MrQwest

Over the last couple of years, my consumption of hot beverages has sky rocketed. I often drink upwards of 15 cups in a day but generally, it’s around 8 or 9. I’ve always wanted to keep a log of the what I drink though, to see how much I am actually drinking.

I could of written each cup down on a scrap of paper, or used twitter to tell the world when I put the kettle on but I didn’t want to get to end up losing the scraps of paper and I’m not always near an internet connection nor did I want to look like an idiot scribbling “1 Coffee” on a napkin in my local coffee shop.

So I decided to make myself a little app for my iPod Touch.

Being the tight git that I am though, I didn’t want to spend the $99 Apple want to get a developers kit for the iPhone & iPod. So I set about making an app in HTML & CSS & then accessing it via MobileSafari on my iPod.

This was good for a reason. I’ve always wanted to learn PHP but never had a chance to sit down with the many books I own on the subject, but a little personal project like this; that’s built using PHP for the backend has given me some valuable insight into PHP, MySQL & using it for tools such as the app. The problem however, is that I’ve only rarely touched PHP. I’ve used it for the odd include or require tag, and fluffed about with WordPress or PhpBB but I’ve never sat down and started with a blank canvas.

So I spoke to my brother-in-law who does (fortunately) know PHP & MySQL and has sat down with me & helped me out with the code. He has shown me how to get started, how to reference databases & how to get my app running.

With the coding side moving along, I decided to move my focus towards the usability & aesthetics. The one thing that was important about this app was that it had to be easy to use. I knew I wouldn’t use it if it was difficult, or there were too many key presses. So I’ve got one single page with 3 large buttons and two smaller buttons. The 3 large buttons are for tea, coffee & hot chocolate while the smaller buttons are for water & coke. When I’m having a cup of coffee, I click my app icon, tap the coffee button & that’s it. Tapping the coffee button adds a new record to a database which includes the beverage, the time and the date. I could have just had a cumulating number for each drink but including the date and time was more for information purposes. I eventually want to manipulate the data that I’ve collected to see what I drink & when and then see if there are any patterns emerging.

So right now, I’ve got my first iPhone app that I’ve crafted from HTML & CSS with help from my brother-in-law on the PHP side of things.

That’s my app right there!

It’s still not as feature-filled as I hope for the app but I’m still working on it! Ideally, I’d like to get the app working off-line so if I’m sat in my local Starbucks without a wifi connection on my iPod, I can still use it but that still involves some tweaking.

I’d also like to implement a user system or a log-in system to allow others to log in & use the app themselves – although I don’t think there’s much call for that!

For the future though, I’ll be looking into apps like PhoneGap & Appcelerator to see if I can get the app working smoother & make it more native. I’d love to bring it offline!

And if that goes well, who knows – maybe I’ll pay up for the Apple Dev kit & stick it on the App Store.

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