Geode Update

Hey everyone. As you can tell, it’s been a while since we’ve posted an update about Geode. Yes, it has taken longer than expected to create this program, and we do apologize to our loyal readers about the delay. We want to push this application out to you as much as you want to have it on your iPhones right now, trust us.

Unfortunately, time is the enemy of us all. I’d like to say that the application will be released soon, but we are unsure of the release date at the moment. Reason? We currently have a super-secret project that we’re working that’s important enough for us to push the release of Geode back. I wish I could give you more details about this project, but there are currently attack dogs and large men with big muscles watching my movements. I’ll just let you know that it’s BIG.

As a result, the weekly updates will stop until we have something more for all of you. I want to thank everyone out there who is still sticking with us (Even those who are providing some criticism on the forums. Good or bad, we always welcome people to post).

Is Geode dead? No. It’s still very much alive. It’s just….sleeping.

Latest video preview of Geode

Hey everyone…I shot a quick video of a few new Geode features that we have been working on. The Notes & Photos screen is mostly complete. We’ve also figured out where we are going to put the cache list filtering options, and now we’ve just got to hook them all up. I’d love to hear your feedback. Enjoy!

(P.S. Please excuse the audio and video quality…this was shot on a handheld point and shoot so conditions weren’t exactly optimal)

Latest Geode preview from No Name Industries on Vimeo.

Development stuff [updated]

Update: Figured I’d attach a few screenshots at the bottom, enjoy!

I thought I’d put out a quick update on development progress made this week and stuff that’s still remaining to be completed.

First off, I’ve re-written the GPX parsing and database code for a performance improvement of about 80%. This involved migrating the code from using the slightly-more-friendly NSXMLParser class to the slightly-less-friendly-but-more-efficient libxml2 library. A huge performance gain was also had by making use of bulk transactions in SQLite during the import process.

Several cosmetic changes were also implemented. The cache listing screen was cleaned up and we made room to show the cache size, difficulty, terrain, and compass direction to the cache from your current location – all while keeping it clean and usable at a glance. The search feature of the listing screen has had some bugs removed and has been enhanced to be more visually intuitive. The cache details screen has been slightly rearranged and now has some new features. We’ve got an integrated browser for navigating to the original cache page, as well as pulling up travel bug details.

There are several things currently in progress:

• Adding support for recording notes and photos with caches
• Adding Found / DNF indicators to the logs
• Completing the settings screen
• Getting mapping implemented
• Getting the compass functioning
• Getting the sync apps written

I’m sure there’s more that I’ve left out. I’m spending as much time as I can working through these features to get a version out there in the app store for everyone that’s been waiting. I don’t have a timeline to promise anybody, all I can say is I’m working as fast as I can. I’ll try to get a new video up soon.

Geode Weekly Update

Welcome to weekly update #1! We listened to your comments and emails and the #1 request was to give out updates on Geode. So let’s start:

Right now, our focus is on getting Geode Companion out for release. We want to give something to all the patient people waiting out there. The biggest issue we’ve had so far is making a sync app for both Mac and PC so that you can upload readymade or custom GPX files to Geode. Also with the sync app, you’ll be able to pull notes and photos from the field, which is something that will benefit a majority of geocachers. I’m curious to find out how many Mac vs PC users we have out there. Feel free to post in the comments.

I want to thank everyone for sharing their geocaching stories with us. We’d like to hear more if you have them!

We’re still alive!

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of communication. We’re still hard at work with Geode and hope to have it out the door soon. We’ve been working with the new iPhone 2.1 update to make sure everything still functions correctly.

It’s been a while since a few of us have seen the light of day, as our noses have been buried in code, images, and gps signals, so we’d like to know more about what it’s like on the outside. I know we’ve got quite a few followers out there, so we’d like to hear more from all of you about your geocaching stories. Who’s got the most interesting? Death-defying? Challenging? Post a reply with your story. Who knows, your story might get posted on the break-room’s fridge!

Once again, thanks for all your submissions. We’re doing this all because of you!

Odometer released!

While spending 120% of our time towards Geode, we managed to bring on an extra factory worker to help out with the workload. But we’re not some sort of hire-anyone-who-comes-in-the-door kind of factory. No, we require a sign of dedication and devotion towards the comrades of NNI! As a result, our newest member, Rich,  proved himself worthy with the start of our newest line of cheap, simple apps: Odometer. What does it do? Easy! It’s…an…odometer. It odominates….things. Press go and it starts tallying up your distance in either miles or kilometers. Press stop, and well, you know the rest.

Check out the page! Marvel at the simplicity! Buy thousands of copies! Tell us what you think! Exclamation points!!!

Development, development, development

I know we’ve been relatively quiet lately, but not without good reason.  I’ve been coding away here on Geode non-stop and have finished some really cool features.

I’m not sure if you are aware, but one thing Apple didn’t provide in their SDK is a way to implement mapping in third-party programs.  With their beautiful implementation of Google Maps, you’d think they would make this available to third-party developers, but sadly they have not.

A lot of developers have taken various approaches to implementing maps in their programs.  The easy route a lot of people are taking is putting a web view in their app and dropping a layer over top of it to capture touch events and translate that to Javascript.  While this works, it has a few major drawbacks…

• You don’t get the smooth zooming while pinching and unpinching
• You can’t cache tiles outside of Safari’s built in caching, so offline mapping isn’t very reliable
• Panning is slow and choppy
• No ability to rotate the map

A few very popular apps have gotten the mapping right, and they do this by pulling the tile images and natively drawing them.  This enables smooth zooming, panning, rotation, and offline mapping.  The code for pulling this off isn’t exactly simple, but we here at NNI have managed to pull it off and you’ll be happy to find we have a very nice mapping implementation.  I’ll do my best to get you guys a video later this week to show it off.

Aside from mapping, we’ve been working hard on finishing up the details screen, including note entry and attaching photos to a particular cache, as well as marking it Found / DNF.  These will be able to be synced back to your home computer later.

Speaking of syncing, we’re pretty close to finishing our implementation of this major feature.  Another thing Apple doesn’t provide in their SDK is an easy way to sync data to third-party apps.  We’ve got nice syncing apps in the works for both PC and Mac, and all you have to do is tap a “Make Discoverable” button in the settings screen of Geode and it’ll instantly pop up in a list of phones in the sync app and is ready to receive an update.

We know you are all anxiously awaiting the release of Geode, and believe me, we can’t wait to share it with you.  We’ve got hundreds of man-hours and thousands of lines of code invested in this.  We are going to try to get a version in the app store near the end of the month we are calling Geode Companion that’ll enable paperless caching, without the mapping and compass features.  And yes, it will work on the iPod Touch.

We here at NNI promise it’ll be worth the wait

-matt

Ultra-Top-Super-Secret Video!

Don’t tell anyone, but I was able to get my hands on the latest copy of Geode from the factory floor and took a quick video of how it looks! Mind you, it’s still being worked on, but I just couldn’t keep this kind of video to myself. I think it looks pretty cool, what do you think?

Geode Development Preview from No Name Industries on Vimeo.

Development is coming along as we’re getting ready for our big release. I want to thank everyone who has been sending me emails, I try my best to respond as quickly as possible during my breaks from the factory floor.

And don’t worry…there’s a lot more to come!

Geode Update

Hello everyone, taking a break to give everyone an update about Geode!

Everyone on the factory floor is really putting in some late hours and brewed countless cups of coffee on the Geode project. We’re doing what we can to get this in your hands as soon as possible, but naturally we don’t want to cut any corners when it comes to craftsmanship. We hope to have something in the next couple weeks, so we ask everyone to be patient with us. In the mean time, if you want to add any suggestions or comments, feel free to respond in this post or email us.

Hey, we even decided to splurge and get ourselves one of those twitter accounts everyone has been talking about. Feel free to follow the progress of Geode and other NNI projects in twitter at nonameind.

Also, I was able to spy in on a recent meeting full of those strange marketing folks and they were talking about what to charge for Geode. I heard that they wanted somewhere between 5 to 8 dollars for the software. Sounds like they’re still deciding on the price, but I thought I’d let everyone know the scoop. Sounds like a great deal, considering all that Geode does!

Well, that’s all I have for now…keep checking back. Don’t tell anyone, but I decided to sneak a video camera in here and I’m looking to capture a video of the pre-release Geode in action!

My Goodness!

When we decided to announce Geode, I don’t think we ever thought we’d be getting the responses we’ve been getting in the past few days! I personally want to thank each and everyone who has come to this site and left comments, left emails, or have posted about Geode in other forums. I do want to let everyone know that you are being heard, and we’re working hard to get this wonderful little app pushed out the factory doors.

As for beta testers, we will need them once we feel comfortable about releasing to beta status. As for right now, the doors are closed. We will be releasing more information about the program as time goes by. Right now we’re more concerned about building a great product for you to use.

Again, I am simply astounded by everyone’s outpouring of compliments towards our product. Keep up the comments and emails! Also, if you have any requests or inquiries, feel free to email/twitter/comment!

All the other factory workers are excited about this as well!