@jamesthomson@mastodon.social
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

jamesthomson

@jamesthomson@mastodon.social

Indie iOS / Mac developer from Glasgow, Scotland. Maker of the PCalc scientific calculator, and a cool dice app. Occasional writer, conference speaker, D&D player, and podcast pundit.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

About by PCalc for visionOS is now available!

Perhaps the most pointless app on Vision Pro, but still quite fun to play with. This is a complete remake of the original PCalc About screen in VR. It's basically me experimenting with what's possible today with RealityKit, over-engineering things as usual, and then for some inexplicable reason actually shipping it. I hope you enjoy it!

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/about-by-pcalc/id1613982997?platform=vision

Hundreds of objects swirl around a PCalc icon.
A lovely view of the public transport options in the PCalc About screen.
A distant dragon watches over the city.

lexfri, to random
@lexfri@hachyderm.io avatar

I'm pleased to share Lex.Games is now available for iPhone and iPad!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lex-games/id6498941705

Featuring six daily word games and puzzles, including Conlextions, Lexicogs, By A Vowel, Six Appeal, Letter Opener, and Mind Control.

lexfri,
@lexfri@hachyderm.io avatar

So: Lex.Games in the App Store! Go get it! Free to a good home.

Many thanks to patient folks who were extremely helpful to me along the way, including...

tech help from
@BenRiceM @caseyliss @jamesthomson @Gte
@gknauss

design magic from @bw

and beta feedback from many folks including @dmoren, @spol, @holgr, @zmk, and many, many others.

It takes a village. Especially given that I had no idea what I was doing.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lex-games/id6498941705

blankbaby, to random
@blankbaby@mastodon.social avatar

Listen to what @jamesthomson has to say about this... not great episode of TNG.
https://zeppelin.flights/@incomparable/112373115496585058

cabel, to random
@cabel@panic.com avatar

An incredibly cool WebGL demo from our good friends at Little Workshop, who can make amazing things happen in a web browser. https://equinox.space

llamasoft_ox, to random
@llamasoft_ox@toot.wales avatar

I absolutely loved what Digital Eclipse did with the Atari 50 archive, so to have them give the same treatment to me, to Llamasoft, has been absolutely incredible. I've had a bunch of archive stuff knocking around for years and had thought one day it'd be cool to maybe make a website or something with some of that stuff on, but to have it presented like this, with so much playable stuff and so beautifully put together is more than I could have ever hoped for.

So glad to see people enjoying it 🐂

llamasoft_ox, to random
@llamasoft_ox@toot.wales avatar

Here's a little extra for anyone interested in the archive, a couple of things that didn't make it in:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6wcw286l75sh35rm3mvtm/Llamatron-WIP-disk-images.zip?rlkey=gzauhk71yvbxw9hnunzoo15ms&dl=0

These are a couple of disk images containing early WIP versions of Llamatron, containing some gameplay elements that didn't make it into the game. They are playable using the STEem Atari ST emulator.

You'll see things like a Baiter-style enemy that came in to hassle you at the end of a level, and also just how unrefined the gameplay was at that stage of development.

aliettedb, to random
@aliettedb@wandering.shop avatar

New Xuya book? New Xuya book
https://subterraneanpress.com/newsannouncing-in-the-shadow-of-the-ship-by-aliette-de-bodard/
Art by Maurizio Manzieri

Aka, let's do Gothic on a ship!

Preorder now: this is a limited edition https://subterraneanpress.com/debodard-itsots/

courtcan, to random
@courtcan@mastodon.social avatar

Here's a truth for you -- especially if you haven't hit your 40s yet, maybe not even your 30s.

The truth is this:

Nobody knows what the fuck they're doing.
If someone seems like they have their shit together, either they are presenting you with a completely false front, or they are in a season of The Total Occasional Fluke of Everything Apparently Going Right and Coming Together.

But what are we really doing? Nobody knows. WE'RE ALL JUST DOING WHAT WE CAN WITH THE TOOLS WE HAVE AT THE TIME.

Sophie, to random
@Sophie@dice.camp avatar

sharing some more pictures of my marbles game/project because I want to and I am super happy with how it looks

Screenshot of the "Snake" mode in my marble game. A string of marbles rolls across a wooden level
Screenshot of a French solitaire board in my marble game

cabel, to random
@cabel@panic.com avatar

I’ve never been more excited to do a blog post.

My goal was to preserve some never-before-heard recordings of the Firehouse Five Plus Two, a famous Disney-employee dixieland jazz band.

But along the way, I accidentally uncovered something incredible… a lost song that was cut from Walt Disney’s Cinderella, a song that hasn’t been heard in almost 75 years.

And you’re about to hear it too.

Read now: 🌟 https://cabel.com/2024/02/13/firehouse-five-and-the-cinderella-surprise/

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

I am definitely running out of space on my pin board.

simonbs,
@simonbs@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson It’s time to join the teddy bear club, James.

twostraws, to random
@twostraws@mastodon.social avatar

24 hours after launch of Vision Pro, my two favourite things are:

  1. This was a rare time when Apple engineers accept just a little credit for their work, and I love it – an epic launch!

  2. Indie app devs did our community proud. We’re already approaching 1000 native apps!

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

A prize for the first person (outside Apple folk and John Gruber) who sends me a screenshot of PCalc running on their Vision Pro!

aaronschendel,
@aaronschendel@twit.social avatar

@jamesthomson

aaronschendel,
@aaronschendel@twit.social avatar

@jamesthomson here’s a better image :)

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

It is still very weird to ship an app that I've only run on a device for a handful of hours back in August.

At least it’s basically just 2D (hidden bananas aside) - my hat is off to anybody that's shipped a full 3D app today, that's much harder to pull off developing in the simulator.

And congratulations to the Apple people who have been working on this stuff for literally years!

oliverw,
@oliverw@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson We started 3D, but we started small :-) Day Ahead is an overview of your day's events in elegant 3D. It provides a beautiful, glanceable overview of your Apple Calendar events for the day, so you can always see your next meeting and tap to find out more. You can customise the event colour and view it vertically or horizontally to best suit your Spatial Computing workspace.
More here: https://www.contxtu.al/dayahead

https://apps.apple.com/app/day-ahead/id6476853500
#visionOS #AppleVisionPro #SpatialComputing

emcro, to random
@emcro@mastodon.social avatar

Close enough @jamesthomson ? Congrats on the feature!!

jamesthomson, (edited ) to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

It is very interesting in Vision Pro screenshots - like this one from @aaronschendel - that you can definitely see the foveated rendering at work.

The left hand side of PCalc is pretty blurred here because it's not being looked at, so it doesn't need to be high resolution. Which makes a lot of sense!

That's going to make screenshots interesting - I wonder if there's a way to force the system to render everything at full resolution for marketing?

EDIT: Ah, there is! https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/capturing-screenshots-and-video-from-your-apple-vision-pro-for-2d-viewing

simonbs,
@simonbs@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson We should use Reality Composer Pro to avoid blurry screenshots. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/visionos/capturing-screenshots-and-video-from-your-apple-vision-pro-for-2d-viewing

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

Oh, hello there store page for PCalc on Apple Vision Pro:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pcalc/id284666222?platform=appleVisionPro

imyke,
@imyke@myke.social avatar

@jamesthomson that’s a lot of icons for a calculator.

pilky,
@pilky@mastodon.social avatar

@imyke @jamesthomson Tired: can it run Doom?
Wired: can it run PCalc?

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

A prize for the first person (outside Apple folk!) who sends me a screenshot of PCalc running on their Vision Pro!

gruber,
@gruber@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson I love prizes.

cookie_lust,
@cookie_lust@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson I’m sure that I’m not the first since Gruber, but here’s my silly self 😄

aliettedb, to random
@aliettedb@wandering.shop avatar

Oh hey Hugo nominations just opened: a reminder you can nominate The Mausoleum's Children
in Best Short Story
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-mausoleums-children/

And for anyone asking: yes, The Universe of Xuya is eligible again in Best Series and I'd be honored if you nominated it

https://glasgow2024.org/hugo-awards/hugo-awards-nomination/

jerrod, to random
@jerrod@mastodon.social avatar

In shameless pursuit of an elusive karma gold rush…
…by catering to all those cheapskates who just spent $3500+.

https://www.printables.com/model/729694-apple-vision-pro-battery-belt-holster

@ismh @imyke @caseyliss @marcoarment @jamesthomson @jsnell

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

Working on screenshots for the visionOS release of PCalc (which I hope to submit tomorrow) and I enjoy the stark minimalism of this one.

rayckeith,
@rayckeith@techhub.social avatar

deleted_by_author

jamesthomson, to random
@jamesthomson@mastodon.social avatar

Has anybody used "shapeWithProvider" to make a fully custom UIHoverStyle shape for visionOS? I'm trying to make something like a capsule shape, but only rounded on one end.

I just can't figure out how to create the result.

Joekw,
@Joekw@mastodon.social avatar

@jamesthomson if you want to use a provider, you can do this

https://gist.github.com/KhaosT/24ac6884bcc1b4a36ba4b30ba5b82b61

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