Category: news

Every now and then I take the bike and don’t really feel like tracking my progress, counting miles or thinking about the route. I just go.

Over the last few days, I made a Chrome plugin to listen to my favorite sports radio. I wanted something like that for a long time and since I was already in the Chrome Extensions development world, it seemed like a perfect occasion to make and publish this extension.

Download

My new Chrome Extension plays Weszlo.fm. There isn’t really much more to talk about. One main button to play/pause audio stream. Once installed, your browser will be ready to play the radio no matter the tab or window you’re in.

Oh.. and as a bonus, I’m parsing 10 most recent posts from Weszlo.com and displaying their titles for a quick article access.

Watch Case is back on the App Store and you can find it here.

It took two years of tweaking, late night tinkering and hard work to get to this point. Watch case for iOS is back on the App Store with the Mac version following soon. With one purchase you will get all available versions.

macOS version is waiting in review. It will follow the iOS version as soon as it is approved.

I’m planning on releasing Watch Case over the next few days. Now, that the app is in an OK shape and I’m not ashamed of it, it is time to close Xcode and generate a few marketing assets. My goal over the next few days will be to create a few graphics describing what Watch Case actually does and who is it for.

This is just my first attempt..

This feature was inspired by one of my users who owns more than 60 Hamilton watches and uses Watch Case to manage his collection for quite some time now. While in my opinion, every watch is unique, sometimes it might be easier and faster if you could re-use the fields structure and some of the information while adding new pieces to your collection.

Attached screenshots should give you an idea how this feature works. It starts with having at least one watch in Watch Case.

You can modify pretty much all visible fields that I pre-defined for you. You can update labels of those fields, add new ones, hide them or remove fields you don’t need.

Form editing will a topic for one of my next blog posts so let’s focus on the Templates feature.

Templates can be added through the Control Panel and the only field you need to fill out is the name of your new template. There are a few granural settings for more control but the name is the only required one.

Once you save your new template, using it is easy. Each time you’re adding a new piece to your collection, you will see a small menu with all of templates in it. Templates can be managed in the Template manager.

Why do I think templates are important for Watch Case users? Well allow me for a short digression to make my point.

When I started collecting my watches, I kept all the information in an Excel file. And as much as it wasn’t too hard to add new pieces… I had hard time starting it. I wasn’t sure what type of information I would like to save for later. Should I focus on the information about the model, the brand, the movement, the history of the brand or the measurements of the watch? We all know that each criteria can be its own rabbit hole.

And in fact the multitude of options is the cool part about our collections. Each one is unique and focuses on different aspects of watchmaking.

I wanted to build an app that doesn’t restrict you only to store what I think is important about your pieces. New templates can be completely wild and instead of focusing on the usual info like the brand of your watch or some basic information about its origin and the type of the movement, you can add fields to store information about the case type and its measurements, the complications your watch has or straps you find appropriate to wear with it. Go crazy with it and I’m sure collectors of vintage Rolexes will focus on different aspects than Casio Mudmaster lovers.

I would love to see screenshots of how others use Templates.

The most recent episode of Merge Conflict couldn’t be more relevant for me right now. I’ve spent so much time thinking whether I should make Watch Case free, monetize it through in-app purchases, subscriptions or just a one time up-front payment.

I’m still not entirely sure what will be the monetization model I will end up with, but I agree with Frank… chopping up the app and restricting access to the features I’m proud off feels dirty.

Over the last week or so I had a small group of brave friends who downloaded Watch Case and were kind enough to send me feedback. Thank you!

Now, a week later I think the app is ready for the next step and you can find it here.

I keep track of all of the changes I made since the app is available on Test Flight and you can find it here or read about the upcoming release on https://watchcase.app.

Below are two photos of Watch Case- how it started and how is it going….

  • May, 2019
  • January 2021

A few of my friends are already using Watch Case and were kind enough to send me feedback. Among lots of smaller issues, there are two bigger ones that will need a bit of work. That’s good. That is exactly what betas are for.