Hello and welcome

Hello readers šŸ™‚ The Black Tablet website has just had a major facelift and I now have this associated blog. On my previous site my thoughts that I wrote from time to time were intermixed with details about app updates and the like. News about app updates will now be announced via Twitter leaving this …

All apps are now compatible with iOS8

All the recent updates to Black Tablet apps have now been approved by Apple and all run just fine on the shiny new iOS8. Dicewords will run on iOS 6 and upwards, but the others require iOS7 as a minimum.

Scotland’s big day today

Iā€™m so excited by what is happening in Scotland today and I wish I could vote so that I could put a bold tick in the YES box! It would be so wonderful if the Scots turned their backs, not on the English, but on our corrupt, money grabbing, warmongering, austerity obsessed government and forged …

Identicode now released … and updated!

I recently released my latest app which is the app equivalent of the ā€˜Identicodeā€ blue/red code translator in the TV Century 21 Magazine. Not only that but I forgot to post the launch and now Iā€™m sending an update to Apple already! I was a big fan of Thunderbirds as a kid (and as an …

Something quirky

A sequence of events recently prompted me to code up a quirky SciFi but retro inspired app. Itā€™s just about done and I plan sending it to Apple no later than Friday. More will be revealed when itā€™s on the App Store. In my continuing tradition, itā€™s nothing like any of my other apps … …

Hypercard’s morphed child

Years ago, I helped start the Brighton LETS (Bright Exchange) along with four others and needed some software to run it. The only available software to run a LETS which everyone used across the country (and perhaps further afield) was written for DOS and was vile. I was unemployed at the time and thought maybe …

Empty design

Thereā€™s a strange trend in apps at the moment and itā€™s exemplified by having almost no interface. I suppose Clear is perhaps the obvious example but others are appearing too. I often read reviews of apps, possibly written by 15 year olds who want ā€œthe latest thingā€ and get really excited about minimalist interfaces as …

An offer to fake my App Store reviews!!

Now, Iā€™m not a naive man, but even I was taken aback and I have to say, affronted, by the email I received today. My latest app has been on the store for just three days and today I received the following email: Hi, Ā  I am a private contractor and I would like to …

The death of Steve Jobs

What a sad, sad day. Apple are inviting comments via email on their website at www.apple.com/uk so I sent this earlier today: Until today, I have never cried for the death of someone I’ve never known personally. I knew it was coming, but not so soon. So soon. His Stanford address says so much about …

Some people really are so ungrateful!

Iā€™m sorry but I just had to comment on some peopleā€™s attitude to Appleā€™s ā€œ12 Days of Christmasā€. Apple, out of the goodness of Steveā€™s or the companyā€™s collective heart, or perhaps a desire for a little soft-edged PR, have made an item on the iTunes store free for a day over each of the …