Posts Tagged App
Gardens of Lake Como Update 1.1
Posted by Albegor in Como, Giardini Lago di Como, Mobile, Software on March 2, 2012
The first update of the app Gardens of Lake Como – west branch is available on the AppStore.
The update fixes a bug found on older iOS devices when exiting the online map, if they were low on memory .
Another bug, caused by the rush to be ready for the BIT fair, was about the presentation of the same text when a garden was selected from the offline map.
Thanks to my friend and mentor Alessandro for reporting it.
I’ve also updated some photos, such as the Villa del Balbianello ones, taken by Diego Cottino, a magic place where some scenes of Star Wars: Episode II were shot.
This spring I’ll visit some gardens included in the guide, both for personal curiosity and to take new photos that will be added to the app.
Photos you’ll better appreciate in the next version of the app, where graphics will be optimized for iPad and Retina display devices such as the iPhone 4.
It’s one of the advantages of digital technologies: an app can be quickly updated, a paper guide not at all.
The initiative is appreciated and the downloads go up. Personally I think it’s reassuring seeing that, although the bad economic crisis, there still are companies and public institutions ready to support innovative projects such as this.
See you to the next update!
Gardens of Lake Como – west branch 1.0 Released!
Posted by Albegor in Como, Giardini Lago di Como, Mobile, Software on February 21, 2012
What’s the first word that comes to your mind when thinking about visiting a park or botanic garden?
For me it’s relax!
I don’t have any “green thumb” knowledge, so I couldn’t distinguish among different species of plants and flowers.
But the multitude of colors, the harmony between nature and the gardener’s work (I’d say art), are things you can appreciate even if you aren’t a botanical expert.
And you can appreciate them even more when there’s a unique panorama on the background, such as the one of Lake Como. 🙂
It’s a personal opinion confirmed by data, indicating a constant growth of the so-called Horticultural tourism, from abroad to Italy.
For these reasons I was pleased to work on the app Gardens of Lake Como – west branch, the digital edition of the paper guide made last year by the Chamber of Commerce of Como and the Province of Como, with contents by Great Italian Gardens.
This work gave me the chance to discover some gardens and parks I didn’t know and I haven’t visited yet.
For example The Garden of the Valley, hidden pearl of the nearby Cernobbio, maintained with passion by Mrs. Pupa Frati.
While designing the app interface I followed the essential style and the colors of the new logo made for the brand “Lago di Como”, presented at BIT in 2011, the international tourism fair held annually in Milan.
During this year’s edition of the fair, at the Regione Lombardia/Province of Como stand, there was a preview of the app about the gardens, more user friendly and updated than the paper guide, at least for those with an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
I hope the app will be useful to discover the gardens of the area around Como, reaching more tourists, both from Italy and from abroad, than any paper guide could.
It’s free. Download it and, if you like it, please spread the word about it!
Euro Coin Collection Update 1.2
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coin Collection, Mobile, Software on November 21, 2011
The second update of Euro Coin Collection is on the AppStore.
In the new version I added an option to show the coins available only in mint sets, thus not issued for circulation. The data comes from reliable and up-to-date sources such as www.euro-auflagen.de by Henning Agt.
There are also pictures of the new common sides with the enlarged Europe design, issued since january 2008, so that you can compare them with the previous design.
Thanks to Hessel, Damien and Frank for the correction of dutch, french and german texts.
Motivated by the suggestions received, both via email and by reviews on the AppStore, the development of the app continues and in the next version I’ll add the 2 Euro commemorative coins issued from 2004 to 2011, as promised.
In this period there’s a lot of talk about the Euro and the debt crisis in european countries, Italy in particular. Well, what will really happen is difficult to predict, but I’d like to recall the European Union motto: “United in diversity“, the meaning of which you can appreciate even by collecting Euro coins, discovering and getting to know different cultures.
For what concerns Italy, now having a particularly hard time, I invite you to watch Benigni’s speech at the European Parliament (english subtitles). He said Italy is not the country of Renaissance and Resurgence, but the one of Resurrection! 🙂
Euro Coin Collection Update 1.1
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coin Collection, Mobile, Software on July 13, 2011
The first update of the app for Euro coins fans is available on the AppStore.
I couldn’t wait for it to be published since it corrects a bug that could crash the app when many different coins were added to a collection.
Thanks to Andrei from Estonia and Uwe from Germany for helping me track down the bug.
The new version also includes the second series design of belgian Euro coins, issued in 2008 in order to comply with the European Commission’s guidelines, as well as minor improvements and bug fixes.
Comments are good so far. Most of all, users like to view all the coins together.
Also, from app usage statistics it’s interesting to notice that the average session length is pretty high, 3 minutes, three times the average of the Reference category, which is 1 minute.
Now I’m listening to opinions and suggestions for the next versions, both from collectors and non-collectors.
Adding 2 Euro commemorative coins is already on top of the list: I’ll need some more work to virtually collect them all, but it’ll be worth it and they’ll have a dedicated album.
See you to the next update of Euro Coin Collection!
Euro Coin Collection APP 1.0 Released!
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coin Collection, Mobile, Software on June 23, 2011
Apple published Euro Coin Collection 1.0, my app about Euro coins!
I think that, even if it isn’t the first one, for any developer is always a particular joy seeing their application available virtually worldwide, at last after weeks or months of incubation in their development workstation and available only to a few volunteer testers.
For me it isn’t the first one about Euro coins: in 2003 I made a similar app for the Pocket PC platform, then become Windows Mobile.
The app got good press coverage, won some awards and after receiving one of them I was even invited to present it to the Netcafé program, my first time on TV I recall with pleasure, since I was so excited about it.
Back then, however, for as much original as it was, the app was targeted to a “niche into a niche”, that is collectors with a Pocket PC PDA… too few to create a critical mass.
It’s not a matter of Microsoft vs Apple, since I’m going to develop also a version for Windows Phone, other than the Android one.
It’s to say that today things are very different: there are social networks, smartphone penetration reached 35%, and most of all there’s the AppStore ecosystem.
The new app has been designed and coded from scratch, but it retains the same objective of the first one: making easy and funny discovering Euro coins with your mobile device, be it an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.
An objective not so easy to reach when you have to manage about 200 different coin designs of the 20 Euro area countries.
Actually the main feature distinguishing it from similar apps is the interactive album that allows you to view all the coins at a glance, each of them 1 swipe and 1 touch away to see its details.
The rest of the features are in the page dedicated to the app.
Now it’s the turn of who’ll download the app to tell what he or she thinks about it and suggest improvements for the next versions.
Hope you’ll like the Smiling Coin app!