Coming Soon
I released the Simon's Green Army app, independently, in time for the 2016 Euros - for Irish football fans and also to raise awareness
for the Dublin Simon Community charity.
It featured maps, utilities
to save & share where you're (supposed) to be staying the night and to set meeting points, emergency contact numbers,
information from the Irish Embassy in France, information on driving safely in France from the AA Ireland,
a fan's guide, info on the great work of the Dublin Simon Community and a lot more.
Dave Maxwell helped with the initial design, Robbie Martin advised on content and I did the rest - built for iOS with Swift and Android with Java. Building the Android version wasn't as soul-destroying as I thought it'd be ;-)
In 2015 I released, independently, Irish Train Watch - the first Apple Watch app to show Irishrail train times and also (I think) the first
Apple Watch app with an Irish language option!
With an accompanying iPhone app, it has over 1K downloads (with no marketing)
and is due an big upgrade - I'll probably release a new version for iOS 10 this September.
It has a simplistic UI by design - the idea being that if you're running for a train, big clear buttons that you can mash are probably better than some slick but complicated UX!
In 2014 I released on iOS and Android (in 2015) an app for my kids' school, Scoil Uí Riada. In Irish, it features news, a calendar, an absentee form, policies, information and more.
Built natively, it also includes a PHP & MySQL website and backend running on AWS for the school to publish news, update the calendar and send push notifications.
Built when I was just starting out on iOS, the app is badly in need of an upgrade - but is still used heavily, especially the absentee form feature, which allows parents to directly notify the principal of their kids' absence from school.
In 2016 I released for AIB staff the Accelerate website. The ask was to build a site that helped collate
all the different learning and development courses in the Digital and GTS areas. I immediately thought of Netflix
- displaying different courses wouldn't be that different than displaying movies. The end result was Accelerate, which
I designed and built entirely by myself.
Site is built with bootstrap, js etc, dev version was hosted on AWS, production version runs on internal AIB kit.
PHP & MySQL for the analytics.
Images copyright of AIB.
In 2016 I built the MentorMe site for AIB staff - to help them find a mentor or become a mentor. Aonghus Collins
built a nice matching algorithm that I hooked up to the site, which I designed and built myself. Bootstrap, JS, PHP, MySQL,
dev on AWS, production on internal AIB linux.
Images copyright of AIB.
In 2015 I was asked to build a quick game to help promote the new AIB Mobile Banking app with its great QuickBalance feature - so I made an app called ... AIB Quick. Designing a game that'll probably be only be used by users once and for only about 30 seconds is an interesting challenge; in the end I built a pretty basic "mash as many QuickBalance icons you see in 30 seconds" game that has been used LOADS at lots of different events. Kind of embarrassing as it's such a simple game but people seem to like it.
The current record is 101, set at the demo day of the AIB/DIT App Development course I ran this year. I made the game and I haven't gotten near 101! There is a secret though that helps you get really high scores ...
Play AIB Quick in AIB's LAB store in Dundrum shopping centre.
Images copyright of AIB.
In 2015 I built the AIB DataHack website to accept entries for and to promote AIB's 3rd level
datathon / hackathon competition. Given a design by an agency I improved it and built the responsive site using Bootstrap, JS,
PHP and MySQL on AWS.
The DataHack itself was a great day, about 130 students attended from all over Ireland. I ran the hackathon side of the day
and was one of the judges. Check out the site for photos of the day.
In 2014 I built the a prototype app for the Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 smart watch. It had several
working features including balance (displayed numerically or graphically) and an atm locator based on GPS.
Developing it was fun - the watch app was built in Tizen (HTML,JS) and the partnered phone app was Android.
The mainstream AIB development teams then took the concept and built a production version on
Apple Watch and Android Wear.
Images copyright of AIB.
In 2015 I built a simple bootstrap website for my talented sister-in-law Bernie Balfe - see
http://rbjazztet.com/
It's quite plain and could do with an upgrade, but does what it says on the tin.
In 2013 I built a prototype financial education app for AIB. My colleague Dave Maxwell did
the incredible graphics, I built the app natively with Objective-C and Sprite-Kit.
At the heart of the game is a retro space shooter; the idea is that you shoot bad aliens
and then earn money that you can spend or save in the game! It also has educational quizzes and videos
... and as many Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy references as I could fit in!
Play it in AIB's LAB store in Dundrum.
Images copyright of AIB.
In 2014 I built an app to help train AIB staff ... and imaginatively called it AIB Train.
My colleague Dave Maxwell did most of the design and filmed the training videos that make
up some of the content. I built it for iOS iPads using Titanium Accelerator, mainly just to try it.
Interesting to work with - basically building apps with Javascript but not any HTML.
Images copyright of AIB.
I had to include this one - it's a simple Windows (HTML) drawing app for AIB, I included it
as part of an app competition entry in AIB. Featuring my kids voices, it's simple but fun.
Play it in AIB's LAB store in Dundrum.
Images copyright of AIB.
In November 2015, I came 2nd place in the Ford App-SYNC 24hr hackathon at Web Summit, with my colleague Dave Maxwell.
The challenge was to integrate an app with Ford's in car app system - all over 24hrs. A fantastic event, it was great fun
and we were delighted to come in 2nd place. Our solution was to build a quick Objective-C app
to help users find houses for sale and get information about areas, as they drive, via in-car and voice recognition controls.
We donated the 20K cash we won to the AIB AID charity, helping families in need at Christmas. Boom.
In November 2015, I came 2nd place in the Ford App-SYNC 24hr hackathon at Web Summit, with my colleague Dave Maxwell.
The challenge was to integrate an app with Ford's in car app system - all over 24hrs. A fantastic event, it was great fun
and we were delighted to come in 2nd place. Our solution was to build a quick Objective-C app
to help users find houses for sale and get information about areas, as they drive, via in-car and voice recognition controls.
We donated the 20K cash we won to the AIB AID charity, helping families in need at Christmas. Boom.
From February to April 2016 I gave a part-time app development course / competition in DIT Aungier St, on AIB Innovation's
behalf - every Friday for 2 hours to approx 50 DIT business & marketing students. The course came about after
DIT recognised the benefits of their non-technical students understanding more about apps, technology and innovation.
I designed and delivered all the course content - teaching them both iOS and Android app development. I'd a great time doing it
and the students were incredibly impressive and inspiring; most of them had no experience
coding or app development at all, but after the 10 weeks, they had individually and in teams, developed 18 apps
between them to demo at our judging day.
Ekaterina Kislova (third from the left) won the competition with her beautifully designed ToySwap app.
The others are Niall Minto (DIT), me, Dave Bowman (AIB), Kate Uí Ghallachoir (DIT Head of School of Marketing)
and John Jameson (DIT Head of School of Retail).
Images copyright of AIB & DIT.
In 2015 / 2016 I provided digital guidelines to the schools involved in AIB's Build a Bank program.
The program involves transition year students running banks in their own schools, learning
valuable business, marketing and communication skills along the way. The guidelines I wrote included
details on website and app development and design and I also gave some quick tutoring sessions in person
to some of the schools during their visits to AIB's LAB store in Dundrum. In May 2016 I was one of the
"ground" judges at the National Finals, helping shortlist finalists for the final judging.
Images copyright of AIB.