Unlike web apps which tend to work the same no matter what version of Chrome you’re on, mobile apps change their underlying frameworks and operating systems regularly, and the corresponding app frameworks like Xamarin Forms/MAUI, Flutter, etc, all respond to those changes with their own releases.Īn unmaintained app will eventually not work or look right if it doesn’t receive regular releases. The reason I pursued the update was multifaceted: I wanted to stay up to date on what Microsoft was doing, and I wanted to put the app on the preferred release path (Xamarin Forms, the old tech, is no longer receiving active maintenance releases with any regularity). But none of those features that broke were used in the current IFPA app. In the latest version of iOS, some Xamarin Forms features did break and need to be patched with the latest iOS version (16). Likely the IFPA app would have continued working fine for the next 6-12 months without updates. NET MAUI?Įd: There wasn’t an imperative reason for the new version, strictly speaking. NET MAUI? Did you consider any other new frameworks, or was it always going to be. Kineticist: Why the need for a 3.0 release? For the layperson, what was the impetus to switch from Xamarin Forms to. I wanted to see if I could put an app in the store and make something that’s useful for WPPR-obsessed people like myself. The IFPA website has always been hard to use on mobile, and no app existed on iOS. I had seen some Xamarin Forms demos that really appealed to me. My former job had a “shutdown,” and everyone had the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. Kineticist: You launched the initial version of the IFPA app back in 2018 – can you talk a bit about the app’s origin story – why did you want to build it? What were you hoping to achieve with the build?Įd : The app started over winter break in 2018. Then I accidentally meet Bowen and NEPL players at L&G and the rest is history. Next thing you know, I buy a Super Mario Brothers pinball off Craigslist. That had me visiting Lanes & Games and playing pinball there. I lost track of pinball when I went to college but got reintroduced in 2012 when the iPad launched, and Pinball Arcade reminded me of all the great games I used to play. The excellent Grand Prix arcade was attached to an F1-style kart track and had all the latest Williams pinball machines as soon as they came out. I grew up in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and there were two arcades in town. Kineticist: What’s your pinball origin story?Įd : I played pinball at arcades as a kid. Impressive!īesides building the IFPA app, Ed has also created an IFPA Companion Discord Bot, as well as several other pinball-focused projects. However, it should be noted that through the process of building the app, Ed was able to learn enough skills to help him transition to professional roles that focused entirely on building mobile applications. NET MAUI.Įd was already an experienced software developer when he first decided to create the IFPA app. Ed built the first edition of the app back in 2018 and recently overhauled the app for its 3.0.0 release, including a complete migration of the codebase from Xamarin Forms to. We’re excited to talk today with Ed Giardina, a long-time competitive pinball player, tournament organizer, and developer of the official IFPA mobile application (available for iOS and Android devices). In the second edition, we talked with Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen of Match Play In our first edition, we caught up with Brian O’Neill of Scorbit. Welcome to the 3rd installment our pinball community spotlight series, where we interview the operators, builders, tournament organizers, and business owners that make the pinball world go ‘round.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |