Ryan Grier Dev

MyCntdwn HD, my first iPad app, has been approved and released by Apple. 

My original plan was to just port (slightly modify) the existing MyCntdwn code to work on the iPad. After doing this for a bit, I decided that this just wouldn’t work. I needed to start from scratch. 

MyCntdwn (and MyCntdwn 2) didn’t allow for the iPhone to be displayed in landscape mode. The layout of the screens were also very iPhone-centric. I needed to rethink most of the app for the iPad verison.

I developed and tested this application without owning an iPad. I hadn’t even touched an iPad until I had been developing the app for a few weeks.

During development, I decided that I needed to see how the pop-overs work, I ran to a local Apple Store and played with an iPad over lunch. I am glad that I did, my idea of how the pop-overs should work was wrong and I needed to change things. 

I had an excellent tester though. He played with the app for a number of weeks. He provided a ton of feedback. He also let me play with MyCntdwn HD on an iPad a number of times. It let me find a number of issues that I couldn’t find just using Apple’s iPad simulator. 

Some of this must have been what the initial iPad developers went through while developing apps before the iPad was released. 

Even thought MyCntdwn HD was released last night, I have already submitted a small update to Apple. My next goal is to get the push notifications working on the MyCntdwn HD. I also have a few more updates planned to get some of the editing screens to work better (more intuitive).

Look forward for more changes. 

 

MyCntdwn 2 2.2 has been approved and released to the Apple iTunes App Store. 

This latest update has two new themes for you to use. The new themes are ‘Due Date’ and ‘Wedding’. These themes were highly requested. 

I’ve already started thinking about the next big update. My plan is to move the server syncing (which can be annoying) to the background. It ruins the flow of the application when you are adding/editing events and you see the ‘Syncing with server’ screen a lot. I haven’t started on this work yet, but I plan to make it my main goal once the new iPad app has been submitted to Apple. 

Enjoy the new themes!

I am happy to announce that my latest application has been approved by Apple and placed on the Apple iTunes App Store. The application is called MarkIt Up.

This app is another collaboration between Brad and myself. We wanted to make another iPhone app together. This is one of the ideas that we came up with. 

So what does MarkIt Up do? 

Brad wanted a way to add a mark up cost to certain freelance and work projects. He needs to do this a lot in his profession and wanted a super simple app to use. 

For Brad it was important to be able to mark up costs. For me, I wanted to be able to easily apply a discount to a price. I can often do these in my head, but I wanted something easier.

MarkIt Up is also a great way to add sales tax to the price of something quickly. If something is $59.99 and there is 6% sales tax, use MarkIt Up to find out the final price quickly ($63.59). 

In the future, we plan on adding a way to find out the percentage marked up (or down) based on two prices. We were going to try to add this to the initial release, but we wanted to get the application released. We plan on adding that shortly in a free update.

MarkIt Up keeps a running history of the calculations you perform. This makes it easy to go back and look at what you’ve marked up or discounted down in the past. You can clear the entire history, or individual history items.  

This past week Apple approved updates for all four of my iPhone apps. 

MyCntdwn, Mycntup, and LearnIt have some minor defect fixes. I have also added a way to collect some basic usage stats. I want to know a bit more about the iPhone OS versions and devices that are using the app so if I can move up an OS version. 

MyCntdwn 2 has already been sending this information. MyCntdwn 2 was updated with some minor defect fixes. 

If you are concerned about the information I am collecting by these apps, don’t be. I am only collecting the following information: application version, iPhone OS version, device type (iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone), and a piracy bit. MyCntdwn and MyCntdwn 2 also send the number of events and the number of events ending soon. I do not send the device id, phone number, or any personal data. 

I plan on submitting a new update to LearnIt in the next day or two. This update adds “swipe to change” the flashcard. In addition to pressing the previous/next button to proceed, you can swipe left or right to proceed. 

On Father’s Day, I submitted one of the completely new apps to Apple. If there aren’t any issues, it should be approved within the next week. Expect a new blog post about it when it launches. If you want a hint of what’s coming, check out the “Info” tab (Or About LearnIt button) in one of my apps.

I have been planning for updates to all of my apps (MyCntdwn, MyCntup, and LearnIt). The updates for these have been a long time in the making, but may not be that large in reality.

I am also working on two new applications. No details on this yet, maybe in the next week or two. One application is completely different than what I am used to doing, so there won’t be any updates for a while. The app may even become lost (like a few others that I have worked on). 

I have also started the process of designing and developing a few iPad applications. I am still unsure if I am going to make iPad specific versions of my existing applications, or working on completely new applications. 

I have also thought (a lot) about dipping my toes into the Android marketplace. I think my initial dip would be an Android version of MyCntdwn. I have a solid background in Java (which is the Android SDK language), so I should be able to port MyCntdwn over fairly easily. 

I have a lot of items up in the air right now. I hope that I don’t drop them all. 

I currently have about 4 or 5 ideas for new apps or updates to my existing apps. I just need to find the time to implement these updates.

I may try to see if I can port my existing apps to Android and possibly Blackberry. I have a solid Java background and porting these may not be too difficult. I still need to investigate this though.

I may also look into making some iPad specific applications. But I would like to get an iPad for development purposes. I did the same thing with an iPhone (among other reasons) and an iPod Touch and that was worked out well.

Some large freelance iPhone and web development opportunities may be coming up soon. So, I really need to get to work. I’ve had discussions with several people about developing iPhone apps for them. I’m not sure where this will go yet, it may be a great opportunity for me. Plus there is always the constant possibility of freelance web development.

With all of this potential work, I need to get cracking on my own ideas. With luck, I can deliver one or two of these apps/updates before any outside work comes in. And if the work falls through, I will have gotten my updates out and may make some more money.

The traffic to my software site (http://software.ryangrier.com) has been on a steady increase. I think that this also coincides with slight increase in my iPhone app sales.

I often wonder how I can get more development time into the day (without losing my mind). I also wonder if I am too ambitious. Either way, I’ll keep moving forward.

LearnIt 1.2 was approved by Apple in the Apple iTunes App Store yesterday. This update is a big one because of one significant item. It includes an In App Purchase item.

The In App Purchase available is called Barnyard Animals and costs $0.99. It includes 12 barnyard animal flashcards. LearnIt 1.2 also includes another free module called Shapes. Shapes includes 9 shape flashcards.

In App Purchase (or Downloadable Content) has been something that I promised to add to LearnIt when the application was first released. It took about 6 months of time for me to get the feature in there, but it’s there now.

Apple initially rejected this update. But they rejected it because I hadn’t submitted the In App Purchase for review. I thought that I could submit the In App Purchase after LearnIt was approved by Apple. It turns out that you have to submit the In App Purchase first (or at the same time). Apple was nice enough to send me an email to let me know this. They were also nice enough to allow me to reply to the email to get the approval moving again. So, thanks Apple!

If you own LearnIt, please help support me and check out the In App Purchase. If you don’t own LearnIt, please purchase both. :)

Yikes. It looks like I haven’t been around in a while. I am busy plugging away though. I just submitted updates to the Apple iTunes App Store for LearnIt, MyCntdwn, MyCntdwn 2, and MyCntup.

This updated version of LearnIt finally includes a DLC pack. You can download a set of Farm Animals DLC for $0.99. I haven’t enabled the DLC pack yet. I may wait until the application is approved.

I’m still looking into a brand new app. I am doing a lot of investigative work, but I don’t have anything concrete yet. Maybe in a month or so.

After my brief hiatus, I am developing again. It was nice to have some time off to relax. But my ambition is starting to get the better of me. I am kicking myself now, I could have spent the time working on the updates below.

I almost have an interim update for LearnIt wrapped up and ready to test. This update has no noticeable features. The only changes are background changes which will eventually setup the ability to add DLC.

I have updates for MyCntdwn and MyCntup planned. I want to fix a nagging issue with the data layer. I am going to change the data layer to use SQLite. The data layer currently has a proprietary implementation which crashes more than I like. MyCntdwn 2 doesn’t have this issue because it uses Core Data.

I don’t have any plans for MyCntdwn 2 updates. Maybe by the time I’ve updated the other apps, I’ll have thought of some key updates for MyCntdwn 2.

MyCntdwn 2 was approved and released by Apple today. What is MyCntdwn 2? It’s like MyCntdwn, only better. Seriously.

MyCntdwn and MyCntdwn 2 are two separate apps. You’ll have to pay for this update. I did this for a few reasons. The most important reason is that MyCntdwn 2 is not compatible with iPhone OS 2.x. It requires features that are only available in iPhone 3.0. If you are still running iPhone 2.x, you can still use the latest MyCntdwn.

Let’s face it. Another reason that I am charging for this version is that it has Push Notifications. Honestly, I have to pay for the increased server load. MyCntdwn 2 as a separate app will help to pay for this. I fought with this for a long time. In the end, I didn’t want to force anyone to upgrade to the latest iPhone OS, so I made it a separate app.

MyCntdwn 2 has a number of new features. The features include Push Notifications, Themes, Swipe to Delete (for events), and more. I’ve also rewritten much of the data layer (moved to Core Data).

Push Notifications allow you to know when an event is ending without having to open Mycntdwn 2. MyCntdwn 2 will remind you of an event 2 days before, 1 day before and when an event is ending. You can essentially set the event and forget it. You can opt out of these notifications.

Themes allow you to customize your events. I have included a number of themes to start with. You can chose from the following themes: Birthday, Calendar, Christmas, Default (What you’re already used to), and Sports.

For more information about MyCntdwn 2 (and screenshots), check out the MyCntdwn 2 page: http://software.ryangrier.com/mycntdwn2

My goal was to release this app at the end of September. I missed that goal by just over a month. I had a lot of freelance work come up over the summer which was a blessing, but it caused my iPhone work to be pushed back.

Now that I’ve finished my summer project, what’s next? Well, I am not sure. I have plans to update LearnIt. I also have some vague ideas for a new app. I am currently working on prototyping to see if the idea is even plausible. Firstly though, I have some freelance work coming up that I need to work through. After that, who knows.