Archive for August, 2008

Guidance: Coming to an app store near you

Friday, August 29th, 2008
Well this is it, development for Guidance on the iPhone is now complete. I have submitted the application to Apple for review and inshAllah it should be on the app store in a few days (I’m really really hoping they approve it in time for Ramadan, but might be one or two days late).

There are definitely some features that will be included in an update soon. Specifically a calendar feature that will allow you to see the Hijri date of any date on the calendar as well as the prayer times for that date.

Guidance will sell in the app store for only 99 cents. Thats right, only 99 cents for the fully featured prayer times program you already know and love for Mac OS X.

Well now that that is done, time to hurry up and get Guidance 1.1 for Mac OS X done in the next 3 days and have it out in time for Ramadan as well. It has an awesome Suhoor feature where you can set it to wake you up a certain number of minutes before Fajr. I’m sure that will be extremely useful in the coming days and inshallah I am going to work as much as I can to get that to you in time. No rest for the weary, but inshAllah all of you will make duaa for me during Ramadan.

Update on Guidance for the iPhone

Friday, August 15th, 2008
Salam alaikum, just wanted to give everyone an update on the progress of Guidance for the iPhone. The interface for the prayer times is complete and so is the interface and logic behind calculating and displaying the Qibla direction for your location. All thats left is to finish up the preferences screen and it will be ready inshallah. The initial release won’t have adhan notifications but will be added very soon.
 
When the adhan features does get added in an update, here is how it will mostly likely work. Basically as long as Guidance is running when you lock your phone it will be able to play the adhan and notify you of the prayer times, even though the phone is locked. The downside of this is of course remembering to turn on Guidance before you lock your phone, but until Apple allows programs to run in the background I think this should be a passable solution until a better alternative presents itself. Here are some pictures to take a look at the interface so far. These aren’t 100% finalized, but definitely mostly there.
 
 

Guidance for the iPhone officially under development

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
I’m letting you know that the iPhone version of Guidance is now officially under development. Alhamdulillah progress is going well and I fully expect it to be in the App store in a few weeks. Here’s a very early screenshot which may or may not be subject to change. So far the included features include calculating the prayer times for your current location (either by entering your location manually or having the iPhone automatically detect your location) and displaying a map of your current location with an arrow overlaid showing you the direction of the Qibla. Of course this is only the initial release and inshallah plan to make development on Guidance (for both Mac OS X and the iPhone) a top priority.
 
Screenshot