My Apps
When I began to learn programming, I decided to become a Mobile Developer as I thought it was one of the easiest ways to create my own products. I started with very basic ideas with the goal of just being able to push out an app.
Although it was difficult, I managed to publish my first app, a magnifying glass app. Since then, I've continued to publish more apps to build upon my skills. Hopefully this list of apps can give you a glimpse of the journey which I've been through on my way to becoming a Mobile Developer.
DigiCounter
DigiCounter is a memory gauge for the Digimon TCG.
This is simply a tool to help play the Digimon Trading Card Game. It features a memory changelog which helps to keep track of player moves in case you forgot or weren't sure if memory was being calculated properly.
Although this app was easy to program, what was really difficult was the design. One of my weakest areas is design, and with such an app where design and colours were so important, it took me a long time to experiment to try to get the UI looking the best it could. Other apps I found had basic UI, so I wanted to make this the main improvement over other apps. I found it was really important to have the UI as minimal as possible, reducing elements and words so that players are only focused on the memory gauge itself. It looks pretty good so I'm quite proud with how it was designed.
Todo Timer
Todo Timer helps to remind you of things some time from now.
You set a timer to occur from hours/minutes/seconds from when you start the timer. Then it sends you a notification to remind you of something. This is a bit different from alarm or calendar apps which want you to set something to occur at a particular time or date. So this could be useful to remind yourself to take a break every 30 minutes whilst sitting on the computer. It could also be useful for games such as when there's an expedition timer where your character would come back to give you rewards they've procured.
This app uses more Jetpack components such as Room, ViewModels and LiveData.
Monster Hunter World Iceborne Field Guide
This is a database app for the game "Monster Hunter World", showing all monsters' weaknesses.
This is my most popular app yet! I think what led to the success of this app was the low competition in this area. I was an active Monster Hunter World player which meant I was on top of any updates and was ready to update my app immediately. Most other apps tend to be out of date.
This app uses Jetpack components for the first time, using Room database to store all of the information. Populating the database was a significant task. I needed to do it manually myself which took hours of continuous data entry.
I'm quite proud of this app which has proven to be quite popular. Be sure to look out for any future Monster Hunter games which I might cover!
Pomodoro Timer
This is a simple pomodoro timer used to help keep your focus. It works by letting you focus for intervals and taking short breaks in between.
This was quite a simple app. I used a timer to time the pomodoro cycles then needed to learn how to play sounds when the timer is up. I wanted this app to have a beautiful UI as well as trying to ensure the user wasn't annoyed by my choice of alarm sounds.
Mathemagician
Mathemagician is a randomised quiz learning game for grades 1-3.
I researched on what sorts of maths kids were learning in grades 1-3 so I could try to create suitable questions. What was fun was trying to figure out a function which would randomise suitable questions. For example, grade 1 kids may only do addition/subtraction within 0-20, so how do I randomise two numbers which meet these constraints? I had to repeat this for the other grades and other constraints.
This was my first app written in Kotlin. Since then, I've been sticking with Kotlin since it is more modern.
Know Your Knots
This app helps to tie knots.
This app was intended for those who love being outdoors but have no internet access. This gives them an offline reference on how to tie some knots. Since I was not an expert on how to tie knots, this app was admittedly difficult to do. I needed to research on the most popular knots and know how to tie them myself. With no photography experience or equipment, I also had to try to take consistently clear photos. I also used recycler views and fragments for the first time.
This app was quite a step up from my first app.
Magnifying Glass Reader
This was the first app I ever published. It uses your phone's camera to zoom in and to help see things more closely.
This app was much more difficult to produce than I had imagined. It was one thing learning a programming language and another to learn how to produce an Android app. I'm quite proud as a beginner programmer to be able to publish such an app. Since then, I've improved on a lot of things.