Idle thoughts and technical knots.

Glasgow Life iPad Apps

This year has been a big one for us in terms of App Development. Not only have we been producing a variety of our own projects (Trivia Night and Sharpen) but we’ve had the amazing opportunity to work with some really exciting institutions.

Glasgow Life
We were fortunate enough to get to work with a selection of Glasgow’s finest museums this year, producing both in-house exhibition apps and appstore releases.

Century of Style
This beautiful exhibition of 19th-century clothing comes from Glasgow Museums’ collection of European costume. The app allows you to delve into details of each item and discover its history in greater detail, as well as zoom in on some of the finer details using high definition photography.

Century of Style – App Store Release

Scotland Street
Scotland street has always been a hub of information for the history of local schools and those that attended, but a lot of the information has been difficult to obtain.
A new push has been made to digitise a lot of the old records and photos, with a custom app being displayed on iPads throughout the museum to help suers interact with it.

Visit Scotland Street Museum for a hands on experience with the app.

Archaeology Companion
Kelvingrove Museum has always been home to a hugely impressive collection of archaeological treasures, ranging from stone age to medieval periods.

In order to bring their new exhibition to life, the museum commissioned us to produce an iPad app that would allow visitors to learn and discover interesting details about the individual items on display. Along with the detailed records, the app also allows users to zoom in on high definition imagery and even pinch, zoom and ‘spin’ detailed videos of certain objects for a closer look.

Visit the museum’s Study Centre upstairs to interact with the app in person or download free from the AppStore.

An Archaeology Companion – App Store Release

NHS Active Staff App

For the past couple of months we’ve been quietly working away on a really exciting project with NHS Scotland. Now that it has officially launched, we can tell you all about it

Each year NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Glasgow City Council hosts a staff walking challenge (Active Staff) during which participants work in a small team and count their individual daily steps taken. The team’s steps are totalled and added towards a distance target. Up until now, this has been done manually with thousands of emails, spreadsheets and manic step-counting.

But the Active Staff challenge is walking towards a bright new future with the launch of our website, iPhone and Android apps to help make this monumental task a lot easier – and fun!

We took the existing World Walking (worldwalking.org) system and app and started to work out how we could develop this into a standalone solution for both the NHS and Glasgow City Council staff. With enthusiastic responses for our initial concepts from the client, we set to work on planning, designing and building the apps and website, working with our resident mobile developers and friends, Michael Park and Fergus Howe.

This year’s ‘virtual’ route allows teams of 5 to race the Queen’s Baton Relay around the Scottish leg of the tour, starting in Edinburgh and ending in Glasgow at Celtic Park on 20th July 2014. Participants can log in to the mobile app or website to add their distance in steps, kilometers or miles as well as tracking their walk accurately using the app’s GPS tracker feature. Teams compete for 1st place on the leaderboard, plus individuals can gain achievements for their activity and distance.

Over 4,100 staff users have signed up for the 2014 challenge using our new apps and we look forward to seeing the results and feedback in the next few weeks. Let the challenge begin!

Note: Registration is limited to NHS and Glasgow City Council staff only – a valid payroll number is required.