Minecraft-Companion
An iOS companion for Minecraft that keeps track of in-game time.
NOTE: This was developed in 2010 against the iOS 3.0 SDK, so things like custom fonts and gestures were novel..
More info here: http://www.fieldman.org/minecraft-companion
Summary
In 2010, Minecraft was exploding. It was getting huge on Reddit, and I took notice. I played for a bit, and it entertained me for about three weeks.
At some point it occurred to me that nothing showed up in the App Store if you searched for the term “minecraft”. This seemed like a huge missed opportunity. I wanted to capitalize on it as quickly as possible, so I made a day/night timer that you could sync to your game (this was before the watch was an in-game feature).
It took me about 12 hours to make. I wanted it to look classy and themed, not like the crappy stopwatch-looking Android apps that were out at the time. I think the result was good, and even though it’s useless now (because of the in-game watch), it’s kind of pretty to look at.
It got tons of one-star reviews. I think people expected it to be an actual game, since, you know, they didn’t read the description of the app that clearly explains it’s just a timer.
I charged a dollar for it when it was released. I made bank during the first month, because it was the only app that came back for the search term "minecraft". I was such a genius. Sales tapered when free apps started popping up. At some point, Mojang sent me a cease and desist because apparently they don't like people charging for things that use their brand. So I made Minecraft Companion free. Apparently that wasn't good enough, and I have to change the name so that "Minecraft" is not the first/dominant word. I've pulled it from the store until I can get an update out that changes the name.
License
Unless otherwise stated, any code in this repository is distributed under the following MIT license:
Copyright (C) 2012 Jason Fieldman
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.