Wednesday, August 18, 2010

some statistics

"top ten per cent applications in iTunes get about 75,000 downloads, the next ten per cent only 9,000 and the vast majority fewer than 1,000"

OK, I know it's not fair, but we've got 135 downloads already with almost no publicity and no complaints/bug reports (wow? I guess wow!)

That means that in next couple of weeks (a month tops) there will be proper 1.1 release with adequate graphics, polished interface and I guess at least one translation into Russian. I don't feel like mixing bug-fix and new-feature releases so next one will have no new functionality.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Meditation tracker technical post

In this post I'll try to keep current state of development of the aforementioned1 application.

Here's what I've got so far:

1. All screens layouts:
    a. main - done
    b. add - done
    c. practice - done
    d. preferences - done
    e. schedule - done

2. add/edit form
    1. resize/crop image - done
    2. save big and thumb in private storage - done
    2.5 add/edit db action - done
    3. handle edit params  - done
    4. insert/update persistence - done/done
    5. little icon/ big icon issue - done
    6. edit currentCount bug - done

3. main form
    1. smart id/url image display - done
    2. practice long-press context menu with
        a. open, - done
        b. edit, - done
        c. delete - done
    3. show statistic sub-text - done

4. practice form
    1. start practice - done/temp
    2. schedule - done
    3. edit - done
    4. update scheduled date sql - done
    5. big picture's not loading - done
    6. properly format dates - done

5. schedule form
    update date picker - done

6. icon - done

7. session form
    1. layout - done
    2. timer/clock action ? test in real dev - done
    3. handle mala count - done
    4. handle date change - done

BUGS:
    major:
        current count reset after schedule edit - done
        crash on save new - done
        last practice date is one month ahead - done
        crash after taking picture on NEXUS
        custom picture's thumb not showing in main list - done
        scheduled date is one day behind - done
        handle screen rotation for session - done

    minor:
        no-scroll list unjust height calculation
        prevent screen from lock during session - done

FEATURES
    custom mala size
    remove temp image from sd after shot



1 using this word is absolutely irresistible. I just envy the bureaucrats.

And here we go

Somewhat unexpectedly for me the first application I've published on android market is my the most recent side project. So, three weeks of relaxed development, some testing and here we go.


click me to install
Meditation Tracker for Android phones
Meditation Tracker helps you keep track of progress of your practices.
It comes with predefined preliminary practices group (can be switched off in settings). You can create your own practices and create practice schedule based on date you aim to compete practice or number of daily repetitions. It also contains a session timer - simply set timer to required length and you'll be notified when that time has passed. You can be notified by sound or vibration. Each session data (time, repetitions) is stored in database.1


My primary aim was to create visual and functional copy of the same application created for iPhones.

The big idea is to have several coordinated teams bringing same experience to users of different platforms. These applications are in no way ports of each other, they share look, functionality and hopefully feel.

So the Meditation Tracker.


Not much to say at this moment. As I said already this is test-release. In order to help testing - ... well use it and when it crashes, please post somewhere here a bug report including how to reproduce the issue and also the log file is found on the very root of your SD-card of the device (called meditracker.crash.log) - please attach it.

So far there's one known issue: on Nexus One there's an error after taking a photo so I'm really looking forward for error report on that.

Also have a look here. This should be the centralized place for both applications, at least I've talked to them and they find it a good idea.

1 This description is shamelessly copied from the iPhone's application. But intentions are good. I think it's not a bad excuse.