new version of cloudyvolve
28 March 2012Now that nearly a year has passed since Cloudyvolve was pushed live, an update was necessary. The new version adds some nice dimension to the old, with the same “floaty” experience. I still claim it is the only globally-static, soothing Android wallpaper.
What's new
- Location-aware sun position. Using the device's physical location, Cloudyvolve determines sunrise and sunset times (among others) and customizes its display pattern and colors accordingly. The old, per-hour color scheme is still available, and is active by default. To change, click the Settings button on the wallpaper preview screen.
- Location-aware weather. Along with the position of the sun, the background can now change with ambient weather, in this case cloud cover; the cloudier the actual day, the greyer the skies in Cloudyvolve. To keep data usage low, the weather status is updated only hourly, so don't expect a sudden burst of sun to be represented. This feature is also deactivated by default, but is available through the Settings button.
- Improved CPU performance. There was an odd bug in the original release that caused the wallpaper to crash the moment it was activated; rebooting the phone fixed this problem. Good news: the bug is no more! Cloudyvolve was always battery-friendly, but now your phone will be even happier.
What's upcoming (if not in short order)
- Customizable background colors. The default color scheme is great, but what if you want sunrise to be green and sunset to be white? The introduction of the location-aware coloring framework makes instituting these colors a fairly simple task, but taking custom colors as user input — in a nice, intuitive way — is less simple. Once this is figured out (as we're nearing the end of spring break, I'll have to spend less time surfing Android forae) there will be a dot patch to permit this interesting feature.
- More fluffyness. The first comment on the wallpaper was “needs more fluffynessyness;” apparently an evolving set of cubes laid along a three-dimensional grid wasn't doing it. The wallpaper will be updated to have a more cloud-like form, retaining the general evolutionary features. Of course, we'll be sure that Cloudyvolve classic is still available through Settings.
- Improved time thresholds. Location-aware sun position is a great idea, but of course there are issues when people are above the Arctic Circle (among other places) certain times of the year. Long-term, this should be fixed in the code but, short-term, this will be hacked around on the data source to fake sunsets and sunrises when necessary.
- Improved default colors. The current default color scheme was obtained by my own matching of web-safe colors to what I wanted to see in the various phases of the day. Realistically, this should be done somewhat more scientifically.
Included \(\LaTeX\) graphics are generated at LaTeX to png or by
.contemporary entries
- commemoration (or, buy a button and help me join the LACBC) (11 December 2012)
- a poem (18 May 2012)
- new version of cloudyvolve (28 March 2012)
- the diploma mill (7 March 2011)
- economics notes (4 March 2011)
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