Vision Pro: How it converted me on VR in 5 minutes

To me, VR and AR had always been somewhat of a cheesy gimmick. What would possibly have changed my mind in just 5 minutes? I found myself eagerly watching the big screen at NSLondon, an exclusive nomadic developer gathering with only 60 coveted spots free that often vanish within minutes of the waitlist opening. Did I mention there was free beer and pizza? I sat watching the Apple WWDC (World Wide Developer Conference) keynote – also known as iOS developer Christmas, that reveals new Apple software and teaches developers how to build amazing things with it months before it’s released. However, rarely do physical, shiny new products from Apple get announced at “dub-dub”, the developers’ abbreviation of the 8-syllable tongue twister that is dub-bull-yew-dub-bull-yew-dee-see. Believe me, it’s even tricker to say mid-bite when consuming beer and pizza.
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New Mac App – Text Calculator is live

2020 was a hectic year and somehow I didn’t manage to post on my blog, however I was hard at work finishing some of my side projects. One such side project has now been approved and is live in the Mac App Store – Text Calculator.

Screenshot of Text Calculator Mac app processing sums

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When an App is a victim of it’s own success

Firstly Windsock has been in the store for nearly three long years and was originally developed to work on iOS 5 which is an incredibly long time for an app! I worked hard building it so that I could save time finding the best location to fly my model plane from after work and originally developed it for myself.

I’ve often struggled to find reliable data that updates hourly until I found the amazing Forecast.io. This is a paid-for 3rd party service used by Windsock behind the scenes to collate and compute data from over a dozen different sources to give you the most reliable data possible. I also use data from a number of other sources and these are merged and handled by Windsock’s server – the server the app talks to. However recent downtime and removal from the App Store has questioned it’s future…

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Windsock 2.0 App Walkthrough

Windsock is an advanced weather app for fliers of RC planes, helicopters and drones. I’ve been busy on bug fixes with Air Drop and some new features such as adding in magnetic declination info for sites. Here’s a app walkthrough of Windsock 2.0.1. Windsock is available to download from the App Store now. Let me know if you have any feature requests too – http://windsock-app.com/

Advanced Weather App for RC Planes – Windsock 2.0

My app Windsock 2.0 has hit the App Store. It’s an advanced weather app for flyers of RC planes, helicopters and drones, optimised for iOS 7 with a slick new minimal design. Windsock solves that problem of having a few flying sites you like to fly at and not knowing what the weather will be just before dusk (often the best time to fly). Its main focus is on wind direction and wind speed, sunrise and sunset times – critical information for RC flyers! This app is also particularly useful in these cold wet months as it makes finding a good ‘flying window’ of weather much easier.

How accurate is it?

It’s powered by Forecast.io. An advanced weather service that delivers hourly weather forecasts. Forecast.io works by aggregating together statistically multiple sources such as local RADAR, MET office stations and data fetched from satellites for NOAA, the US NAVY, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and the Canadian Meteorological Center. Aviation buffs will be pleased to know it also sources data from worldwide METAR observations (the same ones 747 jet airline pilots check in some form at airports). Continue reading →