Tag Archives: playbook

Solar Explorer 2.4

March 30, 2012   admin   7 Comments

The new version of Solar Explorer has been out for about a week on Android. During that period of time, I’ve been trying to sort out bugs that are affecting the latest Motorola phones, causing the spacecraft to be invisible in the app. It’s not fixed yet, but I’ve narrowed it down to either a Motorola bug or a bug in my development tools. I’ve submitted it to Stonetrip and they’ll look into it further.

Since I can’t fix the Motorola problem any time soon, I’ve now gone ahead and built an updated version of the app for Playbook, and submitted it to AppWorld a few minutes ago. The new release it going to require Playbook’s 2.0 OS, because the latest bug-fixed Shiva engine also requires it. Hopefully you’ve all upgraded to the superior 2.0, because I can no longer build for the old 1.0 SDK.

As mentioned previously, there’s quite a few changes in this version, including a calendar to select a date on which to view the location of the Planets and Asteroids. There’s also the option to set one of four different simulation speeds so you can speed up or slow down the rate at which everything happens. The date selector is hidden when the info panel is open, so if you don’t see it, close the info panel. Screen space is limited, and I want to keep the UI as clean as possible.

The biggest improvement is a complete rewrite of the orbit calculations to allow for the accuracy needed to position the planets accurately on a given date. This was built on the changes recently made to Exoplanet Explorer that animated elliptical orbits with much better accurately.

In terms of bug fixes, the “vanishing sun” problem is now resolved, so when you zoom out to show the orbit rings, our Solar System will no longer be suitable for vampires. Another similar bug caused vanishing textures when the planets were zoomed out (far away), and that’s also been resolved. Both are related to the graphics chip used in the Playbook, and the same exact problem showed up on Android devices that also used the same chip. Cross platform development can also cause cross platform bugs.

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Exoplanet Explorer: Available on App World!

March 21, 2012   admin   7 Comments

Finally, it’s arrived!

It took some time, but AppWorld finally approved Exoplanet Explorer for sale, and I’ve just flagged it as available.

Because I know there are a number of Playbook users who are waiting for the app to be released, I’ve decided to start it off at the introductory price of $1.99.

The app originally launch on Android Market at $1.99 late last year too, with the price going up to $2.99 in late December when the feature to automatically update the database was added, because those updates are maintained by me, and delivered from my server.

So, if you are Playbook user who’s interested in exploring our close galactic neighbours, then get it while it’s hot, before the introductory discount price is history.

Solar Explorer

I’m still working hard on the next Solar Explorer update and I finally got the math working for calculating planetary positions.

There’s not a lot left to do apart from some testing and minor tweaks.

I’m hoping to release it by the weekend on Android, and the update should appear on App World sometime next week.

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Exoplanet Explorer: ready for App World

March 13, 2012   admin   21 Comments

Exoplanet Explorer is finally ready to be submitted to App World!

It was a good thing I didn’t try to send it off blind, like I did with Solar Explorer. My first attempt to run the app on the Playbook last week saw it freeze as soon as the title screen appeared. It turned out to be a minor bug that also affected Android, but by pure chance, was only being triggered on Playbook.

Once fixed, Exoplanet Explorer started up and everything worked flawlessly.

That’s the nice thing about working with a cross platform tool like Shiva3D: I don’t have to worry about “fragmentation” on Android, and I also don’t have to worry about porting my apps to other platforms. I’ve only had two reports of Solar Explorer not working due to actual hardware issues in nearly 5,000 installs of the app on Android. Most of the support issues I have to deal with are Android Market glitches.

New features

There’s going to be a couple of new features in this release for existing users of the app.

The first is an improvement to the orbit simulation, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. The app had been showing highly eccentric orbits (oval shaped) with the planets moving at the same speed all the way through the year. This isn’t how it works in the real world, where a planet’s speed is constantly changing unless it’s in a circular orbit. I couldn’t fix it because of the Shiva’s 32 bit math performance limitation, but now I’ve gone back and implemented the necessary code as a plugin, using 64bit math.

There’s also some new buttons on the toolbar, including a back button which works the same as the physical back button on an Android phone. This was added for Playbook users because it’s needed to navigate the app.

The other button that’s been added controls the speed the simulation runs at. There’s some really bizarre systems out there that have planets that whip around their parent star(s) in a few hours, and others that take hundreds of our years to complete just one orbit. This button will slow the action down or speed it up so you’ve got a better idea of what is going on.

Apart from that, there’s a few bug fixes as well.

I plan to release the new version on Android Market early tomorrow and submit it to App World later in the day.

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Solar Explorer: CrackBerry’s publicity factor

March 10, 2012   admin   12 Comments

It’s certainly been an interesting start to March, after CrackBerry.com mentioned Solar Explorer, and kicked off a wave of app sales on Playbook.

Things quickly died down, which was expected, as educational apps don’t generally sit near the top of any market.

It’s all good though, as the CrackBerry feature turned into the gift that keeps on giving by raising the profile of my apps and this blog.

I’d been running apps.burlock.org for about 10 months, starting it at about the time I launched Solar Explorer on Android. In that time it had gone from a few hits a day (terrible) to about 60 (slightly less than terrible).

Most of the visitors were coming from the “Feedback” button I added to my apps in December last year. Almost nobody was linking to the site, which is probably because nobody knew it existed, and quite possibly because it was boring.

With the CrackBerry feature, in addition to the sales explosion, site traffic surged, receiving about 2,000 visitors over 24 hours. This attention later flowed on to a number of sites linking to mine, in particular the unexpectedly warm reception post which started it all, and later the favourable Playbook review I wrote after I’d received my freebie.

I even scored a mention on the Mobile Nations Monday Brief, at about the 3:00 minute mark.

Mobile Nations Monday Brief

That was my 15 seconds of fame :)

Android wasn’t forgotten though, as the increased publicity was obviously related to a one day jump in sales earlier in the week, equalling the previous best day I’d had on Android in early January, a total of about 50 sales.

Things had been calming down since then, Android sales were back to about 25 per day, App World sales were levelling out at about 40, and visits to the site were settling in above the 200 mark.

That was until logged into the Google Checkout console this morning and discovered that Solar Explorer had been selling at a rate of about one per minute for the past couple of hours.

At first I thought that the Market system had glitched and was sending me phantom sales. After watching it for a bit, I have come to the conclusion it is legit, and besides, nobody has been emailing me complaints.

The CrackBerry publicity must have lead to an influential Android user to downloading my app, then writing about it on a blog or forum somewhere. I’ll figure it out eventually.

Another big thank you to my mystery beneficiary.

What a month!

Update: Mystery solved, Android Central wrote a nice review of Solar Explorer.

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Solar Explorer: Work progressing

March 08, 2012   admin   2 Comments

I though I’d give a quick update on the status of upcoming things, including the new features in Solar Explorer and what’s happening to Exoplanet Explorer.

Solar Explorer

First of all, here’s some screen shots of the upcoming changes. You’ll see that there’s now a date and time at the top of the screen with a button either side.

The button on the left controls the rate at which the simulation runs. It has four settings, corresponding to (measured in real-worlds seconds):

  • real-time
  • 30 minutes per second
  • two hours per second
  • six hours per second

When the camera is zoomed out to show the orbit rings, the four settings represent (also measured in real-worlds seconds):

  • real time
  • one week per second
  • one month per second
  • three months per second.

The reason that the speed varies is that things happen so slowly when zoomed fully out that you’d barely notice any change at all if simulation time didn’t pass at a week per real-world second.

The button on the right displays a touch optimised calendar, meaning I made a custom calendar panel rather than make you mess around with an on-screen keyboard which would have been a pain for entering a date. If you pick a date, then hit apply, the planets in the simulation will move to the position they were in on that date, relative to each other.

The possible range is between about 1950 and 2050 because the calculation method becomes increasingly inaccurate beyond about 50 years either side of the year 2000. It’s good enough, but I wouldn’t want to use Solar Explorer to plot a manned flight to Mars sometime in 2100…

For Playbook users (and Android with a 1GHz or better tablet or phone), please be sure to go into the Audio/Video options in the menu turn on “Detailed Planets”. This enables normal and specular mapping which are technical terms for bumpy land and shiny water. The reason it isn’t active is that I wasn’t sure if it would work on the Playbook. It does. Be aware that there is a visual glitch that makes the planet textures look a bit odd when a planet is very far away. I hope to fix that in the upcoming release.

Exoplanet Explorer

While I’m waiting for the paint to dry on Solar Explorer, I’ll begin preparation for releasing Exoplanet Explorer on AppWorld, which I expect will be submitted as soon as it’s ready.

One of the things I want to do is create a demo video so that people can see what it looks like before they buy it. I don’t intend to bring the free versions of either app to AppWorld as they really only exist because because of the way that Android Market works, where free apps are the best way to get noticed. If they hadn’t existed then the full versions wouldn’t have gotten as far as they did. They really aren’t the best showcase of what the full apps have to offer.

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Blackberry Playbook from an Android user perspective

March 06, 2012   admin   19 Comments

I’ve been waiting a while, but my free Playbook has finally arrived after submitting Solar Explorer to AppWorld one month ago.

The hardware

The unit came in an elasticised pouch which will be good for keeping it safe on the go. It’s slightly larger and heavier with more bezel area than my old 7″ Galaxy Tab. The screens of the two devices are exactly the same size and resolution at 1024×600 pixels. The Playbook certainly feels as sturdy as the Samsung. The Playbook even appears to use real metal for the power and volume buttons, though I would have preferred it if the power button were a bit larger and closer to a corner to make it easier to find.

An unusual feature is the stereo speaker setup on the front of the unit. What a novel idea, having the speakers face the user so the sound doesn’t get muffled! They are good quality too, making the Playbook suitable for watching movies without using headphones, especially in an environment with background noise. My Transformer Prime has only one speaker strategically placed right where I’d be likely to hold it which is quite annoying at times.

The Playbook easily wins on screen quality compared to the Galaxy Tab. Colours and brightness are slightly better, but the pixel response is much better, which is important for fast moving scenes in movies or games.

The only minor problem I had was that RIM shipped me the US version of the device, complete with the US wall charger. The power supply supports Australia’s 240 volt system, so it was just a case of finding a $2 travel adapter to get it charging. I’d have grown old and died waiting for it to charge over USB.

The experience

There aren’t any buttons on the device besides power and volume, instead, the Playbook uses gestures to function as replacements for some of the standard Android buttons. Sweeping upwards from the touch sensitive bezel minimises the current app and shows the active tasks. Sweeping downwards from the top acts like a menu button, showing extra options for the currently active app. Both of these quickly become second nature, but I do miss Android’s back button.

The desktop isn’t as flexible as Android, which can be tweaked and changed in just about any way you’d like. The Playbook desktop always shows all the installed apps, sort of like using Android’s app drawer as the desktop. If you don’t want an icon showing, it seems you have to uninstall the app.

I have to wonder if the Playbook desktop might become unwieldly if I had lots and lots of apps installed, though apps can be stacked in folders by dragging them onto one another. On the other hand, I know a number of computer novices who have Android devices with desktops covered in icons and widgets, in many cases copies of the same ones all over the place, even things they don’t even use or want, because they don’t understand how to use it. The way the Playbook works would be better for them because it takes the decision out of their hands.

The Playbook comes with a couple of games pre-loaded, theres’s Need For Speed: Undercover and everyone’s favourite, Tetris, both from EA. Blackberry also offer two extra games for downloading, Modern Combat HD and Asphalt 6 HD, both from GameLoft, and both of which are amongst the best looking games around at the moment for tablets. I happen to also have these on my Galaxy Tab, but only Asphalt works on the Prime.

I tried starting Modern Combat on both 7″ tabs, but to be honest, it’s not worth comparing them. When the game is paused, they look identical, but when it’s running the image is so much crisper and smoother on the Playbook, that I just turned the Galaxy Tab off and put it back on the charger.

Next I tried Asphalt HD, Prime vs Playbook. Both ran the game incredibly smoothly though I have to say it looked slightly better on the Playbook. The Prime has a much brighter screen which washed the colours out a little, but it also has a bigger screen area and higher resolution which showed up weaknesses in the graphics. The game probably needs to be “Super HD” to look good on the Prime.

The conclusion

Because the Playbook launched a few months after the original 7″ Galaxy Tab, I had thought it would be comparable, but it’s not. The Playbook makes the Galaxy Tab look old.

It would be more realistic to compare it to a current model dual core Android Tablet, but only if that tablet featured quality hardware and construction and only if it’s running Ice Cream Sandwich. Older versions of Android just weren’t very user friendly, or missed key features.

I haven’t tested video playback capabilities, but the hardware is easily up to the challenge. The screen is excellent and the speakers are stand-out amongst the tablets I’ve tried.

Power users might find the Playbook’s OS a bit constrictive. It’s sort of like a slightly relaxed version of iOS. It’s great for casual users though, as the “restrictions” will stop them getting confused.

For gaming, nothing to worry about here. Game developers really haven’t pushed high-end portable hardware much, so I have yet to see anything that I think would make the Playbook struggle, with the exception of a couple of games written specifically for the Prime.

The Playbook’s only real weakness is a shortage of apps, though it’s not the number of apps that’s the problem, it’s the odd one or two must-have’s that are missed. RIM have thought about this and OS 2.0 supports porting and running Android apps on the Playbook. It works better with apps than games, but it’s usually the apps that are the must-have’s. This feature is going to make it easier for developers to test the AppWorld waters and learn that they’ll probably get more sales from one million Playbook users than they would from one hundred million Android users. No offence to Android users, it’s Google that strangles developers.

Overall, it’s an excellent device and it will be replacing my Galaxy Tab for daily use.

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Solar Explorer: The next update

March 04, 2012   admin   7 Comments

According to FedEx tracking, my Playbook will arrive tomorrow, so I’ll finally be able to see how Solar Explorer looks on it.

I can’t wait :)

I’ve had two visual bugs reported in the Playbook version of Solar Explorer, which will be fixed in the next update. The first occurs when the app is started while the Playbook is held in portrait orientation that I’m guessing causes the UI to be squashed horizontally across the screen. The other is that the Sun is flickering or vanishing when the camera is a certain distance from it while viewing Solar System orbits.

I think I already know how to fix both.

I’m not going to rush out an update immediately though as neither of these are critical issues and I want to add a few requested extras such as a mode for displaying the real-time position of the planets, and a method for controlling the speed at which the simulation runs.

I’d also like to add support for language translations, starting with French.

The reason there’s no language options in Solar Explorer is that there’s a lot of text and it was constantly changing while I was working on it, up until December last year. A professional translation service costs at least 10c per word for someone who will do a decent job, and with about 7,000 words in the app, it was just too expensive.

The alternative, Google Translate does a good job, but it doesn’t understand what it’s translating, so it will mess up reference material, like Solar Explorer.

Eric Desgroseilliers has kindly offered to take the French Google Translation, read through it and correct any obvious mistakes that the bot makes. In the meantime I’ll be modifying the app to accept translations and adding a screen to let the user choose a language.

Once these changes are done, I’ll be rolling them out in Android Market first, followed by App World a few days later.

The reason that my most favourite people in the world, Playbook owners, won’t be getting it first is that it’s quicker and easier to upload a patch to Android Market if there’s any problems that don’t show up during testing.

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A stunning development

March 02, 2012   admin   13 Comments

In a stunning development, Solar Explorer just made it to the position of #1 paid app on AppWorld for the Playbook.

I didn’t expect that.

Thanks for all the support :)

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A Berry busy day

March 01, 2012   admin   9 Comments

Earlier today this blog and my app, Solar Explorer were both posted to CrackBerry.com, causing a spike in Playbook app sales (over 120 so far) and a big surge in traffic to this site.

Normally I’d see about 75 visitors a day, but in the last 11 hours there’s been nearly 1,000!

As a result I’ve been playing with the caching settings on the site because the it’s managed to chew through about 20% of a normal month’s bandwidth allocation.

It’s got a fairly big buffer, but it’s almost midnight here in Australia and I don’t want to wake up to a dead site.

If you’ve seen any strange behaviour in the past hour, don’t worry, it’s just me breaking stuff.

It should be working again now and I promise I’ll leave it alone for a bit.

Thanks to everyone involved, today has been a lot of fun :)

I’ll see what I can do about getting more Shiva devs to bring their native apps to the Playbook as well.

I know a few others are in the same boat I am, waiting for a Playbook to arrive to use for testing more apps.

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Solar Explorer live on Blackberry App World

February 17, 2012   admin   6 Comments

It was only this morning that I was wondering what had happened to the app I had submitted to Blackberry last week as part of their Playbook for an app offer. The last I’d heard was that my app had qualified to be considered for a Playbook should it be accepted into the marketplace.

This morning I had read that Blackberry had received applications from 6,000 developers, so it was no surprise that it was taking them a while to get around to checking Solar Explorer.

Unexpectedly, I received an email this afternoon that Solar Explorer been accepted. Not bad at all considering that I’d been unable to test it due to the problems I’d been having trying to get it working with the simulator.

Now I just have to wait for the email that will let me know if I’ve scored a free Playbook… it’s either a Blackberry for me, or sour grapes.

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