Review of the app on the Pulse of Apps: http://pulseofapps.com/smotrovaya/147 (in Russian)
Following the improved Android version, I updated the iOS version of Amino Acids. Major changes are:
– All flashcards are available for free
– The new “Challenge” mode (multiple-choice questions about all 43 compounds)
– Swedish localization
– The updated app icon
The app is free until the end of this week, so hurry to download it and enjoy the new game mode.
I prepared a major update for Famous Scientists. Perhaps, I spent more time on it than on the original app, but it’s worth it. The number of improvements is significant:
1) 20 new scientists (from Descartes to Avogadro) with info descriptions.
2) Main menu like in my other apps with the choice of modes.
3) Multiple-choice mode (called “Chaos”, while the original linear mode is called “Order”). Portraits of scientists can be answers and the buttons are scaled correspondingly.
4) There is no longer possible to lose and start all over after 5 wrong letters. This innovation didn’t stimulate purchasing of Unlimited Hints and just annoyed the players.
5) Minor corrections in the German title and keywords. However, I didn’t add the Dutch localization (though I added a new Dutch scientist – Antoine van Leeuwenhoek, an inventor of the microscope and the discoverer of unicellular organisms).
If these improvements revive the app, I’ll update several my old apps as well and I’m always open to your suggestions.
Filed under Updates
It is the third time I update Inorganic Acids and Polyatomic Ions. The major change is the possibility to open the third group of questions (“Honor”, “Difficult”) by giving 200 correct answers in other modes rather than by purchasing the IAP. In my new apps, I rarely close any content behind the pay-wall and I’m going to reduce the paid content in my earlier apps as well.
Several changes in design to bring this app to my current standards took place as well. However, there are no new languages (I mean Dutch): this is the most laborious of all my apps in terms of localization.
I consider SI Unit Prefixes the most underestimated of my apps. It is not a great quiz, but it’s ok quiz and it could and should do better. After I received a feedback from a user that its design requires deep revisions, I almost immediately prepared this update that includes the best features of my most recent apps.
Filed under Updates
The second update for 50 US States adds a lot of new content – two new modes.
1. State flags
2. Challenge – a multiple-choice quiz on maps, capitals and flags of all 50 states.
Among smaller additions: Dutch localization and a link to the US Presidents app.
Filed under Updates
This time I added to European Countries those useful features that I have previously implemented in the update to 50 US States: 14 letters on the “keyboard” and scaling of the answer boxes to accommodate all those 14 letters.
Moreover, I added to European Countries a new mode called the “Time Game”. It is essentially the European Challenge mode with a timer. The goal is to give as many correct answers as possible during 1 minute. Each wrong answer cut the time by 5 sec. A similar mode was in my old app Greek Letters and Alphabet.
The second addition is the Dutch localization. Initially I thought to add it to Chemical Elements but European Countries suited better for attracting users from the Netherlands and Belgium.
Filed under Updates
50 US States was my the most successful app so far and has changed the focus of my app-making efforts from chemistry to geography. Now it gets the first update and there are three important improvements.
1. There is a new mode “Find the state on the US map”. It is somewhat similar to the previous mode with state borders outlines but it shows where exactly the state is situated on the US map. Most people will find this info quite important. For smaller states of the Northeast, I use the zoomed map. Still Rhode Island is a tiny red spot.
2. There are now 14 rather than 12 letters on the player’s “keyboard”. And the answer boxes are scaled down accordingly if the name is too long. So if the answer has 14 letters or less, you can spell it completely. If it has more than 14 letters, you can place first 14 and then there are additional letters printed with a large blue font. This is a very important improvement and now I wonder why I didn’t do it for my very first quiz of this type.
3. Despite high downloads and ad revenues for 50 States, nobody purchased an IAP “Remove Ads”. It is very surprising for me, because even in a very nerdy and unlocalized app about Heterocyclic Compounds, there was one ads-removing purchase. It seems that ads are fine for most of users. At the same time European Countries quiz has shown that people are willing to pay for an additional content. So in the new mode, I made only the first half of questions free. Then the player sees the “Buy screen” and is offered an opportunity to support the developer (i.e. me), get the rest of the questions and remove all ads: the banner and interstitials.
And as usual, there are tons of small fixes in design, localization and keywords. The new mode and main menu prompted me to change two of five app screenshots. This update is a huge step forward for this game and all my quizzes. Enjoy!
Filed under Updates
For quite a long time, I didn’t like the app icon of Amino Acids Structures and Names. It was too dark and the spacial formula was hard to comprehend that it is cysteine. So I decided to prepare this update with a new app icon (proline has three-letter abbreviation Pro) and some other improvements in design and localization. I can’t say that I’m completely satisfied with the resulting icon. The formula could be a bit larger, especially its labels. Maybe I’ll update Amino Acids again, but not now.
I was not very careful sending the previous update of Inorganic Acids and Polyatomic Ions. Now everything is fixed and the app looks and works exactly as I wanted. Enjoy!
Today the Apple review team decided to eliminate the backlog of apps awaiting for the review and they approved my 3 apps and this update of Inorganic Acids and Polyatomic Ions. I submitted it just 14 hours before its status became “In Review”.
There are two major things:
1) Localization into Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Swedish languages. It’s probably the hardest of my apps to localize because the database is vast, strings are messy, and many compounds are quite obscure, so it’s impossible to find everything quickly in Wikipedia. But I designed the first version keeping only English and Russian in mind, and I don’t want to remove any compounds now.
As for the Italian translation, I am obliged to Sandro Soldano who did a great job on translating a lot of compounds’ names and fixing my lame Italian translations that I had done before. Thanks!
2) In v. 1.0, only the simplest acids and ions (“Acids 101”) were available without buying the in-app-purchase. This is less than one third of all compounds and since the purchasing activity was quite low, I decided to make the next level (“Acids 201” – 30 more acids and 30 more ions/salts) free. However, it is required to give 100 correct answers in the first level to get a free access to this second level. The IAP opens both the 2nd and 3rd levels immediately as it did before.
When I downloaded the app today, I noticed that I forgot to add one picture (more precisely, I added it but it has a wrong name: a little hyphen is missing). So it’s likely that I will soon submit Inorganic Acids v. 1.2 with “minor bugs fixed” in the What’s New section.
About three other apps that have been approved today, I’ll write in my blog later.
Capitals of the World
Flags of the World
Hydrocarbon Chemical Formula 50 States
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