Updates in the works...

Just to let you know: we are currently preparing updates for our most impressive apps, 3D Gyro Compass and Fantasy Dice. We've been improving both the algorithms and the graphics. Here's a couple of noticeable things that will change:

The compass will perform even better than before, especially at areas not so far from the Earth's magnetic poles (like Oulu, Finland), where the magnetic vector has a large vertical component. This has turned out to be tricky to handle with Madgwick's original algorithm, but we have created a solution that we're pretty happy about.

In the graphics department, we've added shiny surfaces, reflections, new materials etc. The new Fantasy Dice looks better than any other dice app in Google Play! Stay tuned, we'll post teaser screenshots later.


Oh, one more thing. We have a new sensor fusion app! It's not yet ready to be released, but already in a quite good shape. We think that you'll find it pretty impressive when you get it in your hands. Here's a teaser screenshot so you can start guessing what is it all about (hint: we've licensed the image from 360cities.net):

Sensor fusion algorithm

We have been happy to receive many queries about the sensor fusion algorithm. While it is based on Sebastian Madgwick's work and his original version can be downloaded from here, we have also made available our own slightly modified version (as required by the LGPL license).

Due to the number of queries, we have now moved from email support to direct downloads, i.e. we are now hosting the file on our web servers and you download it directly from here.

Nevertheless, we'd really like to hear about you, so don't hesitate to drop a line by email (info[at]finwe.fi) or by commenting here.

AI apps updated

We have just pushed in update release for each AI app. Here's the changelog:

1.1.0 Feature update
- Added widget initialization from history
- Added widget overlay icons
- Increased widget text size
- Widget graphics & layout updated
- Minor bug fixes

In addition to this, Web AI has also much improved bookmark icon downloading algorithm and better icon graphics (when supported by websites).

New versions will be available in Google Play shortly.

Update: Installation packages now available.

Fantasy Dice is finally out!

We're so pleased to announce that Fantasy Dice is finally released!

Our last few tweaks were worth it, it now supports much more devices and has better performance overall.

This is in fact the third dice app from our sensor team. Two previous ones were technology demos made for key customers years ago, and not publicly available. Hence, we are very exited to reveal this FREE app for everyone to download and have fun with! Share freely and let us here what you think about it.

Update: Video changed to newer one.

Fragmentation!

So we too fell for this one. I guess it had to happen eventually...

We have a bunch of different kinds of Android devices in our lab for development and testing. But, there are hundreds of different devices running different versions of Android, so of course it is impossible to have them all and test each device. Unfortunately, they really do behave differently from software developer's point of view. That's platform fragmentation.

Long story short, after pushing the last update to our AI apps we started to receive bug reports of suddenly missing content from the widgets. It took some time to figure it all out, as none of our development devices had ever showed this behavior. So we went shopping and bought a few Samsung Galaxy S3 phones (yikes, they are expensive!) We then managed to repeat the bug, fixed it, and now there's an update available for each AI app.

Apologies go to all AI apps users. We now have better coverage over various Android devices, so hopefully this will never happen again.

As a bonus, there are new features coming to AI apps. They are not yet included to this "emergency update" released today, since we wanted to get it out as soon as properly tested.

Teaser: introducing Fantasy Dice

Our first sensor fusion app, 3D Gyro Compass, has been quite successful: its installed base grows about 10% each day, and it has collected 500+ downloads within two weeks with very little marketing. Not bad at all.

In fact we've been so pleased that we have decided to release another treat from our sensor fusion lab: it's a simple dice rolling app and called Fantasy Dice. As usual, it's got 3D graphics created with Rightware's Kanzi framework and AHRS sensor fusion for movement tracking. However, this time we added Bullet physics engine to create realistic physics simulation! Together these three make a great combo, you'll definitely want to check it out. 

We hope to release it already this week, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, here's a small teaser for you guys...

Update: Well, that week went and there was no release... In fact we had everything ready to go, but then received messages from our beta testers of slow performance in some devices that we don't have at the lab. So we decided to postpone the release, and fix the issues first.

That was a good decision, we now have 60 FPS on many devices, and even slightly older hardware can render a few dice at 30-40 FPS. There are also other improvements, including algorithm bug fixes. The overall user experience is now significantly better.

So we are once again preparing for a release, but this time there will be no schedule given (trying to learn from past mistakes). It will be released when it is... well, ready.

AI apps just got better!

Just a quick note: we have now added additional screen layouts (first presented in SMS AI) to Call AI, Start AI and Web AI.

Updates to existing users will be soon available via Google Play.

SMS AI published

And here we go again: our fourth AI app, SMS AI, has just been released via Google Play! SMS AI is similar to Call AI, but observes your SMS habits instead of calls. Also, when a contact in the widget is tapped, SMS form will open (instead of contact details view).

What's best, SMS AI is completely FREE and comes without advertisements!

This widget has a new twist that is coming also to our earlier AI releases: you can now choose from 4x1, 4x2 and 2x2 widget layouts. As an example, here's more spacy 4x2 layout:

UPDATE: It is available now, get yours from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fi.finwe.smsai

Responding to demand: SMS AI

We've received requests to create a variant of Call AI that specializes in SMS. The idea is simply to use outgoing SMS instead of outgoing calls as a criteria for selecting contacts to the widget. Also, when contact is tapped an SMS editor (to selected person) will launch, instead of contact info screen.

This has been in the works for a while, and is now approaching release status. Here's a screenshot as a teaser. Stay tuned for release announcement soon.

FREE 3D Gyro Compass now available

We're really proud to present Finwe Ltd.'s latest app: 3D Gyro Compass. Our sensor team has created a truly stunning compass application using state-of-the-art sensor fusion algorithm and Rightware's leading Kanzi 3D framework. It is fast, accurate, tilt-compensated and even uses physics modelling to smooth movements in rough conditions. There is simply no match for it!

While most compass apps simply use plain magnetometer signal or Google's sensor fusion algorithm, this app raises the bar to a new level: we have further developed Sebastian Madgwick's LGPL-licensed open source AHRS sensor fusion algorithm (source code available at request) to combine accelerometer, magnetometer and gyroscope sensor feeds in a clever way.

Our experts have 10+ year experience with sensors in mobile phones. When applied together with Kanzi tools to create fast HW accelerated 3D graphics, we managed to create this beast. To experience it with your own eyes, download it for FREE from Google Play, and share as you wish.

Get it from Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fi.finwe.gyrocompass