Wow! How have you all been? It’s been quite a while so I thought I’d try to keep you all updated on what’s been happening with e4c.
Let’s start off with recently submitted apps to the iTunes app store. There have been two new apps released (three if you count a free “lite” version). The first app is called Elementary Math which I originally built for my son to practice his multiplication tables. In time, the app grew to encompass multiplication, division, addition and subtraction (MDAS). It became a jumbo app with many features:
1. Practice MDAS with flash cards.
2. Practice MDAS with multiple choice answers.
3. Practice MDAS with number entry via a calculator keypad.
4. Same as #3 but timed!! The user is given 3sec, 5sec, or 10sec to enter an answer for a given problem before a horn sounds and it moves on to the next question. I have fun setting this @ 3 sec per problem and I find myself breaking a little sweat sometimes.
5. Practice MDAS with a math wheel. If find this especially useful to teach my son sequence patterns in multiplication so that it reinforces the idea that it’s just repeated addition.
6. Memorize the “old school” multiplication and addition tables. These tables are scrollable and zoomable by standard iPhone touch gestures.
7. Choose which operator or operators to practice from multiplication, division, addition or subtraction.
8. Choose how many problems to be tested on.
9. Choose the range of numbers to be tested. For example, the user can enter a preference to be tested on the 4’s and 5’s for multiplication.
We hope that folks find this app very useful for their children. I plan to update the graphics a bit to keep ahead of other math apps out there. More about updates a bit later.
There is a free version called Elementary Math Free. It is meant as a preview for the full version of Elementary Math and it allows only a range of numbers from 1 through 4. We’ve gotten some feedback but it is mostly that they are looking for a wider range of numbers on the free app so that it is more functional. I’m considering doing that with ad support but we’ll see.
The next app is fun application called “You Suck”. The inspiration for this app came from my old college lab class. Well, there was this one lab where we took measurements for a transistor so that we could describe the electrical characteristics “the hard way”. To make a long story short, our data was bad. I’m sure we got a bum transistor but that’s life. Instead of “faking” our data, we worked with what we got and kinda explained how the data got so bad. Well, when we got our lab writeup back, we got the most humorous surprise. Our TA who ran the lab bought a stamp for us with the word “bull****” and stamped it in red ink all over our writeup! I personally couldn’t forget that as it was the most hilarious thing I’d seen at the time. Later, I’ve seen newspapers stamp people’s pictures (and their cartoon bubbled infamous deeds or quotations) with similar stamps as our TA (in good humor, of course). That’s where the idea of the app came from. In this app, you can have up to 20 subjects (take their picture or use a downloaded picture, your choice) and you can enter your personal top 10 quotation for each. Then create stamps. You will see their top 10 quotations in a nice animated presentation. When you can’t take it anymore, stamp away with your favorite stamp (remember, our old TA had a stamp with the word “bull****”, which you could use too) and magically see the rubber stamped word show up on the photo. You can even use two fingers to choose the angle of the rubber stamped word. We hope that everyone enjoys it! It was made for folks to be creative with it and have fun!!
As far as upcoming stuff, we are planning to release some apps on other hardware platforms. Also, we have an interesting game (the one I promised back in March) coming out in the September/October timeframe. We have a few targeted for the holiday season and I’ll post when we’re ready to talk about them.
There will be upgrades to the following apps in the late October/November timeframe:
Conversational Tagalog, Filipino Phrases – User interface and organizational upgrades. I think customers will be very happy with the changes.
Elementary Math – User interface upgrades that will make things easier for children and parents to navigate the app.
That’s all for now! Thank you very much for your business! If you have any questions or comments for us, we would like to hear from you!