Mobile Applications by Ken Torimaru

Currently I have five iPhone Applications and one Palm Pre application. They are Adding Machine, I'm Here, QuickLight, Sale Price and Dial. I'm Here will, hopefully, be available on the Palm Pre when the App Catalog debuts.

Adding Machine as the name indicates, its a simple adding machine with a twist. It keeps a running tape that you can edit. So, if you are adding up a stack of twenty plus checks and the total looks a little low you can check over the list find and fix your mistake and the total is automatically updated. Its for when a spreadsheet is overkill and a calculator is a pain. It can handle all basic math calculations and has certain conveniences built in such as repeating numbers, carrying over the results of the previous calculation, etc.

Adding Machine has three different view modes which are optimized for different operations. Landscape with a small tape and big keys is good for entering numbers, flip it over and you have the largest and longest tape for reviewing and editing. Portrait mode is in between the landscape modes and is good for in between jobs.

I'm Here

I'm Here is a simple app for sending your current location to friends and family. It works by using your phones GPS or triangulation to find your latitude and longitude. It then creates a message that your phone can send. On iPhone all messages are send via email. The Pre can create SMS and MMS messages directly. All messages include a link to Google Maps. MMS messages include a map and email message contain an image.

iPhone
The map and hybrid views. Pinch and spread to zoom. Change your location to anywhere in the world.

Palm Pre
Map and Hybrid views. Pinch and spread to zoom. The refresh button gets a new GPS reading, at a higher accuracy, in case the reverse address lookup was wrong or you just moved.

I'm Here is available on the iPhone and should be available for the Palm Pre when the App Catalog debuts.

Sale Price

Sale Price is a simple app for calculating the actual cost of a potential purchase.

Multiple percent off discounts sound good but then you have sales tax, so how much is that thing really going to cost? With Sale Price you know!

Got a limited budget, multiple choices and or many things to buy? Sale Price can save the real price of multiple items. Plus it keeps a running total.

Item Page

The Item page has four different modes:

• Simple Price
• Detail Price
• Simple Units
• Detail Units

The mode you are in is controlled by the buttons on the bottom of the page.

There are three buttons in the title bar of the Item Page:

• Item List - Takes you the the Item List page.
• New - Saves your current item, if you have enter a price, and creates a new item for the current mode.
• Settings - Takes you to the Default Settings page. Here you can change the default name, default sales tax and number of units. Current defaults are Thing, 9.250% and 1.

Calculation are made individually and rounded to the nearest cent. This can give you a slightly different answer then when you only round at the end of all calculations.

Simple Price

Simple Price mode is the most straight forward calculation. You enter a price and the app calculates the cost. If you haven't given the item a name it names it the default name plus a number. If there are percentage discounts you can enter them here. Total Cost is the price after discounts and sales tax.

QuickLight was my first application and is a simple flash light app. It comes with three preset colors and concert mode which is an animation of a lighter. Fun and silly.

In addition to the the three preset color you can create a large number of custom colors. The light stays on until you turn it off and remembers the last color you had it set on.

Dial was a Single Touch Dialing program, Apple has since crippled the single touch part and turned it into a two touch dialer. Still if you'd rather just use one icon to dial its still useful. Unless, I figure out a work around to the second touch problem I won't be adding to the Dials.

Dial is sold under numerous names (All start with Dial) since in its current incarnation iPhone apps are required to have one and only one unchanging Icon. This means you need to have multiple single touch dialing programs to choose from that have different icons that you can relate to and I needed to build a multitude of programs.

Dial is simple to setup and even easier to use! The first time you start the application a screen appear to allow you to enter the phone number you want to dial. (Note: The Apple dialing API does not currently support * and #, I know the phone can do it, why the API doesn't, Apple is not saying.) Exit the program and the next time you press the icon the phone dials. If you want to change the number go into Settings find the Dial icon and change "New Phone Number" to On.

Here are some of the Dial icons.