MeFi Projects

iOS app for WFDF Rules of Ultimate (frisbee). [more inside]
posted by daveliepmann on Jul 29, 2024 - 0 comments

People in the US waiting for passports often have to call the passport info line as their travel date approaches to move things along, but that number is swamped and on many tries plays a long recorded apology before hanging up. This iPhone/iOS shortcut lets you redial the moment that apology starts, so you can immediately try again, with a minimum of effort. [more inside]
posted by zippy on May 24, 2023 - 0 comments

Good Spirits is a drink tracker for iOS. Ever since learning about the correlation between drinking and various kinds of cancer, I've been meticulous about logging and tracking every drink I consume. Good Spirits makes this process easy: just set a weekly limit, check in your drinks, and the app will let you know when you're in the danger zone. For the craft beer drinkers, you can automatically pull new check-ins from Untappd. Free and soon-to-be open source!
posted by archagon on Sep 3, 2018 - 1 comment

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

A new app I wrote for the iPhone and iPod Touch to remotely control the MPD open-source networked music playing software, start/stop playback, edit the playlist, browse the music collection and queue up tracks for playing. (App Store link.) [more inside]
posted by acb on May 14, 2015 - 0 comments

I made a custom keyboard for iOS called Translit Keyboard that lets you transliterate English into Russain, Ukranian, Armenian, Belarusian, Georgian, Greek, and Macedonian in real time. (Transliteration is phonetic: you type "raz, dva, tri, chetyre" and get "раз, два, три, четыре".) The keyboard is based on a simplified reproduction of the iOS system keyboard built in Swift, called Tasty Imitation Keyboard, that I have open-sourced. It could be used to build custom keyboards similar to Translit Keyboard fairly easily.
posted by archagon on Oct 30, 2014 - 1 comment

I've finally released an iPhone app I've been working on for four years: The Fridge. It's made to help you remember about your perishable foods so they don't go to waste. It has some unique UI elements that (I hope) are interesting. And of course, it comes with a demo video, but not a usual one (absolutely no soft ukulele music). [more inside]
posted by smasuch on Aug 8, 2014 - 1 comment

Augur is an iPhone app that displays random Twitter posts, and attempts to provide both advice and prophesy. Pulling from a growing list of keywords, the app ignores any Twitter posts containing links, images, #hashtags, or @mentions. It also parses out any first person mention (I, Me, Myself) and tries to present Twitter posts containing second personal conditionals (You will, You shall, etc). [more inside]
posted by avoision on Jun 25, 2014 - 6 comments

I created SAMi out of a very personal need to monitor my son at night after he was diagnosed with epilepsy. Using a networked IR security camera, I built the first version in 2009. The code was written in python and ran on a dedicated old Dell laptop. Over the years I've refined the design, tweaking the detection algorithm until I had a system that worked reliably for us. With the help of funding from the Epilepsy Foundation (I won their first "Shark Tank" competition) and the support of friends and family I've turned my bespoke python based solution into an iPhone app. www.samialert.com is my new website where we've recently launched SAMi to the public, we are starting to ship cameras worldwide. The response so far has been gratifying.
posted by cosmac on Apr 2, 2014 - 0 comments

Make fake iPhone and iPad apps to rickroll your friends (or worse...). More information about the project in this blog post.
posted by beeker on Mar 31, 2013 - 2 comments

A while ago I became minorly obsessed with the aesthetics of digital camouflage. After some initial failures playing around with photoshop, I started exploring ways to replicate these sorts of patterns algorithmically. This eventually turned into PATLAB, an app that generates a colour palette from a user photograph, and uses that to generate an easily-editable camo pattern. Some examples.
posted by cmyr on Feb 28, 2013 - 2 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

We've recently released our first original smartphone game, Zombies, Run! It's a running game and audio adventure for iOS (and soon, Android) where you run in the real world while getting story and instructions through your headphones. As you run, you also get chased by zombies (so you need to speed up) and you automatically collect supplies that you can use to grow your home base, Abel Township. Today, we also launched our free 75 page book, The Runner's Guide, with more background on the world of Zombies, Run! plus the script and audio for Mission 1. [more inside]
posted by adrianhon on Apr 6, 2012 - 17 comments

Jotunheim is an iPhone app that lets you post to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, and mlkshk. One at a time or all at once. So, you can keep your people up-to-date, even if they're not all on the same social network. [more inside]
posted by ignignokt on Dec 1, 2011 - 1 comment

I use Notational Velocity on my laptop to keep plain text notes and store them in Dropbox. I am really attached to its single-text-field interface, and was frustrated that there wasn't a close analogue on the iOS App Store — so I wrote one.
posted by thedaniel on Oct 25, 2011 - 5 comments

I'm excited to show off my new iPhone app--Q Scan for Netflix! Despite some setbacks with the development process and changes in the Netflix API, I finally have the app live. With Q Scan for Netflix, you can easily scan a retail DVD or Blu-ray barcode to add the title to your Netflix Queue (instant or disc/DVD). Q Scan can come in handy when you're walking through a retail store and notice a new release you've been meaning to watch--now you can quickly check to see if it's already on Netflix! [more inside]
posted by jdlugo on Aug 3, 2011 - 6 comments

Launch, transport, and boost your diver into the pool. Blast enemy squirt guns and boxes. Fly high, collect coins, and don't miss! The mobile version is free. [more inside]
posted by beanstshirt on Aug 2, 2011 - 0 comments

Dream. Design. Dig. | The iMyGarden app lets you see your garden design before ever touch the soil in your garden. [more inside]
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug on Jun 14, 2011 - 0 comments

An iPhone app for browsing your Facebook friends and making and managing friend lists for use as privacy filters. [more inside]
posted by acb on Jun 1, 2011 - 1 comment

To celebrate the release of the new patch Boom Boat is free all day today! Free Friday! Grab it now! This physics puzzler is probably different than many of the physics games you've played before. [more inside]
posted by Kronur on Apr 8, 2011 - 1 comment

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