Preview of the coming iDuelpro v3.6 – Yu-gi-oh! calculator for iPhone!

EDIT: iDuelpro v3.6 is now live in the App Store, available for you to download. Download here : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iduelpro-yu-gi-oh-calculator/id299220306?mt=8

A few days ago we submitted the newest version of iDuelpro to the App Store. With v3.6 we skip 2 minor version and this is to point out the significance of this version as it is the biggest update to iDuelpro for iPhone ever and it also makes iDuelpro for iPhone the Duelpro variant with the most features on any platform. Which means that iDuelpro 3.6 brings more power in the palm of your hand than in an entire PC.

The most significant new features are the new settings panel which for example enables you to set both player’s names and the hybrid field view with support for both spell counters and monster tokens.

Here’s a full list of all changes :
-Ability to change the player’s names
-Ability to change the lifepoints base value from 8000 to 4000 or 2000
-Win/Loss/Draw counter in a statistics section
-Automated function to calculate your Victory percentage
-Added a function to reset statistics
-Added support for up to 19.980 spell counters on a virtual field
-Added support tokens on a virtual field
-Ability to toggle sides when using customized names
-Added a settings panel
-Added a twitter link to stay up-to-date on the latest iDuelpro news
-Fixed “Display wrong grammar on victory” bug
-Minor changes to make the top bar blend in with the GUI
-New online PDF help file with screenshots
-New Splash screen

What works on the iPhone also works on iPod Touch of course so iDuelpro is still available for everyone with iPhone OS 2.0 or higher. The price will remain the same as always $0.99 or €0.79 or 0,59£ or 110¥. It will be available somewhere next week if Apple doesn’t find some F* up reason why it shouldn’t be released, I’m betting on a forbidden word in the marketing text or such…

Here’s a screenshot overview of all changes :

The new splash screen with striped Ankh

The new main window of iDuelpro

The virtual field where you can simulate tokens and spell counters

The Settings panel where you can set your name or initial LP and view stats.

Game Over!

A(n) (i)Duelpro for every platform!

Yesterday we announced the coming of v3.5 of iDuelpro – yu-gi-oh! lifepoints calculator for iPhone. Now we can also announce that a drastic improvement of the Mac version is on its way. But that’s not all! Yesterday someone asked for a Blackberry version of Duelpro, and I started thinking.

We acquired material to build applications for Windows Mobile earlier this year, which means that we will start developing a Duelpro version for Windows Mobile anytime soon. This version will have about the same features as the Windows version and will show a donation button in the bottom.

But there’s more, another platform for which we could start to build apps is Google’s Android OS. We will use the same tactic there. People will simply be able to make a donation.

After Android OS, all nokia platforms with Qt framework will follow (including symbian).

So within the coming year, we will have a Duelpro version available for 6 platforms namely :

-Windows
-Mac OSX
-iPhone OS (also iPod Touch)
-Windows Mobile
-Android OS
-Symbian/Qt

Linux and Haiku (BeOS) executables may follow as well in this time. This only leaves the Java platform of some mobile phones and Blackberry OS to be. We can’t develop a Duelpro version for every cellphone available and Blackberry development is too expensive. Otherwise nearly any OS would be covered.

iDuelpro Mobile 3.1 ready to be uploaded

A few weeks ago we first released a paid version of our yugioh LPC for iPhone, iDuelpro Mobile (v3.0) and now we already have a new update available. Dramatic updates always have drawbacks and receive a lot of criticism and hence some things had to be fixed and updated.

The “10.000″ button is now removed and replaced by a button which pops-up a dialog to deal a custom amount of damage or to restore a custom amount of lifepoints, there is an undo button added to undo the last action as requested by some users and a button for direct kill combo’s or cards like exodia or destiny board.

If iDuelpro Mobile will keep on existing is still unclear, yesterday we had completely no sales and in the first two weeks Apple allowed thousands of people to update for free thus creating a potential loss of hundreds of dollars. We still have the cheapest full yu-gi-oh LPC available for the iPhone considering that any other LPC is 4,99$ or more, but since iDuelpro became paid people just don’t seem that interested.

You can still buy the current version for 0,99$ in the iTunes App Store

iDuelpro Mobile 3.0 for iPhone/iPod Touch finished and uploaded

After a long time we have released another update to iDuelpro Mobile, an iPhone OS version of Duelpro, the most used yu-gi-oh! tcg lifepoints calculator.

The new version contains an entirely revamped smooth black interface with toolbar. Also the custom input box to enter a number of lifepoints to operate with has been replaced completely by a series of buttons with predefined amounts. Also the useless card counter has been removed and the empty space is now filled by buttons to halve a player’s lifepoints and buttons to simulate coin flips and dice rolls. For the first time also an online help file has been added.

iDuelpro Mobile 3.0 will soon be available in the iTunes Application store for 0.99$. Yes, we have to charge a small amount for iDuelpro Mobile because we have to pay 99$ a year to Apple to be allowed to make Apps for the iPhone. So without this minor charge iDuelpro for iPhone and iPod Touch would be condemned.

iDuelpro Mobile 3.0 splash screen

Phoenxsoftware on different platforms, how far are we?

About a year ago we started opening up for more platforms than just windows. How far are we now?

The most successful platform still remains windows, because 95% of all our apps are Windows only.  But we expanded our development so that in the future 30% of our software will be multiplatform or specifically developed for other platforms. 

Why would we develop for different platforms?
Each new platform brings a new opportunity, at least for te worthwhile ones. Mac OSX for example has already gained 10% of the computer market and Mac OSX users are not as cheap as Windows users and also don’t complain that often about details.  So this brings a new group of users which are with a lot less, but who bring us the same amount of revenue we get from Windows.

Future Mac OSX applications will possibly be : 36-image express for mac, a scientific/economic calculator program for mac, an invoice wizard, … Other apps will be ported to java to support multiple OS’s.

That brings us to our second most successful platform at this time, the iPhone OS. With about 4.000 downloads, iDuelpro Mobile is our most successful cross-platform application. It still takes only 4% of the total amount of (i)Duelpro downloads, where the windows version Duelpro takes 95% and iDuelpro for mac takes 1%. This is great for a platform with less than 1% of marketshare, but the development for iPhone is also very expensive, so sooner or later iDuelpro Mobile will loose its 0$ price-tag or will disappear. 

Linux development is something we attempted a year ago at the start of our ambition and maybe we will try this platform, but it seems useless and I don’t see any use in developing native for an operating system which is so diverse and only covers 0.8% of all users. As a surplus to get accepted in the linux community you have to make your software opensource, a philosophy we do not support as the software-industry is a profit industry and not a charity organization. Until Linux poses a real threat to the desktop marketshare of Win and Mac other than some Ubuntu official saying “This will be our year!” each year over and over again, we will not develop for a big mouthed midget operating system which gets enough chances but does not appeal to the public even with a 0$ price-tag.

So the conclusion is Windows dev still is a great success, Mac dev is a small success but will be more successful once we create more applications, iPhone dev is a relatively big success but is expensive and Linux dev will have to wait until Linux grows up (maybe some day? ).