A Graphical Pod Clock in New Territory

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:24 pm

On the heels of Myst and in anticipation of OSMO, here is a little treat for the iPhone and iPod touch owners among you:

My Pod Clock has made it onto the iPhone, and it looks better than ever! Get it for free on the App Store now.

Just like the desktop version from two years ago, it graphically displays the time of day in all four pods in relation to surface time and predicts portal appearances. Enter your own portal observations to calibrate the predictions.

Surface time in local, UTC (GMT), and KI time zones
Built-in data gives you an estimated prediction, your own calibration can make it accurate to a few seconds
Can alert you a specified time in advance of a portal
Drag the time scale to any date in the future or past
Works in portrait or landscape orientation
Share calibration data with Pod Clock for Mac or Windows using the built-in web interface

Obviously this is of limited use right now, but that is supposed to change soon™ – and I had a lot of fun making it anyway. Hope some of it rubs off on you!

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

There's a pretty high level of cool here. Good stuff, CW!

greendragoon · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2009 2:52 pm

First off, let me say that your app is gorgeous! I'm far more accustomed to apps with interfaces that look thrown together. Nice Work!

Cyan, please release MORE so this guy can have an audience larger than 50 people.

EthanEver · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:09 pm

Fantastic!

Now the next thing I want is a Minkata GPS Navigator :lol:

greendragoon · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2009 8:26 pm

EthanEver wrote:

Fantastic!

Now the next thing I want is a Minkata GPS Navigator :lol:

Oo, oo, oo, with realtime soccerball tracking too!

:lol:

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Rusty_Russell · **Posted:** Fri Dec 18, 2009 8:46 pm

That's great work, CW!

Deius · **Posted:** Sat Dec 19, 2009 12:50 am

That makes me want to buy an iPhone. Nice work.

poutrew · **Posted:** Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:34 pm

Fantastic app. But I'm thinking, it would be really, truly cool if it could also display Cavern time in D'ni. Any possibilities?

QuinMaddox · **Posted:** Sun Dec 20, 2009 12:30 am

Is this turning into to a wish list for Uru iPhone Apps?

Could I please have a translator for D'ni numbers and letters? I'm hopeless at D'Ni reading and counting and it would be great to have them at my fingertips while I'm wandering around the Cavern - either stand alone POTS or when we eventually go live again. Actually, that would be a great app for our Ki as well.

QuinMaddox · **Posted:** Sun Dec 20, 2009 12:52 am

Is this turning into to a wish list for Uru iPhone Apps?

Could I please have a translator for D'ni numbers and letters? I'm hopeless at D'Ni reading and counting and it would be great to have them at my fingertips while I'm wandering around the Cavern - either stand alone POTS or when we eventually go live again. Actually, that would be a great app for our Ki as well.

Christian Walther · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:35 am

You can turn it into a wish list if you want, but I can't promise to fulfill any wishes. Too many other interesting things to do, sorry!

poutrew wrote:

But I'm thinking, it would be really, truly cool if it could also display Cavern time in D'ni. Any possibilities?

Yeah, that would be something to think about. I have never looked into D'ni time just because I had no use for it, but it seems we have all information needed. The question is, how to integrate it into the display. I don't want to make the existing strips any narrower as that would make the font unreadably small, so I guess the view would have to scroll vertically, at least in landscape orientation.

greendragoon · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2009 4:07 pm

Disclamer: Any suggestions I make are purely that, suggestions. Any actions as a result of these suggestions, or inactions, will not diswade me from think this is an awesome app.

Christian Walther wrote:

The question is, how to integrate it into the display. I don't want to make the existing strips any narrower as that would make the font unreadably small, so I guess the view would have to scroll vertically, at least in landscape orientation.

I see two possible options here, first you could make the timelines swappable in the settings. They user gets only 3 timelines, but they get to pick which 3. The second possibility I see it to move the times listed under to dot on the pod portal timelines to the side. That should free up space for a 4th timeline.

QuinMaddox wrote:

Could I please have a translator for D'ni numbers and letters? I'm hopeless at D'Ni reading and counting and it would be great to have them at my fingertips while I'm wandering around the Cavern - either stand alone POTS or when we eventually go live again. Actually, that would be a great app for our Ki as well.

Christian Walther wrote:

You can turn it into a wish list if you want, but I can't promise to fulfill any wishes. Too many other interesting things to do, sorry!

I don't really blame you for avoiding that one as it sounds like a lot of work. If I were to attempt to implement such a feature, I would get one or more of the D'ni linguists to compile the D'ni dictionary into a database-friendly format that I could then turn around and write a quick engine for. But then again, that's just me and this is all hypothetical.

Anyway, take my suggestions with a grain of salt.

QuinMaddox · **Posted:** Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:51 pm

Actually greendragon's suggestion was all that I had in mind - some sort of search-friendly database perhaps with a D'ni keyboard (instead of QWERTY) so that you could type in D'Ni words and the app would cough out the English translation. Perhaps even a D'ni number calculator. Now there's a thought!

:lol:

And Christian, I was just pipe dreaming - something I do a lot these days!

Jishin · **Joined:** Mon May 15, 2006 8:47 pm **Posts:** 1046

This is a gorgeous app! I have downloaded it for my iPod Touch. I am dearly hoping I get to calibrate it live at some point ...

Chuckles58 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:01 am

How did I miss this? Now I have both Myst for the iPod Touch, as well as the Pod Clock. Thanks CW, it's great! Now my wife uses the iPod Touch the most, so she'll wonder what this app is for. :lol:

A Graphical Pod Clock in New Territory

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