New apps and old

A little over a month ago, I announced new projects and creations that I wanted to share with the world. In case you missed it, you can check out the video on them here.

This post isn't necessarily to recap what projects I announced, but instead being used to talk about the state of one app in particular: Malachite.

Malachite started when Stella was working on physically hacking an Xbox 360 - a method that (on this specific console) is referred to as the Reset-Glitch-Hack. She was working with her iPhone as a magnifier, using the flash and ultra-wide camera to enable clear imaging for what she was doing.

The setup process for this, however, was not that straightforward. She had to open Camera and fiddle around, adjust the zoom and swipe to turn on the flash by itself. Needless to say, it was a very complex process for something this simple.

Malachite was born from trying to bring my love an app that she could whip out, tap a button, and go. It was made better once I realized the capabilities of it were limited by myself, and others began to use the app for macro photography.

That's how Malachite ended up turning into one of the best apps I have ever written - one that sports an easy-to-use user interface that puts the controls in convenient places for you to tap and reach, automatic and manual adjustment capabilities, some pretty nice blur effects, even iPad support.

I've been working harder than ever on Malachite, and just wrapped up integration with my Xcode Cloud plan to enable me to push builds directly to a new platform:

TestFlight.

I submitted a build of Malachite to Apple on the 2nd, and it got approved for external testing on the 3rd. It's nice to see that my small little camera app is making it here, and eventually to the App Store.

I've put a lot of work into this project, and it's one of the few that I think I will try my best to make it the best for those who use it.

If you want to join the TestFlight, you can grab it from here. And as with all of my other projects, you can find source code on my GitHub profile.