The event gave developers the opportunity to meet, collaborate and showcase their creative implementations of the QuickPrints SDK in their applications.

The successful, single-day hackathon attracted a total of 30 developers making up 14 photo hack application demonstrations. Developer demos were judged based upon the unique features and functionality of the application and the completed integration of the QuickPrints SDK, which was determined by the photo print output created at the on-site photo lab.

The applications were reviewed by a panel of judges that included: Scott Regan (head of marketing, Apigee), Ari Fuchs (lead API engineer & developer evangelist, Aviary), Brett Goldstein (commissioner, Chicago Department of Innovation & Technology), Kevin McGinnis (VP of product platforms, Sprint), Terry Howerton (founder, TechNexus) and Jasbir Patel (senior director and general merchandise manager for photo, Walgreens).

“I would like to thank all the talented programmers who found very creative ways to use QuickPrints SDK in third party apps,” said Abhi Dhar, Walgreens chief technical officer for e-commerce. “Although ‘appathons’ are more common in places like Silicon Valley, it was our goal to bring the concept to Chicago and take advantage of the city’s burgeoning tech industry and its growing pool of talented programmers.”

The winner of both the Judges’ and People’s Choice Awards was Smilesback, developed by the husband-wife team of Mr. Bhabani Sahu and Mrs. Prachi Sahoo. Smilesback (watch their app demo video) reminds people about important dates such as anniversaries, birthdays and others occasions that are perfect for personalized, last-minute photo gifts.

“We wanted to build something that helps people and can make a difference in their daily lives,” Bhabani Sahu said. “QuickPrints is about convenience and speed and that really fits with our goals for the Smilesback app.”

The Smilesback team won a total of $5,000 in cash prizes along with a 6-month mentoring and residency program through event partner TechNexus, a Chicago-based technology incubator and collaboration center.

In July, Walgreens extended its innovation in mobile technology with its developer portal that allows third-party software developers to integrate the Walgreens QuickPrints software development kit (SDK), which allows iOS and Android mobile users to print photos directly from their smartphone to most Walgreens stores nationwide in about an hour. The launch of the QuickPrints SDK marked the first time that Walgreens has provided an open interface for third-party application developers to integrate Walgreens in-store services.

The Walgreens QuickPrints SDK, already implemented within seven partner applications, allows third party developers to integrate a print service within their existing mobile application and earn a revenue share from photo orders printed and picked up at a local Walgreens location. More information about the QuickPrints SDK program and its partners can be found on the Walgreens Developer Portal and through a dedicated Twitter handle @WalgreensAPI.

About Walgreens

As the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2011 sales of $72 billion, Walgreens (www.walgreens.com) vision is to become America’s first choice for health and daily living. Each day, Walgreens provides nearly 6 million customers the most convenient, multichannel access to consumer goods and services and trusted, cost-effective pharmacy, health and wellness services and advice in communities across America. Walgreens scope of pharmacy services includes retail, specialty, infusion, medical facility and mail service, along with respiratory services. These services improve health outcomes and lower costs for payers including employers, managed care organizations, health systems, pharmacy benefit managers and the public sector. The company operates 7,919 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Take Care Health Systems is a Walgreens subsidiary that is the largest and most comprehensive manager of worksite health and wellness centers and in-store convenient care clinics, with more than 700 locations throughout the country.

Walgreens is proud to introduce Filterastic+ as a new partner for the QuickPrints Developer Program. 

Filterastic+ is a fun, easy to use photo filter iOS app. Capture photos from within the app, or load them directly from your photo library and then use the 16 available filters to transform them in to works of art. Access your photos metadata and find the location where they wer taken. Share your photos to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, e-mail and now print them to Walgreens with QuickPrints.

According to Andreas Zimnas, Creator of Filterastic+, "When I first read about QuickPrints, I thought that's a service I would love to have on my iPhone. Take a photo, upload it and have it printed out, all done from my iPhone. I'm pretty sure the users of Filterastic+ will love it too."

Download the Filterastic+ app today via the Apple App Store for both iPhone and iPad.

Walgreens is proud to introduce Photo Collage Creator as a new partner for the QuickPrints Developer Program. 

With Photo Collage Creator you can quickly and easily create spectacular photo collages from the photos stored in your photo album using your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

Once you've created your masterpiece you can share it with your friends on your favorite social networks, print it to your local Walgreens, send it in an Email, or store it in Dropbox for later. The possibilities are endless

According to Alex Keim, Creator of Photo Collage Creator & Pic Stitch, "I've been waiting for a print solution like QuickPrints to come along for quite some time. This is a big win for all the developers out there creating photo editing apps."

Download the free Photo Collage Creator app today via the Apple App Store.

Winners! Congrats to Makesake and Swish who shared the prize for best iOS integration with QuickPrints and Ultimate Traces for the best Android integration. Each application is now eligible for a 3% revenue share bonus (for 6 months) if they submit a production build to the app store by August 15. This brings rev share from 15% to 18%.

Bay Area developers and designers:

Join Walgreens, Facebook, Dropbox, Aviary, and more at the 3rd Photo Hack Day!

When: July 14th-15th, 2012

Where: Dropbox HQ - 185 Berry St, San Francisco, CA 94107

Cost: Free!

How: Register at photohackday3.eventbrite.com

Learn More: photohackday.org

[About the event:]

The original Photo Hack Day was the first image-centric hackathon in New York City, bringing together the brightest minds in photography, photo-editing, web design, computer science, and more. In 24 hours, over 200 developers put together an impressive 43 hacks with APIs contributed from 25 companies.  

After garnering a wonderfully enthusiastic response from the community, Photo Hack Day II was organized, which brought over 250 developers, 30 APIs, the founders of reddit, Tumblr, and Cheezburger Inc., and $10,000 in prizes to General Assembly — plus a livestream of our sister Photo Hack Day taking place simultaneously in Berlin.

Now Photo Hack Day is making it’s way to the West Coast, with an open call to Bay Area developers and designers!

[Walgreens & Photo Hack Day 3]

Walgreens will be featuring its QuickPrints SDK for iOS and Android at Photo Hack Day 3 for developer attendees to utilize within their application hacks.  

Walgreens will feature multiple representatives on-hand at the event to discuss the QuickPrints SDK and Partner Program.  If you want to reach us at the event, feel free to send a tweet to @WalgreensAPI or email us at devportal@walgreens.com.

Walgreens is excited to be a part of this event and look forward to seeing you there! The event is free to attend, and you can register at photohackday3.eventbrite.com.

Walgreens Introduces Developer Portal Allowing Third-Party Software Developers

to Integrate its Web Services into Mobile Apps

New program allows for printing photos at stores directly from iPhone and Android mobile devices

Company invites mobile photo application developers to its first ever

 Mobile Photo Hack Day event Aug. 11 at its downtown Chicago e-commerce office

DEERFIELD, Ill., July 10, 2012 - Walgreens (NYSE: WAG) (NASDAQ: WAG) extended its

innovation in mobile technology today with the introduction of a developer portal that allows

third-party software developers to integrate the Walgreens QuickPrints software development kit

(SDK), enabling photo printing directly from iPhone and Android mobile devices.

“Our new QuickPrints SDK enables third-party software developers to tap Walgreens Web services,

building a broad selection of apps that deliver our convenient store capabilities to more customers,”

said Abhi Dhar, Walgreens e-commerce chief technical officer.

The launch of the QuickPrints SDK marks the first time that Walgreens has provided an open

interface for third-party application developers to integrate Walgreens in-store services. With this

program, Walgreens convenient Web services for QuickPrints can now be built into a wide range of

mobile apps that deliver these services to a large market of mobile users.

QuickPrints, currently available in the Walgreens iPhone and Android applications, allows mobile

users to print photos directly from their phone to any of the 7,907 Walgreens stores nationwide in

about an hour. Starting today, Walgreens has released the QuickPrints SDK for iPhone and Android

devices, allowing third party developers to integrate the service within their existing mobile

application and share revenue from photo orders sent to be printed at Walgreens.

"With almost 30 percent of photos today taken on smartphones and the popularity of photo

applications growing, the opportunity for consumers to benefit from the convenience of printing

their memories to Walgreens through a variety of photo apps is tremendous,” said Jasbir Patel,

senior director of Walgreens Photo.

The QuickPrints SDK has already been adopted by GroupShot, Kicksend, Pic Stitch, Pinweel, and

StillShot, with more partners expected to join the program in the coming weeks. Walgreens is also

partnering with Aviary, a digital photo-editing platform currently used by more than 1,200 app

developers and 8 million consumers, to leverage its growing group of photo application partners.

Detailed information for the QuickPrints SDK program, as well as other future offerings, can be

found on the Walgreens Developer Portal at developer.walgreens.com.

To encourage mobile developers to include new features using the QuickPrints SDK within their

application, Walgreens will host its first Mobile Photo Hack Day event on Saturday, Aug. 11, at its

downtown Chicago e-commerce office at 36 S. Wabash Ave. The event will provide developers the

opportunity to meet, collaborate and showcase their creative implementations of the QuickPrints

SDK in their applications.

Developer demos will be reviewed by a panel of top industry professionals with a total of $5,000 in

cash prizes available to the top developer integrations. For more information or to register for the

event, interested developers can go to developer.walgreens.com/page/hackday.

Walgreens is working with Apigee, a technology company providing the underlying platform for

Walgreens Developer Portal and application programming interface (API).

"Today's social media giants have demonstrated the power of APIs for creating a massive choice of

apps around a business, and now APIs are becoming imperative for any business to thrive in the

digital economy," said Chet Kapoor, Apigee CEO. "Walgreens is proving to be a leading technology

innovator, aggressively embracing the mobile market to enhance the pharmacy experience for

customers."

About Walgreens

As the nation's largest drugstore chain with fiscal 2011 sales of $72 billion, Walgreens

(www.walgreens.com) vision is to become America’s first choice for health and daily living. Each

day, Walgreens provides nearly 6 million customers the most convenient, multichannel access to

consumer goods and services and trusted, cost-effective pharmacy, health and wellness services and

advice in communities across America. Walgreens scope of pharmacy services includes retail,

specialty, infusion, medical facility and mail service, along with respiratory services. These services

improve health outcomes and lower costs for payers including employers, managed care

organizations, health systems, pharmacy benefit managers and the public sector. The company

operates 7,907 drugstores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Take Care

Health Systems is a Walgreens subsidiary that is the largest and most comprehensive manager of

worksite health and wellness centers and in-store convenient care clinics, with more than 700

locations throughout the country.