Foreign Character Sets Working in Next Version...Confirmed

I'm happy to report that all international characters will work in Version 1.2. You can see a sample below. I'm working on making the process of fitting characters into the alloted space better as well as improving how text using the Zapfino font is edited and rendered.

Current Postcards 1.2

The next version of Current Postcards (1.2) will fix problems using the extended characters that are available on the iPhone. This is really for international users or spanish speaking user trying to use enhanced character sets. I believe this will also allow chinese/japanese characters (kanji, han) to render correctly but it is a little difficult testing this. The simulator for the iPhone does allow me to change the language but I haven't figure out how to actually write these characters in the simulator yet.

We are also working on more postcard themes for a future update that include more "postcard" like themes with the stamp, watermark, etc... Expect this to follow after the 1.2 release.

Hope you are enjoying the free program!

1.1 Other Features

Apple took too long to publish Current Postcards 1.1, so I went ahead and included some other tweaks I completed and re-uploaded the app. This means you may not see the app till next week. In addition to the fixes in my previous post, it also supports font selection and adds a photo border.

Click on the sample above for a better view...

Current Postcards 1.1

Current Postcards 1.1 should be released to the iTunes store shortly. It fixes two issues:

1. Firmware as old as 2.1 is supported now.

I really screwed up with the initial release so let this be a lesson to other people developing applications. When you target your distribution build, make sure you target an OLDER firmware. If you don't, people who are using older firmware will not be able to install it. While everyone should upgrade their device, not everyone remembers or knows it is important.

In some cases, you have to target a newer firmware, but for most apps you should NOT have to go older than 2.1. 2.1 added a an easier API for playing sound files which many apps may be using.

2. Fixed a weird bug that caused the Facebook "authorization uploads" screen to flip back to the theme selection instead of going to the facebook upload screen.

The facebook connect API gives you functions to present the user with a dialog to get extended permissions. In my case, this allows the application to upload a postcard to your facebook wall. The dialog that confirms this automatically disappears if you do nothing, but the user can also touch "Okay". I was forcing the screen to flip if they pressed "Okay" but it would flip automatically anyway. This resulted in it flipping to the upload screen then flipping back. The user might think something was wrong. Simple fix. I did not notice it when testing because I always waited for it to dissappear.

I'm working on font selection next since that is tougher to implement. Twitter support should be cake.

Twitter

I am now on twitter. I'll use it to publish quick updates about changes to Current Postcards or iSkyGaze.

You can follow me here:

http://www.twitter.com/yarsrvenge

Current Postcards

Long time no write. I just finished up a native iPhone application for the App Store. It is a free program that allows you to create postcards and greeting cards from photos and save, email or upload to Facebook.

I created this for my company in my spare time for a lot of reasons, but the biggest was to generate some excitement across our various departments and get the business to open up to new ideas and directions. There are a lot of people doing exactly the same thing, and Apple has made developing for their platform a lot of fun.

It was nice to work on something that was NOT Microsoft related for a change. No offense against Microsoft, but they simply aren't innovative anymore. Most of their time seems to be spent copying what other people do. I do think highly of their development tools, but when it comes to their desktop and mobile operating systems...they really are not in nearly as robust as what I've seen from Apple and others.

Anyway, here is a link to a youtube video for the new iPhone application.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0C18rXCxEs

I have other apps planned. Sorry this is not astronomy related. I had to make a choice when working on a native app whether to do something for myself or something to help out my company. Given the tough economic times and doing more with less, I think it was the right choice. It has provided a fun project for several people and helped people realize that we want to grow and 'think different'. From that perspective, I consider it a success already.

There are some great astronomy apps in the app store, I would check them out. iSkyGaze simply does not have all the great features of a native app because I do not have the kind of hardware control in a web app. Keep in mind, it was written before there was even an SDK :) That being said, people still use it and I get emails all the time.

Thanks for the support!

iSkyGaze Back Up!!

iSkyGaze should now be working again. I appreciate all the e-mails and support and apologize for the downtime. This was a particularly weird mathematical bug and frankly I am surprised it did not show up sooner.

Please report any issues!