All posts by Eric at Ebscer

The End of an Era

I think it is time to admit what has been obvious for a long while now, that my time as an independent mobile app developer is over. I have not released updates to any of my apps in over two years now, and given the state of the market, I don’t really have the motivation to work on any of these projects in the near future.

The apps for the BlackBerry, Nook, and Windows Phone stores have long been inaccessible. And this summer when I let my Apple developer license expire, the apps for iPhone will disappear as well. While I will not be aggressively purging any other app stores, there isn’t much left that is compatible with the latest operating systems.

This has been a really fun project, (and for a few years a fantastic full time job). I am sure that there will be future software projects (even if they are more likely to be on the web), but until then I am getting enough coding in as part of my day job.

Thank you to everyone who supported me over the years.

Thoughts on the BlackBerry movie

When the BlackBerry movie was first announced I assumed that I would have a professional obligation to go see it, but then it has a extremely limited release and played on zero screens where I live. However, the film has since made its way to hulu and I finally got to see it last week.

I enjoyed the film, but when you are such an expert it is easy to get distracted by the little details that the movie gets wrong. Still most of this doesn’t matter, and the one thing the movie really got right was showing how good Mike Lazaridis and BlackBerry were at network efficiency and squeezing a lot out of the limited wireless speeds available at the time.

The big thing that movie got wrong as the (widely accepted belief) that BlackBerry was doomed following the launch of the iPhone. BlackBerry’s executives were correct in that the iPhone would overwhelm the 2G networks, and BlackBerry would find itself capable of making a touch screen. (Issues with the first Storm phones were not with the hardware as the movie implied, but with the software the only got decent half a year after launch). What actually put BlackBerry in trouble was the later launch of Apple’s app store. BlackBerry responded with a store of their own but didn’t preinstall it on new devices and was too deferential to the carriers and corporate CTOs to make it front and center the way they should have. I know it doesn’t work a biopic to spend too much time on a company’s short comings in the years after the founder left, but for those of us who were advocating for BlackBerry to make the right changes it can be frustrating to see everyone continue to learn the wrong lessons.

Hockey Score released for Android

The Hockey Scores app has now been released for Android. The app is available for download through Google Play, the Amazon AppStore, and the Huawei AppGallery.

Hockey Scores for Android includes the same features as the iOS and BlackBerry versions of the app. Showing not just the score, but also team statistics and a list of the goal scorers.

About Hockey Scores

In addition to showing the scores of each game, the app also shows the game time, shot on goal, shot attempts, hits, faceoff percentages, and a full list of all of the game’s goal scorers.

A one time in-app purchase can be used to remove all advertising from the app.

Links & Information

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Coloring the Navigation Bar in Swift

Coloring the Navigation Bar in an iOS app (including the sides of the tab) requires setting an appearance attribute within the init method. It actually only requires a few lines of code, but is a bit unintuitive.

init() {
let colored = UINavigationBarAppearance()
colored.backgroundColor = UIColor(Color.accentColor)
UINavigationBar.appearance().scrollEdgeAppearance = colored
UIBarButtonItem.appearance().tintColor = .white
}

The final line is for setting the text color of the back button. The color of the navigationBarItems can be set by directly setting the foreground color of the Images.

Niagara Border Crossing updated for iOS

The Niagara Border Crossing app has been updated to version 2.1 for iOS, matching the update released for Android and Windows earlier this month.

This new version fixes a bug with retrieving the wait time data, and also improves support for the newest iOS features and screensizes. Additionally the app is also now available to be downloaded on Macs with a M1 series processor.

About Niagara Border Crossing

This app shows the current wait times for all four of the border crossings over the Niagara River between the United States and Canada. These bridges between Western New York and Southern Ontario include the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge, and the Peace Bridge. Separate times are shown for cars, trucks, and also for those using the Nexus lanes.

Links & Information

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Niagara Border Crossing updated for Android and Windows

The Niagara Border Crossing app has been updated to version 2.1 for Android and Windows. This new version fixes a bug with retrieving the wait time data, and also improves support for the newest OS versions.

About Niagara Border Crossing

This app shows the current wait times for all four of the border crossings over the Niagara River between the United States and Canada. These bridges between Western New York and Southern Ontario include the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge, and the Peace Bridge. Separate times are shown for cars, trucks, and also for those using the Nexus lanes.

Links & Information

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Projectile Physics updated for Android

The Projectile Physics Calculator has been updated to version 3.1 for Android phones. This update improves support for the newest versions of android, and also offers a new option on the settings page that lets you run the app in a dark mode independently from the system wide setting.

About Projectile Physics

This app is a projectile physics calculator designed to solve for all of the components of a typical projectile motion problem. The app solves for both the vertical and horizontal components of the distance traveled, the constant acceleration, the initial and final velocity, as well as the time. These factors are solved for in real time in order to help you get back the factors of the equation quicker.

Links & Information

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Hockey Scores optimized for iOS

The Hockey Scores app has been updated to version 5.1 for all iOS devices. This update improves dark mode support, minimizes data usage, improves landscape device support, as well as a few bug fixes.

The app’s options page now offers the opportunity to set the app in a dark mode or light mode independent of the rest of the device. Additionally some of the background and text colors have been optimized for when dark mode is active. This version also adds a new pink background option.

About Hockey Scores

In addition to showing the scores of each game, the app also shows the game time, shot on goal, shot attempts, hits, faceoff percentages, and a full list of all of the game’s goal scorers.

A one time in-app purchase can be used to remove all advertising from the app.

Links & Information

web

Projectile Physics updated for Apple devices

The Projectile Physics app has been updated to version 3.1 for iOS and Mac computers. This update greatly improves support for the iPad. Also there is a new option on the settings page that adds the option to run the app in a dark mode independently from the system wide setting.

About Projectile Physics

This app is a projectile physics calculator designed to solve for all of the components of a typical projectile motion problem. The app solves for both the vertical and horizontal components of the distance traveled, the constant acceleration, the initial and final velocity, as well as the time. These factors are solved for in real time in order to help you get back the factors of the equation quicker.

Links & Information

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Hockey Scores updated for iOS

The Hockey Scores app has been updated to version 5.0 for iPhone and iPad. This new version has been updated for the upcoming NHL season, and improves support for the latest phone and iPad sizes.

Additionally the app can now also be run on the newest Macs with an M1 processor.

About Hockey Scores

In addition to showing the scores of each game, the app also shows the game time, shot on goal, shot attempts, hits, faceoff percentages, and a full list of all of the game’s goal scorers.

A one time in-app purchase can be used to remove all advertising from the app.

Links & Information

web

Projectile Physics app released for the Mac

The Projectile Physics Calculator has now been released as a Mac native app. This app has the same features as the iOS, Android, and BlackBerry versions, calculating basic projectile physics equations in real time. The calculator can be downloaded directly from the Mac App Store.

About Projectile Physics

This app is a projectile physics calculator designed to solve for all of the components of a typical projectile motion problem. The app solves for both the vertical and horizontal components of the distance traveled, the constant acceleration, the initial and final velocity, as well as the time. These factors are solved for in real time in order to help you get back the factors of the equation quicker.

Links & Information

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Projectile Physics Calculator updated for iOS

The Projectile Physics app has been updated to version 3.0 for iOS users. The app has been fully rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of the latest iOS features and to support the newest screen sizes.

About Projectile Physics

This app is a projectile physics calculator designed to solve for all of the components of a typical projectile motion problem. The app solves for both the vertical and horizontal components of the distance traveled, the constant acceleration, the initial and final velocity, as well as the time. These factors are solved for in real time in order to help you get back the factors of the equation quicker.

Links & Information

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Weather Beautiful updated for iOS and Android

Weather Beautiful has been updated to version 2.6 for both iOS and Android. This update improves the compatibility with the latest OS versions, and also reduces the size of app downloads on both iOS and Android. Additionally a image bug has been fixed on the iOS version of the app.

About Weather Beautiful

Weather Beautiful is a simple weather app that displays stunning photography of your surrounding area. In addition to the current temperature and weather conditions, the app also allows you to scroll for a full weekly forecast. While temperatures are shown in Fahrenheit by default, there is an option to switch to Celsius.

Links & Information

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