Kenneth Weiss » Apple

New iPad app! – iNow

Kenneth — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 02:13:53 +0000

iNow is an iPad app which does one simple thing. It lets you create a To Do list you can move around and re-order very, very simply and easily. What makes this organizer special, is it’s unique approach that helps you focus on a reasonable number of tasks each day.

iNow is based on Bill Liao’s Stone Soup philosophy for organizing and maximizing your life. It’s been truly a great opportunity to work with him. Another great thing about this project is that I could collaborate with my father. He was always curious about iOS development and this was a great opportunity. My father focused on the model/db side so I could focus on the UI part. Bill wanted a tactile an realistic approach so I designed the GUI with a rustic wood style in mind. We added some random tilt to the tasks so it seems as though the tasks were tossed on the desk. The graphic code is Core Graphics and UIKit. It was challenging to get the tasks to look tactile while allowing them to resize and look good scaling up or down. I used an outer shadow clipped to the rounded rect, another blur for the highlight and one inner shadow for the lower corner.

We got some more updates coming up so stay tuned.

iSand-HD even more fun at the beach…

Kenneth — Sat, 01 May 2010 01:16:28 +0000

It’s iPad fever time and I just finished upgrading iSand for the big screen. More screen + More grains = more fun. Spent some time optimizing the graphics to maximize the amount of particles on the screen. The verdict is that the iPad’s processor rocks. I just doubled the amount of grains compared to the 3GS, and it’s smooth as can be. It also seems to handle multiple touch with no effort, which is all done on the CPU. It was challenging to get the orientation right. The main OGL view should not move while the toolbar and the status bar do.

Here are some screen shots:

And of course the link… iSand-HD

iSand – iPhone/iPod Touch Sand Art Particle Simulator

Kenneth — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:01:20 +0000

Apple just approved another app of mine, iSand. I know it’s cheesy adding the i but it was available and i wanted to be the one… Any way this is a sand art simulator with simulated particle physics. This app pushes the OpenGL ES on the iPhone to the limit. I wanted to be able to produce as many grains as possible without becoming unresponsive. Allot of optimizing and I got it to 9600 on the 3g and 17066 on the 3GS. The 3D hardware upgrade and the processor speed increase the 3GS makes a big difference. I’m gonna continue to try and push in more sand particles in the next update.

If you got it, make sure to give it 5 stars!

iSand – iPhone Sand Art Simulator

iPhone application – Infected Mushroom’s Smashing the Opponent

Kenneth — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:34:05 +0000

Things don’t get cooler then this.
An iPhone first person shooter game for none other then Infected Mushroom. I met Infected at their show in Dublin early this year. Erez Eizen wanted an iPhone game that would allow the band to get in touch with fans and promote their new album “Legend of the Black Shawarma”. Inspired by the album art conceived by Jeff McMillian, I worked on bringing it to life as a simple whacking game. But I got carried away and decided to challenge myself and create a first person shooter, something I had not attempted before. The challenging parts was getting a decent frame rate while rendering the forest. I found out that is was more efficient to do the transformations of the field objects on the CPU and not using the OGL matrices. Memory as always is tricky on the iPhone. I used the Oolong Engine for the texture compression and the audio streaming. Tip: Don’t mix this with the AVAudioPlayer, they will compete on mp3 decoding, I was amazed to find out that this gave me drops in frame rate.

Check out the game:
Smashing the Opponent at the App Store

iPhone application – We Both Know – See which contacts you share with others

Kenneth — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:49:23 +0000

WeBothKnow allows you to see who you know in common with others. Skip the name game – just launch WeBothKnow, have your friend or new acquaintance do the same, and see who you both know within seconds. WeBothKnow takes the age-old practice of trying to figure which common acquaintances you share with someone, and makes it quick and easy.

WeBothKnow was conceived and designed by Shachar Gilad, and programmed by myself (Kenneth Weiss). Shachar contacted me about a year ago with his idea of comparing contacts on your mobile phone over bluetooth. At the time the only way to do that on the iPhone was over WIFI. That was not exactly a smooth ride for the potential users. Both phones would have to sit on the same wifi network and it would not work unless you have access to wireless. Apple’s new Game Kit framework hit it right on the spot. It was easy to use and provided the blue-tooth communication needed for this app to be simple and easy.

Security of personal data is an important factor for the success of the product. We took great care in designing a system that would never expose personal information.

Phone numbers and email addresses are encrypted and garbled so that they can’t be decrypted
Nothing other than the encrypted phone or email address is transfered
Both people must agree to the compare process before it commences.
You can hide contacts you do not want to share with others.
The results are composed from the info on your phone and do not show any info from the other phone.

For any feedback please feel free to contact me!

We Both Know – on the iTunes app store

We Both Know product website

We Both Know on YouTube

iPhone application – Pointer Cards – Visual Translations in 11 Languages

Kenneth — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:02:44 +0000

Another freelance iPhone application I recently completed is Pointer Cards. Pointer Cards is a handy language translator for travelers. It includes translations of common words to 11 languages. The client needed a simple way for content management so I created a series of perl scripts that create a folder database. This is all done in Objective-C and some tricks were needed to make the card browser work. What happens is it takes time to load all the preview icons and that starves the main application thread. So I spawn a thread for each UIImage that gets loaded. I will post some source code soon.

Buy Pointer cards:
Pointer Cards on iTunes app store

Native iPhone Application: Tap-N-Flip

Kenneth — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:11:51 +0000

Ok some changes. Othello is just too easy. That is why there are about 10 different versions of the game in the app store. So this game is an arcade version of Othello. It has levels, Score, lives and can be played multiplayer. I implemented the GUI with OpenGL ES and added some sounds using the Open AL api.

Native iPhone Application:Wi-Reversi

Kenneth — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:31:54 +0000

I have been working for the past month on an iPhone version for the classic game Othello/Reversi. Basically its a board game where you need to flip as many of your opponent pieces that you can. Seems to be quite popular game as I have noticed 2 other developers have made their Cocoa Touch version. Anyways I will still persue this as I have 2 nice features that are unique.

Wifi mode – the if two versions of the game are located on the same wifi network, The players can play a multi player game where each player has his own view of the game on his iPhone.
Insanity mode – When playing multi-player mode, you can select the Insanity mode. There are no turns and each player needs to tap faster then the opponent to finish the game.
The AI part and game logic were coded by my colleague Aaaron Davidson. Aaron is an extremely talented AI and games systems developer.

I hope to have this released on the Apple Store soon enough. I need to give the UI some final touches.

Developing Native iPhone Applications

Kenneth — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:12:55 +0000

My first cell phone was an iPhone. It’s a decade late, but a good entry into the mobile world. So now that I am a proud iPhone owner and an experienced Apple developer, the next natural stage would be to develop some killer applications for the iPhone OS.

I have downloaded and installed the iPhone developer SDK. It’s basically a simplified Cocoa framework and proves to be extremely easy to learn.

So stay tuned for updates on future projects!

MacHEADS the Movie

Kenneth — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:53:11 +0000

You need to check out MacHEADS the Movie. Not only for the obvious reason that it’s about Macs, and we love macs, but also a good friend of mine, Koby Shely happened to direct it.

Update:
The movie is now 2nd place in documentaries in iTunes! Good job Kobi!

Working for Pocket Kings and moving to Ireland

Kenneth — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:16:55 +0000

Pocket Kings provides Technology and Marketing consulting services to the online poker industry and one of the fastest growing poker sites. The company is located in Dublin, Ireland. I will be working as a client side developer for the mac software application. I am starting to work today and I am very excited. Most of my web experience has been with http, so this is a great opportunity for me to learn some new client/server skills and network protocols.

Update:
It’s time to move on… too much pixel pushing and office politics turn your brain into jelly…

Apple WWDC 2007, I’m here!

Kenneth — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:34:40 +0000

This is unbelievable, I’m finely here! The atmosphere is great. Loads of mac heads, all lined up to see the rock star. I wonder what he is going to pull out of his hat this time… And one more thing… iPhone with 3G?

After all this time being an Apple developer, my company sent me here. This is going to be a great conference. Lot’s of cool session here and I am intending to be in all of them. My goal is to get closer with objective-c, learn more audio tricks, and go to the Core Audio Lab. It’s always great to meet the developers face to face and get information on the internal workings of some of the apps. As with all the sdk’s, at some point you are pointing in the dark and its always enlightening to speak to the designers.