Opetopic

GeoAlert is now live in the App store! Get it now for only $0.99.

More advanced features will be coming soon in an update, and as always, feel free to email me or comment on this blog post if you have any suggestions.

I have just submitted my newest application to Apple, and it is the first utility app (i.e. non-game) from Opetopic. It is called GeoAlert, and it will be available exclusively for the iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4 running iOS 4.

GeoAlert is a location aware alarm clock that allows you to be notified when you are in the vicinity of a placemark. Simply set up a time range for the alert to be active, a location, and then the next time you are near that spot your phone will alert you.

There are many uses for this app, but I will highlight the two ways I plan on using it. I commute a lot between home and school, and I like to travel a lot. This means I spend a ton of hours on buses and trains. Fortunately I have been able to teach myself to get work/study done or just sleep while in transit. But if you get to absorbed in your work you run the risk of losing track of time and missing your stop. Now I can just set up a GeoAlert for the last stop of my train/bus with a time range centered around when I should be arriving, and I will be notified once I get near my destination.

Another use is to aid in tourism. As I said, I love to travel. In my next trip I will set up a bunch of GeoAlerts for all the things that interest me around the city (I can do this from my hotel’s internet connection or before I leave). Then I can just forget about the things I should be doing and instead concentrate on exploring the city and culture (I hate traveling with my nose buried in a travel book). Once I get close to a museum, monument or landmark that interests me GeoAlert will notify me, all without an internet connection!

I hope others will find interesting uses for the app. I will post back to this blog once it is approved. In the meantime, here are some screenshots. Click for enlarged version:

I just noticed that IsoWords passed a huge milestone: over 100,000 scores have been submitted to the leaderboards. Approximately 500 games are submitted to the leaderboards everyday. Below are some screenshots of the leaderboards to highlight the amazing scores/words people have found.

English IsoWords: Highest scoring words and top free play scores

Spanish IsoWords: Highest scoring words and top free play scores

French IsoWords: Highest scoring words and top free play scores

Someone from the App review team contacted me to ask me a question about the app description for the IsoCards update. In the description I let potential users know that IsoCards on the iPhone/iPod is only functional if it is used in conjunction with the iPad (via bluetooth/wifi). The reviewer said that there was no IsoCards app for the iPhone, and so he or she wanted me to clarify. I responded to let them know that IsoCards is a universal app, and they quickly wrote back to tell me that IsoCards was in fact not submitted as a universal app and so was being rejected.

I immediately went into Xcode project to check my targeted device. Everything looked ok at first, but then lo and behold I realize that I am looking at the build settings for the Debug configuration only. Somehow the Debug and Release configuration got out of sync, and so the Release configuration was set to an iPad only app. In the end, this is what the settings should look like:

You want Base SDK set to the highest version available, you want deployment target set to the lowest version you are willing to support, and you want targeted device family to be iPhone/iPad (for universal apps at least).

I’ve resubmitted IsoCards and asked the reviewers if it can be slightly pushed through the review process since it was already “in review” for 10 days.

I just submitted an update for all versions of IsoWords (bringing the version to 1.1.5) with iOS 4 compatibility. All this means really is that IsoWords is now compatible with the “fast switching” version of multitasking. So, you can exit IsoWords, go into other apps and do other things, and then come back to IsoWords and it will resume exactly where you left off.

This version does not include high resolution artwork for the new iPhone 4, so you will not get any extra crispness on those devices. Another update will be coming soon though, as well as new game announcements…

Update: I should also clarify that this update is backwards compatible with OS 3.0, so the newest iPhone OS is not needed. Although, without iOS 4 the update doesn’t do anything…

I just submitted the 1.1 update for IsoCards to the app store. This update contains a ton of new stuff, so first take a look at the video preview:

The most important new feature is Bluetooth/WiFi support with iPhones and iPods. Just download the app to your other devices, and you can transfer a player’s cards to the device. It’s very easy to set up, and you can see the exact process in the video above.

Next, IsoCards now comes with a whole suite of card games that can be downloaded (more will be added). Currently there are 11 solitaire games, including the usual favorites such as Klondike, Free Cell and Spider, but also some more obscure games that are quite challenging, such as Eight Off, Yukon and Baker’s Dozen. There is also one multiplayer game called Speed (although it goes by many names). It is a very intense game, and it works wonderfully on the iPad. I hope to release more solitaire and multiplayer games in the coming weeks.

The final big change is the inclusion of poker chips. From the main game menu you can pull up a tray of chips and drag out as many as you want to the table. It is fully multi-touch driven so you can use all 5 of your fingers to push chips around.

I’m excited to finally get this update out, and if you have any questions/suggestions please feel free to comment or email me.