A brand new app has just been released in order to help you navigate the Champlain Canal in upstate New York. The app can be download from BlackBerry World, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore.
With apps having already been released for the Erie Canal, Cayuga-Seneca Canal, and Oswego Canal there are now apps available for navigating the whole New York State canal system. These apps give you the ability to see the locations of all locks and boat launches along the canals. Additionally the apps also contain a map view to give a visual representation to where everything is.
The Stuff I Need check list app has been updated to version 2.5 for BlackBerry and Android. For BlackBerry 10 users the app makes a few visual tweaks, support for the BlackBerry Passport, and has also been optimized to give the app a 15% reduction in file size. For Android users the newest version of the app allows you to set a custom text size, which is a feature that was added to the BlackBerry version of the app last summer.
Amazon Appstore
The Android version of the app is also now available in the Amazon Appstore.
About Stuff I Need
Originally conceived as a grocery list app, this minimalistic checklist app can be used to keep track of the stuff you need to get, or the stuff that you need to do. New items can be added to list with the ‘Add’ button on the bottom of the screen. Items on the list can be edited (or deleted) by giving them a long press. Lists can be switched by pulling down on the tab at the top of the screen. This will expose a spinner that shows all of your current lists. New lists can be added by using the “+” button on the right side of the expanded tab. Making use of three or more lists requires the use on a one time in-app purchase. Lists are automatically deleted if you delete all items in a list and restart the app.
Runaway Trains is a colorful strategy game for all ages where you must route the trains to the proper station. Each level progresses in difficulty and presents an unique puzzle which you must solve by finding a way to guide the coloured trains causing a collision or running out of track.
This is done by touching the intersections to toggle the open path of the tracks. If at any time the trains crash or end up at the wrong station, you will have lost and have to try again.
As BlackBerry prepares to have the Amazon appstore preinstalled on their phones, I have already had my apps in the Amazon store for two years now.
First of all the best place to have your apps is in BlackBerry AppWorld. If you are writing a native Cascades app, there is no choice except to sell your apps through the BlackBerry store. If you are selling an app based on a cross platform framework such as Cordova or Unity you are better off compiling that code natively to a .bar file as it will run much better then packaging the same code as an Android app. If you have a native Android app, then you are still better off compiling to a .bar file and submitting the app to BlackBerry World. Taking this extra step makes the app easier for users to update and also gives developers the possibility of removing the back bar from apps.
However, simply having the ability to sell to Amazon’s own tablets and phones is enough reason reason to submit your apps into the store.
For the most part the Amazon store is pretty similar to what all other platforms offer with developers getting a 70% cut of all sales. Payments are made out to developers via direct deposit to a bank account. All apps are submitted as .apk files and like Android apps on BlackBerry, they must not be dependent upon any Google Play services. All apps submitted to the Amazon Appstore require a minimum of three screenshots (at one of a few specific resolutions), and are subjected to a rather comprehensive review policy. App reviews typically take around five days, with rejections usually a case of including a reference to the Google Play store (including something as simple as a link to your other Android apps).
The high praise that BlackBerry has given the Amazon store is mostly marketing fluff. The truth of the matter is that nobody cares about Amazon coins, and this store really isn’t all that different than all of the others…
Adding to the set of New York State canal apps, an app for helping to navigate the Oswego Canal has been released to BlackBerry World and Google Play.
Similar to the apps for the Erie Canal, and Cayuga-Seneca Canal that have been released earlier this year, this is an app that gives you the ability to see the locations of all locks and boat launches along the canal. Additionally the app also contains a map view to give a visual representation to where everything is.
The Stuff I Need app is now available on Android through the Google Play store. This app gives you a simple checklist in order to mark of the stuff you need to buy or the stuff that you need to do.
About Stuff I Need
Originally conceived as a grocery list app, this minimalistic checklist app can be used to keep track of the stuff you need to get, or the stuff that you need to do. New items can be added to list with the ‘Add’ button on the bottom of the screen. Items on the list can be edited (or deleted) by giving them a long press. Lists can be switched by pulling down on the tab at the top of the screen. This will expose a spinner that shows all of your current lists. New lists can be added by using the “+” button on the right side of the expanded tab. Making use of three or more lists requires the use on a one time in-app purchase. Lists are automatically deleted if you delete all items in a list and restart the app.
Similar to the Erie Canal app that was released in April, this new app gives you the ability to see the locations of all locks and boat launches along the canal. With an additional map view to give a visual representation to where everything is.
Today marks the five year anniversary of my career as a mobile app developer. On May 31st 2009 I sold three copies of Pixelated Plus for less than nine dollars. Five years, and few million downloads later, I have come a long ways since then.
As I enter year six, pretty much everything has changed since when I began. I just hope that five years from now, my apps can see the same rate of improvement that they have seen over the past five years…
Xploding Boxes has been updated to version 4.11 in the BlackBerry, Google, Amazon, Windows, and Nook app stores. This new version adds levels 441 through 450 to the game.
It is important for BlackBerry 10 users to upgrade and run this version of the app at least once in order to ensure that their game progress will still be available on future updates to the game. Version 5.0 of Xploding Boxes will bring some major changes to the BlackBerry 10 version of the app and will be unable to read data from versions prior to 4.11.
About Xploding Boxes
Xploding Boxes is a strategy game for BlackBerry, Android, Nook, Windows 8, and BlackBerry 10 where the goal of the game is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level gives you a different number of touches, and requires a different strategy to solve.
The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while maintaining your progress from the free levels.
The Erie Canal app has been updated to version 1.1 in BlackBerry World and Google Play. The new version is smaller, with a 25.5% reduction in file size for BlackBerry 10 users, and a 22.4% reduction for Android users. Additionally this version of the app also automatically refreshes its data once every month.
The app is designed to help out those traveling along the Erie Canal by showing the Boat Launches, Locks, Lift Bridges, and Guard Gates along the canal’s path. The primary view of the app shows a list of all the landmarks along the canal, with their distance along the canal along with a phone number that the app can dial in order to contact the marinas, and locks on the route. In addition to this, there is also a map view that precisely shows the location of everything along the canal’s path. An options page allows you to filter out the types of landmarks that the app shows (on both the list and the map), as well as allowing you to switch the list to an east to west orientation.
Pixelated Shapes has been updated to version 1.2 in BlackBerry World, Google Play, Windows Store, and Amazon App Store. This new version consists of bug fixes and includes a 3.5% reduction in the file size of the BlackBerry 10 app.
About Pixelated Shapes
Pixelated Shapes is a twist on the classic version of Pixelated that replaces the familiar squares with triangles and hexagons. The object of the game is to get the screen a single color by slowly growing a blob out of the upper left hand corner by matching it to the colors of the surrounding shapes. This is done repeatedly until either the game is won, or you run out of moves. Under the default settings you must clear the screen in 29 moves or less in order to win. A one time in-app upgrade can allow you to adjust the difficult, switch color schemes, change to different game modes, and get an indicator giving you the number of remaining moves.
Xploding Boxes has been updated for BlackBerry, Android, Nook, and Windows 8. Version 4.10 adds ten new levels to the game, bringing the total number of levels up to 440.
About Xploding Boxes
Xploding Boxes is a strategy game for BlackBerry, Android, Nook, Windows 8, and BlackBerry 10 where the goal of the game is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level gives you a different number of touches, and requires a different strategy to solve.
The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while maintaining your progress from the free levels.
The following batch file takes a Cordova project and builds, signs, and deploys a .apk file. I had found this script to be helpful for myself, so hopefully it will help others as well. Just replace keystore_file and alias_name with your own keystore information.
cordova build --release android
for /f "delims=" %%x in ('dir /od /a-d /b platforms\android\ant-build\*.apk') do set recent=%%x
set recentShort=%recent:-release-unsigned.apk=.apk%
The Erie Canal app has been released as a free download for Android and BlackBerry users. The app is designed to help out those traveling along the Erie Canal by showing the Boat Launches, Locks, Lift Bridges, and Guard Gates along the canal’s path.
The primary view of the app shows a list of all the landmarks along the canal, with their distance along the canal along with a phone number that the app can dial in order to contact the marinas, and locks on the route. In addition to this, there is also a map view that precisely shows the location of everything along the canal’s path. An options page allows you to filter out the types of landmarks that the app shows (on both the list and the map), as well as allowing you to switch the list to an east to west orientation.
All of my Android games have been updated in order to better support Android 4.4 KitKat. This update fixes a bug with these games on the newest version of Android, and leaves the apps pretty much unchanged for those users on older versions of Android.
A brand new app has just been released in order to help you navigate the Champlain Canal in upstate New York. The app can be download from BlackBerry World, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore.
