DroolFactory

Xcode Build Settings

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Fri, 6 Jan 2017 10:49:00 -0800

It happened again.

Yes, I had to get an xcode build working on a server and the build parameters were causing problems. How do I overload these and set them on the command line?

Go here: http://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/8.2/
Click the Search Button in top right.
Type in "Build Settings"
Select the "Build Settings reference" page.
There are the build settings you can override on the command line. Including some that are normally set in the Xcode project file. Which is handy when you need to override something in the Xcode project file but do not want to commit that change into your source control system.

Sun Top Recon

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Mon, 6 Jun 2016 12:45:00 -0700

I decided to head out to the Sun Top trail, near the Dalles Campground in Rainer Park. My goal was to do a recon ride on Saturday night to find the trail head at the top of the mountain and get some photos of sunset from the top of the mountain.

Unfortunately, I did not get to reach the top since the road became increasingly more blocked by fallen trees and the snow cover was increasing. The snow is usually gone by the end of May but I thought it would be worth seeing if it was already gone.

Given that the top of the mountain peak and trailhead road was still not cleared I figured that the mountain bike trail would have a similar issue. That as well as the snow cover on the exposed road made be think the trails would still have snow given the fact it is in the woods with more coverage.

So, my plan to ride the trail on Sunday morning was put on hold and this ride became a recon ride. On the plus side, the climb was not difficult but it was long and steady. Here are the stats from Strava:

Of course, I also got some footage from the ride. Here are some highlights of going too fast down the mountain on the return. As well, you might see some Elk if you have good eyes and watch high res.

Video: Tiger Mountain Sun

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Mon, 9 May 2016 08:30:00 -0700

Here's a sunny ride from a few weeks back. These are some highlights from my April 17, 2016 ride on Tiger Mountain.

Wet and Sloppy Ride with a Crash Bonus

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 08:16:00 -0700

Through darkest night, through pouring rain, no weather will stop my riding...or pain.

Crashed yesterday during a wet and slippery ride on Tiger Mountain. Funny thing is, I posted some PB (Personal Bests) for time on some of the trail sections even though it was a slip slop ride bouncing and sliding along roots and rocks.

Without further adieu, here's footage from my April 24, 2016 group ride with just 3 of us braving the elements:

Mountain Biking Tiger Mountain April 10, 2016

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sat, 23 Apr 2016 08:00:00 -0700

Here's a new biking video from a recent ride on Tiger Mountain:

Here's a breakdown of the ride on Strava where I upload my Microsoft Band rides.

Channel 9 Speaker: Developing Windows Apps with the Microsoft Band SDK

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 08:00:00 -0800

The Connect(); // 2015 event just passed (November 18-19, 2015) and I got the opportunity to be one of the speakers in this years event.

About a month ago I was asked if I would like to be one of the speakers and present a demo that showed the integration of the Microsoft Band SDK with a Windows Universal App using Visual Studio 2015. Though nervous, I jumped at the chance to improve my presentation and public speaking skills.

You can read more and watch the video at Developing Windows Applications with the Microsoft Band SDK over at Channel 9.

Last and First Day with the Microsoft Band SDK Team

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Mon, 9 Nov 2015 08:00:00 -0800

Well, for those that don't know, I have been working at Microsoft for the last 1.5 years as a contractor on the Microsoft Band. I have spent that time with the Microsoft Band SDK team and helped with test automation and testing first. Then I moved into feature development on the Band SDK with the majority of that contribution on the Microsoft Band WebTiles for iOS feature.

Friday was my last day as a contractor at Microsoft on the Band Team.

Today, Monday, November 9, 2015, as you read this I am likely sitting in a New Employee Orientation session. Today is my first day as a Full Time Employee at Microsoft.

I am staying with my team and will be continuing to contribute to the Microsoft Band SDK Team. I will be helping to implement upcoming features and continue to improve the Band SDK for 3rd Party Developers.

It's an exciting day. I am happy to join my team as a Full Timer and continue to improve the Microsoft Band.

Mtn Bike Vid: Duthie Hill

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0700

Another mountain biking video. Little shorter this time with some footage from October 23, 2015.

These are some of the trails at Duthie Hill Bike Park.

Enjoy.

Stinky Spoke 2016 Signup

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0700

The Stinky Spoke, an 18 mile mountain bike ride on the statistically worst weather day of the year, is coming up. The next event is January 23, 2016, in Woodinville, WA.

I've signed up again and have two others who plan to join. Are you up for an 18 mile mountain bike ride with a hill called Heart Attack Hill (300 ft of elevation over a short distance) at the start of the race?

Anyone completing the hill climb without dismounting their bike gets a medal!

Here are videos from previous years:

Mtn Bike Vid: Soaring Eagle

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0700

Saturday morning, my buddy Dan and I went for a ride at Soaring Eagle. This is a fun trail system in Sammamish and is a great place to go for some technical riding with a couple short and sweet descents.

Here's a breakdown of the ride as recorded with the Microsoft Band's Ride Tile (App).

GPS Route at Soaring Eagle

Overview of the Ride

Speed Graph

Heart Rate Graph

Elevation Graph

Mile Split Speeds

Here's some footage from the ride. Wait for the end where we hit 18 MPH down the fast #1 trail.

MTB Vid: Tiger Mountain, Fully Rigid to Joyride

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sat, 17 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0700

Another mountain biking video. This time, the Fully Rigid trail onto Joyride. Both trails on East Tiger Mountain.

This video is also from my first ride on my new Santa Cruz and the first time I rode this trail.

Enjoy.

GoPro Footage: Tiger Mountain Summit Trail

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0700

As you probably know, I invested in myself and upgraded my mountain bike to a new Santa Cruz
Tallboy. I purchased the "entry" level Aluminum model.

This past weekend I had my first true mountain bike ride on my new bike and it was awesome. I was also riding a new trail (for me) for the first time, the East Tiger Mountain Summit Trail.

The first 3.5 miles took about an hour as we climbed about 1500 ft to the summit from the parking lot along highway 18. You can see a nice break down of the splits, elevation gain, GPS map, and other details over at MSBandGuru.com with my post Mountain Biking With The Microsoft Band.

I took a lot of video but here's the deal with GoPro, it can be very shaky and removing that does not always work well.

Here is some footage I took (speed up to 2x speed for most of it) that was taken on a handlebar mounted GoPro. It is very shaky.

For my next ride I will be experimenting with a chest mount and a helmet mount to see which one produces smoother video.

The music is a bit of Cigar Box Guitar that I did and looped.

Launching msbandguru.com

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Wed, 7 Oct 2015 08:00:00 -0700

I quietly launched msbandguru.com a few weeks back, a Microsoft Band site for News, Tips, and Developer Info.

At msbandguru.com I will be posting:

Microsoft Band enabled apps for Android, iOS, and Windows.
Microsoft Band Web Tiles
Microsoft Band News
Microsoft Band Developer Guidelines
Training with the Microsoft Band

If you have a Microsoft Band app, articles, website, developer article, or anything Microsoft Band related, get in touch with me.

You can also reach out to me on twitter at: @msbandguru

For development articles and blog posts about training with the Microsoft Band I will look at either cross posting here so readers less interested in Band news and apps can just pickup my posts about dev and fitness that they are used to finding here.

Check msbandguru.com out if you want to find out more about the Microsoft Band.

So You Want to Launch an App, Welcome to Being a Technical Writer

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 08:30:00 -0700

Launching any app means you have to do a lot of jobs that aren't programming jobs. They aren't but if you want to be an Indie and launch your own app you need to wear many hats.

Last night I did another pass through my user documentation. Included in this was a rewrite of the NewThistle LLC Privacy Policy to include information about Paddle Mate. I also tweaked it to add further clarification for the NewThistle Privacy Policy in general.

Next, I did another pass through the Paddle Mate app landing page which performs the duties of marketing material and user manual. This included lots of screenshots, information about how to use features of the app, and how Paddle Mate works with the Microsoft Band. I am happy to have those items checked off my sign-off list for app launch.

A part of running an App Business is taking care of these Technical Writing jobs, amongst the many other jobs you have to do.

I had most of this material already drafted and moved onto this task last night after I had made progress on my final few bugs. I am at a state now that another sign-off test is planned for tomorrow so I can verify that the few fixes I made tonight did not cause a regression (a regression is the introduction of a new bug or reintroduction of an old bug) which will gate the build (stop me from shipping).

I have said final few bugs more than once, I know that. The reason being that retesting sometimes brings to light new bugs. On a limited budget (my free time) I have to do the best I can with the time I have and sometimes that means days without much progress or reverse progress when I find a serious enough bug.

I am happy that this past weekend I made good progress with Paddle Mate in many areas. Not the least of those is getting these Technical Docs written for my users.

Reusing What We've Built

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 08:00:00 -0700

Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future.

Swami Sivananda

To often the next big project is more exciting that the current project. We want to move on and do something new so we can learn and to keep us interested.

Sometimes I run into a wall of too much work and too little time. The desire to switch streams from the current project to something new is alluring. It is much easier to switch streams than do the hard slog through the work it takes to complete the current project.

Switching off a project that you see will take longer to complete and moving onto the more exciting new project can he a hard urge to fight. But if you want to ship code then you have to stick to the current project and own up to the time it will take to launch.

It was with this in mind that I was thinking we sometimes need to stop and look at what we have learned. What have we built? What knowledge have we built? Is there something we know now that we are not taking advantage of?

I know that for myself I am always interested in learning and solving new problems. Sometimes this desire to do something new gets in the way of leveraging my knowledge to build products that I would enjoy.

With the Apple TV, 3D Touch, a new iPad Pro, I was presented with the dilemma of should I build a new app that targets those platforms?

While debating this I thought about the work I have been putting into Paddle Mate to finish that last mile from done to shipped. Though I have cut a lot of features to get V 1.0 out the door, I still have some high standards for the V1.0 when it comes to being able to track my workout. It has to work, foreground, background, pausing, etc.

A lot of work has been put into the features around the original stroke detection algorithm to convert Paddle Mate from a neat showcase app into a shipped product. It's something I would be happy to buy and use for my kayaking workouts.

With the work I have done, I started to think, how can I leverage this in another app?

It did not take long to see how I could leverage my Paddle Mate code to create another fitness app.

So, I will be enjoying my friends Apple TV creations. I will check out friends 3D Touch on their new phones. And I will take a look at an iPar Pro and it's Pencil if I see one in public.

But for the next few months I am reinvesting my knowledge from Paddle Mate into another app.

Finding GPS Routes for Testing

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 09:48:00 -0700

To test out Paddle Mate I have been using my own routes, some tester uploads, and a selection of
routes I have found online.

The best source online I have found that I have pulled several routes from is the site GPSies: Tracks for Vagabonds.

What I like about GPSies is that I can narrow down my routes to just "On water" meaning I can find canoe and kayaking routes.

If you need to find some routes for your GPS enabled app then start at GPSies.

Adding Voice Recognition to Your App

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 06:59:00 -0700

I was at the Eastside Xcoders on Thursday night for a talk by Alexander Caskey, a former employee at Microsoft Research, Wildfire, Cisco, and Linguistic Technology. He has been working on speech and natural language processing (NLP) for the past 20 years.
His talk was on Speech Recognition in Mobile Apps.

The talk was very deep in the history, forms of speech recognition, NLP, and covered the state of the art today.

I went to hear what is available for mobile developers who want to add speech recognition into their apps. I have a future fitness app I am designing that would be served well by speech recognition as an alternate interaction model.

From the talk, I picked up that for iOS devs the first place to start for speech recognition is Open Ears - iPhone Speech Recognition and Text To Speech. This looks like exactly what I want for the problem I have.

I have a limited vocabulary of words that I want to use as an interaction model for my app. This will allow the user to interact with my app through a limited vocabulary where touch is not an option. I'll be investigating Open Ears to see how it works and report back how it goes.

NewThistle LLC Turns One Year Old

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 08:00:00 -0700

NewThistle LLC is a year old at the end of September!

I just renewed NewThistle's business license and took a look at it's first year.

Here is a breakdown of my Revenue sources. As you can see, I am making the majority of NewThistle's revenue via App Dev Contracts.

To be honest, a huge push to start the company was the first contract I received. It was that contract that pushed me over the edge to start NewThistle and put more effort into app development.

For App Sales, I can say that Selfie Band, my Microsoft Band camera remote for iPhone, is my 2nd best selling app to date. It has only been in the AppStore since August 6th but it has been having steady, if not high, sales.

For NewThistle's first year, I am pretty happy with the results. I have achieved my initial goals to start a company that is profitable and which could bootstrap it's own growth. I had to start by giving the company a loan to get setup.

I then took a big contract first thing and sink a lot of after hours time into for 6 weeks.

With the close of that first contract I had made back the money I loaned the company to purchase new equipment and various web services (website hosting, domain, email). So, 90 days after I closed my first contract NewThistle LLC became profitable.

Since then, I have been trying to run a tight ship. I have decided not to purchase the new iPhone 6s+ since I can get by with the iPhone 6+ until I have a need to get the new phone or I can wait until the iPhone 7. I am on the fence about the iPad Pro but will likely stay away from it unless I have a business need to develop for it. The Apple TV I have app ideas for so that is something I plan to purchase for development purposes.

A big goal with the company has been to have it not cost my family money (though it sure eats up a lot of my time). In the money respect, the company is doing well and has cash in the bank to continue to pay business expenses.

For the coming year, here are my goals:

Increase the share of revenue from App Sales.

Two apps in the works and more planned.

Introduce another source of revenue besides App Sales and Contracting.
Continue to be self funding and not require outside financing.

Here's to the next year of NewThistle LLC.

Paddle Mate Beta Access

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 08:00:00 -0700

I made good progress on the Paddle Mate "Just Ship It" Release this past weekend. I had to step back, look at my activity state restoration code and fix a couple key problems. With that under control the app is handling backgrounding much better now.

This Beta version also includes:

App setting persistence so that the app remembers your last used workout settings (track location, Microsoft Band pairing options)
The DOCK view (main landing view of app) now includes a preview of the map from your last workout and some stats from the workout.
State Restoration.

With these changes in place, the app is ready for wider Beta Testing. If you are interested in trying out Paddle Mate before I ship it then you can sign up at: Announcing Beta Access to Paddle Mate

Paddle Mate V 1.0: Just Ship It Release

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:19:00 -0700

Past Workout (WAKE) view on the main DOCK view.

I have a couple irons in the fire at the moment which have me spread thin.

I'm working on a new site which I will write more about shortly (it is still baking and is not ready for prime time yet).
Various home projects.
I signed up for a Half Marathon at the end of October and have been ramping up training.
Fixed a bug in Selfie Band and shipped the update.
I have been finishing up Paddle Mate's first release.

Paddle Mate, the Just Ship It Release, has gotten some well deserved attention the past few days.

I had a couple half baked features and did some triage on those. I decided to move them out into future releases and in the process created a RoadMap. With the RoadMap I have a defined ongoing plan with a focus for each upcoming release.

I just finished off validating that the app works with/without a Microsoft Band attached. Without the Band the experience is not as rich but I am planning to support a richer experience for non-band users over time.

Paddle Mate is now down to 2 gating bugs that I am working on today. In developer lingo, gating means that the product can not pass the release gate to customers until those bugs are fixed.

I have one tester who is out today in this rain that has been testing. Once I get a handle on one of the bugs I will be going out for another test kayak.

The other bug is in the past workout view, I have a handle on the problem and will tackle that later today.

This boat still can't launch when that is all done. My list of tasks after I fix these bugs include:

Verify I have no more gating bugs.
Write launch page.
Write marketing page.
Write Privacy Policy for app.
Record App Preview

So, with about 1 hour to go in today's dev window I need to get back to getting this app shipped.

Abundance Demands Creativity

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Wed, 9 Sep 2015 22:58:00 -0700

Today, Apple unleashed an abundance of new hardware and software upon us. Where to start?

The iPad Family, Image: Apple

The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.
Marianne Williamson

There are few times we are at the intersection of new technology and new APIs that allow us to expand our customer base, but that is where we stand today.

Unlike my previous post on Constraints Give Focus today can feel overwhelming. Where do I start? What should I learn? Should I invest in the new iPad Pro and it's user interaction models? Should I build for the tvOS and the new Apple TV?

For most of us, time is limited and we do not have deep pockets like the big players to let us tackle the numerous ideas we come up with.

So in times like this we need to get creative with the abundance that has been put upon us and figure out new ways to leverage that abundance.

For me, I am considering the following:

Which apps do I have in a finished or near finished state that I can leverage on one of these new platforms?
Does the app deserve to be on the platform?
Would the user get delight from using a tvOS app or a larger iPad Pro version?
What features should I expose with the new Force Touch?
Can I leverage the platform to gain increased income without giving away my effort for free?

My time is limited. I need to come up with creative solutions in this time of abundance (tvOS, iPad Pro, Pencil, Force Touch) but constrain my ideas to the ones that are unique to the circumstances (Focus on tvOS for example, or the gold rush as it is called).

How are you dealing with the abundance from the September 2015 Apple event?

Selfie Band V1.1 Released

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Sat, 5 Sep 2015 08:54:00 -0700

Selfie Band version 1.1 is now live in the AppStore. You can download it here: Selfie Band

This update fixes the crash that occurs when your band has no remaining space for new tiles and you try to install the Selfie Band tile.

Users with auto-update turned on should get the new version automatically but if not you can follow the link above to get the latest version.

For users impacted by the crash, you should now get an appropriate warning when you try to install onto the Band and there is no remaining space.

Incremental Change

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Tue, 1 Sep 2015 07:57:00 -0700

Applying Incremental Changes to Our House

A key to success with programming is learning to experiment and make incremental changes. Testing those increments is critical to understanding if your change achieved your goals or made wider reaching impacts than expected.

From year to year, environmental changes are incremental and often barely register in our lives, but from evolutionary or geological perspectives, what is happening is explosive change.

David Suzuki

Like evolution, our code evolves slowing as we add features, we break things, we fix things, and push for the release line. Many commits are required to build the bedrock of the apps we ship and the features our users take for granted.

Sometimes in the rush to ship we miss testing some of these changes. Like evolution, these missed increments can explode when they reach our customers.

I hit my first shipping crash in one of my apps in the AppStore this past week. In this case it was with Selfie Band, my camera remote for the Microsoft Band. Selfie Band tries to install the camera remote tile (it's app view) on it's paired Microsoft Band.

It looks like one user had a very bad experience when they ran into the bug. They tried repeatedly to get past the problem but it looks like they crashed multiple times during this. I know this since I use Crashlytics crash reporting in my apps.

The bug manifested itself when the Microsoft Band had no remaining space for tiles and returned an error. I had incorrectly changed some error handling code and forgot to retest it.

So, being in Swift, my null point access crashed the app instead of silently failing as many of us Objective-C programmers are used to.

It was a silly mistake and I have fixed it and shipped the update to the AppStore. I just need to pass review and the fix will be live.

This bug reminded me to slow down and verify that incremental changes don't lead to a crash.

The competing priorities to ship and to create quality software can be hard as an indie when you have no teammates looking over your shoulder to review your code. The end user will feel the brunt of your mistakes and so will the impression you give your customers.

For me here is how I am addressing this as the sole programmer:

Commit often to git
Review my checkin like I would someone else's code

Why did you do this?
Was it tested?
Are there loose ends?
Should this be committed or reworked/retested?

Using branches to switch between features that I want to revisit
Reevaluating a change when it gets too large

Don't let your incremental changes lead to explosive releases.

Constraints Give Focus

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 08:00:00 -0700

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

Igor Stravinsky

I've spoken of this before, as a creative person, the hardest job can be to know when to stop/when to ship.

Building an app, creating a work of art, planning the weekend, deciding what to make for dinner; all of these things can get out of hand if you don't limit yourself. You need a plan and you need to set a bar for:

What is the bare minimum needed to achieve your end result? The Minimum Viable Product.
What is the desired feeling you want your consumers to experience? Utility? Joy? Full?
What are you desired goals with this product? Ship an app? Showcase your skills?

All of these things need to be considered but many times we want to deliver everything with a dime store budget. This is seldom possible.

My wife, from her experience in product management, was the first to introduce me to the concept that you can have a product Cheap, Fast, or Good. Pick Two! This is called the Project Management Triangle.

As an indie with a full time job and a family, I run into this problem all the time. I feel I am asking too much to pick two when having one with limited time is hard enough.

Here's how many of my projects go:

Brilliant Idea!
Crave out a block of time to put in a mad dash to get a prototype working.
Start to design a MVP.
Start to implement the MVP.
Run into corners I never foresaw.
Start slogging through the corners, rounding everything out.
Invest too much time into after hours indie work.
Crash, burn, burn.
Put project on back burner.

For every project I have completed, there is a mountain of projects I have abandoned.

Is this bad?

Only if you let it get to you. I look at that mountain as wisdom.

Here is what I take away from my "failures", if you want to call them that:

Experience

To know when I am adding more features than I can complete.
To know which ideas will take too much time.

Knowledge

With new techniques, skills, APIs, etc.
Few jobs offer training. As a contractor, I must think of my own training. These side projects help me to expand my skills and train.

Resolves

To find better ideas to solve, build, and deliver.

Efficiency

The more projects I work on the better I become at solving problems.
The more I projects I deliver the better I get at delivering solutions.

Constraints add focus.

Figure out how to use those constraints to improve your projects.

Learn from your mountain of failures and learn where you can add constraints to increase your pool of successes.

Paddle Mate Post Weekend Update

mthistle@gmail.com (Mark Thistle) — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 08:00:00 -0700

Night Testing

As some saw, over the weekend I took Paddle Mate for a night test and it went well. Here is the workout, which I posted from the water to Strava. This was a final field test after a previous couch test with a shorter test run from a past day.

Backgrounding Bugs

After the successful test on Saturday night I added more features on Sunday. When I went to try out the app for a longer 2 mike kayak I ran into several bugs. The major one being backgrounding related. This raises the issues that I need to refactor my PADDLE view to handle resuming when the app is relaunched after being stopped by the system while in the background.

This is one of the final 2 big bugs to shipping the app for testers. It will be my area of concentration when I find time this week.

Sunday's Features

SHARE view

Refactored from PADDLE END view

Send to Strava complete

Send samples to Paddle Mate (this is for testers or users so they can upload samples so I can add them to my testing and algorithm training)

WAKE view

The WAKE view as I have discussed is the view for looking at previous sessions.

Tweaked the scrollview to layout elements with more space for map and charts.

Add delete option to delete a session you do not want to keep.

Add SHARE option

Hooked in Map and Charts

PADDLE view

Added Map view back in. I was getting distracted by tweaking the Map (for maybe an hour) and put it on the back burner until I had a couple bugs in the PADDLE view metrics fixed. This made it back in and I really like it.

Add ability to have Map and Stats view force screen to not sleep. This is on now for my testing but I think I should expose this with an option. I will address that when I fix the backgrounding bug I have.

Next Steps

Well, I am back to reality. My family arrived back home from a visit to Canada and I am back to my normal schedule. This means a decrease in posts and slowing down of the progress I was able to make over a weekend. I can not pull a 29+ hour effort on Paddle Mate for the foreseeable future but I will need to spread that time out.

Ok, so now that I am back to my normal schedule I will refine my list of what I need to ship the MVP. Here are my upcoming tasks I need to ship for testers:

Address the backgrounding problem. Not a big deal and I have a handle on how to get the resumption working.
Second big bug: I found some limits in the iOS-Charts library and was able to not only freeze my app but my phone (until the system could kill my app and it's out of control chart generation). The library was spinning the CPU up to 100% with a lot of nested CGImage creations as it tried to draw a chart for a very large sample set. I need to address this before I ship and find the upper limit on the libraries chart sample size.
Style the DOCK view of Wakes of previous sessions. I have some ideas here and it is not critical to get the app out the door but I need to move from the current placeholder UI.

Follow Up: The Chart Bug

For one of my charts I was using it to view accelerometer samples while testing and am planning to convert it over to a chart with your speed over the workout. The issue I ran into (which I am happy I did since I have an upper bound to work back from) is that I selected the chart with my 28 minutes of accelerometer data and it's approximately 6700 samples kicked the charts ass.

To solve the problem I am going to limit my sample size based on the time. I need to find that upper limit and then calculate out a sample set size that has less entries than the upper limit for reasonable performance for expected kayaking times.