Dear lord… That took forever. But it is finally here. The first edition of Shoe Tracker is here to stay. Build your shoe. Track your mileage. Know when you should get new shoes.
You can find the FREE edition of Shoe Tracker on Google Play. Shoe Tracker Free is coming to Amazon soon.
Shoe Tracker 1.0 is almost here. The imperial vs metric problem has been fixed (thank you shared prefs), the graphics have been tweaked. Now I just have to get rid of this whole crashy thing. This is probably a simple fix in all of my activities. But it is just a matter of getting it done. It is interesting how just as im finishing this app, my real job is just starting to ramp up. Oh well. Better than having nothing to do and worrying about bills…
T – 1 week and counting. Get ready to use Shoe Tracker!
When I’m coding, there are times when I hit walls. Not walls like I’ve been typing coding for 15 hours now and I can’t move my fingers anymore. Really its walls or barriers between me and my ignorance. But really, my walls, though frustrating provide me with the greatest reason why I do this.
My wall is coding. Since I don’t have any training in Java or xml, I have to beat on code and research and rework code and research and rework and research until a feature works. That round about process can take a really long time. But once I get a feature working, it is amazing how awesome it feels to conquer and break down a big wall. Those wins are half the reason why I love doing this. The other reason being I like building products that people like to use.
This week’s wall is preferences. I have been beating on preferences for the better part of a week now and I still feel like I am at the bottom of the pit. Its really the last feature to make Shoe Tracker an internationally used product. In order to do that, the user has to be able to set their shoe up in using miles or kilometers. I’ve have be trying to make this a preference, but maybe that isn’t the correct route.
Either way, I can’t wait to figure this one out because I am so close to putting this on the market. It’s like the last .15mi at the end of a 5k race. We’re almost there, just have to push through the pain…
So a couple months ago I decided to head down a new path and start working on a new app. Shoe Tracker is finally going to hit the market soon and its way over due. Working on this only part time has really extended the process. If I were working on this full time, I would have probably had this done in 2 weeks, instead of 4 months. But oh well. We’re in the final stages of testing and it feels good to finally put out another new product.
Along the way I had to add some new tools to my shed. Many frustrating hours went into storing data in SQLite databases. But now I have that tool and will use it in other applications. I also learned how to use radio groups and buttons, preferences and layout switching. All of which will come in handy in the future.
I built this app to solve a problem. The trainer or shoe rep at the triathlon store always asks me how many miles are on this pair of shoes or that pair of shoes. I never have any idea. So I built an app that lets you easily record mileage on a number of shoes and totals it up. Now you know exactly how worn out your shoes are! Plus, I added a little temperature gauge to visually show how worn out your shoes are.
As you may have noticed, that app is not up yet. I’m still polishing it up and putting fit and finish on the last features. My hope is to have at least the first version done in the next two weeks. It will be a blockbuster hit and millions will download it! Hopefully…
I have ADD. Not in the diagnosed, I need medication, I have twitches sort of way. But more along the realm of I can’t focus on a project for more than a couple weeks. A month ago I was bent on building a new media center like product for windows 8. In the past couple weeks though, I have been really focus on a new Android app.
Running is something I have started to enjoy more and more lately. The only equipment it requires is a pair of shoes. One of the things I have difficulty doing is keeping track of how many miles go on my running shoes. Because after a certain amount of miles, your shoes start to do more harm than good.
So I’m working on an app that allows you to enter the miles you ran each time you run, and then keeps track of that total for up to 4 pairs of shoes simultaneously. It will be a very simple app. No bells and whistles. No ads. No internet needed. Just getting down to basics. There will be no free version, but the initial price will just be $1. A Pro version will come soon after that with 8 shoes for $2 and the ability to back-up to the cloud for $3. My hope is to have this app done by the end of June.
I’m shifting gears again. For the past 5-6 months I have been solely working on Android development. It was a long and difficult process, but I managed to publish 3 apps that work quite well. The tools took a little bit getting used to and the Android SDK and ADT are significantly better than where they were 6mo ago. I made a little bit of money off these apps, but nothing more than enough to eat richly at Arby’s. I’m not shifting gears because my ideas with Android were not lucrative enough. I’m switching gears because I see a tremendous need for early innovation elsewhere.
This is by far one of the most popular topics on this site. I wish it was the discussion of my apps, but instead people seem to be drawn to my use of Airpush ads in my apps. Some have found Airpush ads abusive and invasive on the end user and others have established that Airpush gives revenue to upstarting app developers. Continue reading
