YOKOHAMA (Señor Tomato) – I thought the unusual 1-month long rainy season was over at the beginning of this month. But it’s been raining for the past three days, and the weather forecast says that it will tomorrow. I guess I’m unlikely to be able to jogging today.

So I’ve released five or six software titles this month. I’m way slower than the record-breaking month of last August and last September. This new release is probably the last one of the month. The iOS app that I submitted to App Store for review a minute ago is called Oh My Schedule.

You never know when you get a development idea. The other day, I was reading a news article about a married couple who say are not attracted to the opposite sex but have gotten married. They have never had sexually physical between them but have a child by artificial insemination or something. They say they can date somebody else free of concerns from the other though they keep the daily schedule of the other. That’s when it hit me. Sharing a schedule with others?

Oh My Schedule is an iOS app for iPhone and iPad users that lets you share your schedule with friends and family members. You can also get their daily schedules as well.

If you want to share your daily schedule, follow these simple steps.

(1) Tap the profile toolbar button with a fox image.
(2) Tap the Share button at the bottom and share your personal ID with peers.
(3) Go back to the Startup screen and tap ‘Edit Your Schedule’ to create your daily routine list. Then tap the Push button with a paper plane image.

Your can create different daily schedule versions, each of which can be saved with a name, which does not mean that you can share all of them with peers at once. You can only share them individually once by one by tapping the Push button. Furthermore, speaking of how to create your daily schedule list, the app comes with about 20 common routine activity names. So just select one and then set its time. If you cannot find one that you need, you can tap Custom to create a custom activity.

If you want to subscribe to peers, follow these simple steps.

(1) Tap ‘Subscribe to a Peer.’
(2) Select peer’s animal and then tap Next.
(3) Enter peer’s 8-digit number.

When you subscribe to peers, you will receive a notification every time any of them updates their daily schedule. You can subscribe to several or dozen peers with no limitations. Moreover, you can always remove a peer from your subscription list with the tap of a button.

Oh My Schedule offers a great way of figuring out what your peers are up to. It give you some idea about their daily schedules without contacting them.   Continue reading →

YOKOHAMA (Señor Tomato) – I had two iOS apps that use AR (Augmented Reality). So what’s next? Am I going to develop another AR app? Well, I was thinking about developing an app that allows the user to overlay a bunch of lines over concrete blocks for the construction industry. Then I’ve changed my mind and ended up creating another AR app. This new release is called Wall Pipes. No, the next one in line is not an AR app. It’ll be a desktop application.

Wall Pipes is an iOS app for iPhone and iPad users that allows them to cast one or more drainage pipes against the wall using Augmented Reality (AR). This app is for plumbers and others dealing with drainage pipes, tubes and fences who need to quickly design a pipe on the camera screen. The app supports a simple square-shaped pole and a long cylinder. Additional pipe types are available as two groups of add-ons that include L-shaped pipe, J-shaped pipe, Cross Wye, Side-Outlet Elbow, Double-Wye Fitting, P-Trap and more. The app supports different colors (20 of them). You can rotate one and change the orientation (vertical or horizontal). Also, you have total control over the overall object length, the object radius and other properties.

When the app starts up, choose one of the measurement units that the app supports: Centimeter or Inch. Then either tap Individual Cast or Group Cast. If you select Group Cast, the app lets you erect multiple instances of the same object type you select. For example if you want to create the feeling of being behind bars, you can erect several dozen vertical, long poles with a single tap. Otherwise, use Individual Cast especially if you want to save the current dataset as a file so that you can reproduce pipes from a file.

Note that there is no guarantee that your screen tap will always produce an object on the camera screen. When it comes to Augmented Reality, there are some factors including light are involved that this app has no control over. The same is true when you try to reconstruct pipes from a file.

Although users have access to two simple pipe types without add-ons, they will get unlimited access to all 14 object types for 48 hours after initial launch. So try using the app when you have chance.   Continue reading →

YOKOHAMA (Señor Tomato) – Several days ago, I released my second app with ARKit, which made me think to myself “What else can I do with ARKit?” How about a speed gun? Can we use ARKit to make the iPhone camera a speed gun? That’s how this new ARKit project started. The first prototype was horrible because it posted a moving vehicle speed of 522 km/h or something, which shouldn’t happen especially on a public street. Then I incorporated Core ML (Machine Learning) into the Xcode project to identify a moving vehicle. But that was only the beginning of a long road because the app still posted a moving vehicle speed of 270 km/h or something. After all, I completely changed the way how it estimates the speed of a moving object. That was basically the game-changing decision. The result of two dozen field tests over three days is Move & Roll.

Move & Roll is an iPhone-only iOS app that lets you keep track of a moving vehicle so that you can estimate its maximum speed. And it works in the portrait mode (vertical) only. Move & Roll uses Core ML (Machine Learning) to identify a moving vehicle so that it will show its position with a green rectangle on the camera screen. When the app identifies a moving object as a vehicle (bicycle, motorbike, car, bus, truck), it tells you what this vehicle type is on the diagnostic panel at the top-left corner of the screen. The status label will then turn orange and says ‘TRACKING VEHICLE.’ Finally, it will show its estimated maximum speed at the bottom and then look for a new target.

So the following is how you use this app. You stay away from traffic by 20 to 30 yards (20 to meters) and hold your device tight running Move & Roll. You select the speed unit and the minimum speed to record when the app starts up. Then tap the Start button. And the app will navigate to the Camera screen. Now, turn the camera screen towards the road and tilt it by 10 to 15 degrees towards incoming or outgoing traffic and stay still. When you see a moving vehicle, do not follow it by moving yourself or the device. Just let the app follow the moving object. Once the app finds a target, a green rectangle will cover it. And this green rectangle will keep following the fleeing target.

After tracking one moving object, you don’t have to go back the Startup screen. The app will accumulate vehicle records while you are on the camera screen. When you finally return to the Startup screen, the app will list all vehicle records each with the maximum speed estimate and its vehicle type. You can tap the orange Upload button to save this list as a text file. If you tap a resulting file, Files.app will open it with Numbers by default.

When you use your device as a speed gun with this app, bear in mind that Move & Roll will only give you an estimated speed of a moving vehicle. It does its best in making an estimate, but it will never beat an actual speed gun in accuracy.   Continue reading →