ADGoT Just released SliderTwigz 3.1.1 with Game Center

Yep its true. Apple finally passed the iOS app SliderTwigz into the iTunes Store. Its another little step, and includes the Apple Game Center functionality to allow players to see their scores on the Game Center leaderboard. Well done to the ADGoT team, and thanks Apple. For more info check out the ADGoT blog.

My Experience with Covent Garden Apple Store

I was there.

No not at the Covent Garden store in London. I was there. Watching the the live event of Apple releasing the new iPod Touch and other iPod's. 

Whilst getting the kids in the bath I had the event streaming to my iPhone and watching Steve Jobs and his team present various new iterations of their already proven technology. God does Apple know how to create the hype. Even I was hyped, and I am pretty cynical about things.

But in the all important pre-amble to build up the crowd. Steve proudly showed some pictures of 3 new flagship stores around the world. Shanghai was one, and Covent Garden was the last. Steve laboured the point about these stores that they had spent lots of money designing and in the case of the Covent Garden store restoring the building and being sympathetic to the surroundings. 

At that point I decided I needed an excuse to go and finally have the Apple experience. Because you know what? My local Apple store in Southampton sucks badly for me. Its location is already in the very busy shopping center known as Westquay. But Apple's store design at Westquay is just a long store. with the wooden benches running down the middle and both sides and its busy. Busy with students and youngsters all pawing the technology dreaming about the day they too could own a piece of magical technology.

On the odd time I have tried to go in there I get claustrophic, its a little bit too warm because of all the people and trying to get help immediately can be a little bit challenging. Most times I abort and get the hell out of there.

Covent Garden

So I decide that for a particular project I was going to buy a new laptop. A moderate i7 Macbook Pro. Thought might as well if you are going to spend with Apple do it in style and not skimp.

I check the spec's online. Persuade my wife that a trip to London to take the kids to the London Transport Museum in Convent Garden could coincide with me nipping into the Apple store. The trip is set.

We arrive in London on Sunday lunchtime. Important to note try and find parking on single yellow lines on a Sunday. Its free. A space appeared near Aldwych and I quickly made my way to Leicester Square where I dropped the kids and wife. 

The London Transport Museum was great for the kids. Both girls 6 and 3 throughly enjoyed walking and running around the place, seeing all the old methods of transport.

After a few other activities I was finally greenlighted to go into the new Apple Store Covent Garden. I walked in. It was busy, but not mega busy. It was spacious. I like the raw brickwork, the atrium with what looked like natural light. 

A pleasant girl with a Eastern block accent attend to my needs. I stated that I was wishing to purchase a new MPB. She wanted to show me the machine and discuss options. I stated I already knew options and was ready to go for it.

Problem #1

In the store they only do standard models. Anything customised needs to be ordered online. Crushed as I wanted the fast HD. That was it. Experience and dream over. The assistant did her best, she took me to the Genius Bar upstairs which only confirmed my fears that *yes* I should have the faster HD and *no* they dont do it in store.

I then left tail between my legs back to my wife and kids empty handed. Until I got home and then ordered the machine online.

Problem #2

I suppose I live in the Amazon world of next day delivery of things that are in stock. I know it can be done, I know merchants can deliver goods very fast. I thought that the might of Apple they would have a huge stock of MBP's of my spec which could be shipped immediately. But no.

I had to wait almost 2 weeks for the goods to be delivered. Gutted. 

Dont get me wrong. When the gear came through I was ecstatic, the experience really started as I un boxed the kit round a friends house. Everything was immaculately packaged and well thought out.

Even turning the laptop on was exciting.

2 Weeks Later

It is still exciting. I know its a laptop. But it is actually like a weight has been lifted from me when using a computer. 

Things just work. I ask other MAC users what I should install on my new machine and they smile and say. Nothing. Everything is there. 

What a joy. Setup easy. 

Stuff just works.

People say (mainly Mac owners) once you go MAC you never go back. I not sure I could do that, as my day job demands a Windows 7 based machine. But I will give Mac owners this. All the hard is taken out of the equation so you can get on and be creative. And you are being creative on a great looking and performing piece of kit, which gives you extra oomf.

I'm sold.

Working Hard on ParentHelper

So here it is. I have been working with some friends to create a new app for the Apple iPhone platform.

Tricky, as there are, as Steve Jobs says hundreds of thousands of apps on the iTunes app store. Some of them brilliant, some are silly and funny, some of them get deleted within 5 minutes of being installed. And thats where we wanted to make a difference. We wanted to create an app with longevity.

So there is the problem, how do we write an app and stand out? We tried looking for niche market,which is very dificult considering the range of apps that exist. So we went back to grass roots and looked at what was common to all three of us and what we would all be passionate about.

We came up with some basic concepts for ParentHelper. What crystallised it for us was we watched a TV programme on British TV on Channel 4 called Dispatches. The programme highlighted that a disturbing amount of children were moving onto secondary school without the skills for basic arithmetic.

A quiz that the teachers gave kids and teachers was put onto the channel 4 website for us to try and see what results we got. They were disturbing both in the programme and for the adults that I knew in our local neighbourhood, who all took it that night and posted their results on Facebook.

Even I will freely admit that I had forgotten how to do long multiplication manually on a piece of paper, because I don't do it, I use a computer or a calculator and we seem to be accepting that as the norm and thus expecting our kids to think that is the norm. So the miss out the basic structure of how to do things on a piece of paper and understand what is really going on.

So we decided that our app should be a step by step interactive guide on how to do the arithmetic so that parents could help teach their children.

ParentHelper was born.

It has taken us a while to develop and get through the Apple review process. But we are there now a version that works and works with iOS4 and the iPhone 4 platform.

We have loads of ideas of extra functionality we want to see in the app.

Big thanks go to Matt over at matthewtakhar.co.uk and Andrew D for all the hard work.

We are hoping for great things not least because of the subject matter.

Anyway now back to playing Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies