MeFi Projects

Domains can be more than just letters and numbers. Most people have no idea they can just type a bunch of hearts in their address bar and go to a domain... and yet, it works!
posted by ph00dz on Dec 8, 2016 - 2 comments

MusicMessages! is a collaborative step sequencer for the iMessage App Store (iPhone, iPad). Using the simple and (hopefully) intuitive interface, you can punch in a few chords or a percussion line and send the message off to your friends, who can then make their own changes and send it back. Five instrument layers and over 40 MIDI instruments are available to use. Bonus: if you have an iPhone 7, the note buttons respond to pressure and "pop" like bubble wrap with the help of the Taptic engine!
posted by archagon on Nov 30, 2016 - 1 comment

I've spent the past 18 months or so slogging away at apprecs.com, an app search engine that can detect review manipulation. You can see the worst offenders here. I posted this back when this was iOS-only, and I'd like to share some major new features I've added. [more inside]
posted by hodgebodge on Oct 20, 2016 - 2 comments

While developing mobile apps, I realized how rife the App Store is with rating/review manipulation. So, I created apprecs.com, a facade for the store that allows you to filter out many of the fake, coerced, or otherwise manipulated reviews. You can also filter by other criteria such as how recently the app was last updated and age/gender of the typical user. What do you think? I'm getting started on adding Android (Google Play) support today. [more inside]
posted by hodgebodge on Apr 19, 2016 - 9 comments

Approximal is an iOS app that uses Bluetooth to discover people nearby. It can match you using social networks (18 supported so far, including the usual suspects), or any adhoc personal networks you and other people create. [more inside]
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse on Aug 21, 2015 - 1 comment

Kids can spin the wheel to hear words and songs across 11 different themes. It's aimed at pre-school kids as a fun way to learn new words in English, Spanish or Mandarin Chinese. [more inside]
posted by Gomez_in_the_South on Jul 21, 2015 - 2 comments

Our default display interface for digitized books and manuscripts uses frames (I know) and worked very poorly on mobile devices. We've just released an interface that autodetects visits from these devices and routes them to an alternative interface that is much more usable, and offers orientation awareness and gesture based page-turning and zooming . To try it, follow this link on your touchscreen device. Try it out, and please leave me any feedback you have about your experience.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 13, 2013 - 0 comments

JailbreakQA is a question-and-answer forum for people interested in iOS jailbreaking (applying exploits to remove restrictions on iOS devices in order to be able to install a wider variety of software). It provides reliable answers for almost any question people can think up about this stuff, and part of its goal is to provide a safety net of helpful problem-solvers for anyone who runs into a problem with a jailbroken device. I'm the head moderator (and FAQ writer) for this forum, part of my work on coordinating ways to make jailbreaking more accessible and friendly instead of seeming confusing and sketchy. Along with value-based reasons for why people care about jailbreaking, it's also a neat opportunity to tinker with making a well-loved device even better through the interface tweaks and customizations developed by the jailbreaking community, and I'm lucky to professionally work on something I care about like this.
posted by dreamyshade on Feb 1, 2013 - 0 comments

Nametrix is an iOS app I created initially for baby naming, but it ended up being way cooler than that. It uses public data on millions of people (US census, US campaign contributions, Wikipedia) to determine what professions, political parties, and other affiliations each name tends toward. For example, Ellen is a disproportionately common name for 1) psychotherapists, 2) librarians, and 3) activists. Ellens also overwhelmingly lean toward the Democrat party and have tended to be most popular in the northeastern part of the US. As far as I know, nobody else has made anything remotely like this... Pretty fascinating stuff, right? What other kinds of metrics would you like to see?
posted by hodgebodge on Jan 24, 2013 - 23 comments

Here's the trailer! [more inside]
posted by luvcraft on Dec 20, 2012 - 9 comments

I decided to quit my programming job at Google, start a small company, and write an app with my best friend Graham Bartram. As he's a top flag expert these days, the result was FlagWaver. Watch his beautiful high quality flag artwork ripple in a virtual breeze as you spin and zoom them, even drag the simulated fabric with your finger. [more inside]
posted by w0mbat on Sep 19, 2012 - 1 comment

Strategy games are really starting to come into their own on smartphones and tablets, and there wasn't really a site to serve that niche. Hence: Pocket Tactics. [more inside]
posted by CRM114 on Apr 6, 2012 - 4 comments

It's a 2D fighting game for iPhone and iPad. Bonus: features music from mefi's CarrotAdventure! [more inside]
posted by big friendly giant on Apr 3, 2012 - 4 comments

An interactive camera app that responds to movement in real time, warping the image feed. Wave your hands around, move your head or pull facial expressions, and watch the image distort in amazing ways. [more inside]
posted by iotic on Jul 6, 2011 - 4 comments

I just finished my first iPhone/iPad game, Snack Words. You play head-to-head against other people, racing against the clock to find as many words as you can. I loved other games of this type (Jumbline, Word Warp, etc), but I really wanted to play with other people. Hope you enjoy!
posted by metajack on Mar 30, 2011 - 0 comments

OpenEars is an open-source iOS library for implementing round-trip English language speech recognition and text-to-speech on the iPhone and iPad, which uses the CMU Pocketsphinx and CMU Flite libraries. [more inside]
posted by Halle on Jan 31, 2011 - 2 comments