First, if you have the Widgets app, there’s a highly detailed tutorial on Photics.TV (YouTube). It’s the longest video on the channel so far. Widgets is a powerful app, but it’s like a wristwatch with 100 dials. It’s complicated! The video was created as documentation of the app’s numerous features. This type of information is even more important now, as Widgets 4.0 was just released. It’s a big update!
Tag: Apparatuses
Targeted Advertisements (Without Spying)
People hate ads. And yet, marketing is part of life. If done correctly, people will love you. Apple is a perfect example. Steve Jobs and the gang made computers cool and sexy. Photics is selling widgets. Is there a thing further from cool and sexy? As the app updates progress, Widgets and Apparatuses are starting to look a lot better. It is actually getting cool and sexy. The new app icons are clean and pretty. The functionality is powerful. That means the next step is marketing.
Widgets 3.1 — Happy Easter!
After some surprising feedback regarding the “Bible” widget, I went back to work. There were two main concerns. Catholics wanted a version of the bible for them. Also, searching by verse wasn’t enough. A text search was requested. This update took longer than expected. It was planned as the Easter update and the deadline was just barely met. But after the dark year of 2020, this project was uplifting.
Widgets 3.0 — The Heavy Lift
Whew, that was a challenge. The Widgets app and Apparatuses were updated to version 3.0. This update was nicknamed “The Heavy Lift” because of the difficulty in migrating the existing reference data to a proper database. Instead of using giant JavaScript arrays, which was bad for memory management, SQLite is used instead. This switch was necessary to launch the latest widget — the “Thesaurus” widget.
Widgets 2.8 — Elements
Happy New Year! Normally I like to start off the new year with a lofty goal. This year, nothing significant is planned yet. The main reason for the uncertainty is because of the “Widgets app”. Each update requires a substantial amount of work — and the app is not considered to be done. Therefore, January 2021 is kicking off with another update to the “Widgets” and “Apparatuses” apps. If you’re into Chemistry, the new “Elements” widgets were made to help you.