So You Want a Watchface Idea?

Make this bad boy or something heavily inspired by it. I can't even begin to tell you how cool I think this would be!

Lots of great user reviews @ Amazon!

It was great to pop over to the WIMM One page at Amazon and see a slew of new user reviews. If you haven't written yours yet, go there and write one. This is how we get more people playing in our sandbox. While you're there, mark the helpful reviews as helpful.

vCard app in the forums

Cool little vCard app by Nolte Burke is in the forums. I'll do a review of it when it hits the store. But for now, check out his video (left). It's a nicely done app with some useful technical accomplishments that I'm sure he'll apply to more micro apps.

WIMM One Now in Stock Again

Good news! Amazon has the WIMM One in stock again, still for $199. While you check out the link today, take a few minutes to write a review if you already have your WIMM One. More reviews mean more buzz on Amazon, which will mean more users for the enthusiasts, and more customers for developers.

Do It Now.

Alltock Christmas and Valentine will be available again soon!

In more "out of stock" news... A quick note to WIMM One users who have the Alltock Christmas and/or Valentine watchfaces installed. They've been temporarily removed from the Micro App Store (Beta) to make room for other watchfaces while WIMM works to improve the scalability of their Micro App Store. And that's fine with us, because Christmas and Valentines Day have passed and won't be back for many months.

We make side-loadable demos of our watchfaces available here. If you need your Christmas or Valentines fix, hopefully those will keep you happy until the are back in the Micro App Store.

WIMM One Currently Out of Stock

Bad news this morning for everyone who wants a WIMM One for every day of the week or those of you who haven't purchased your first one yet... Both Amazon and the WIMM web site show no available stock of WIMM One devices, with the WIMM web site offering guidance of 2-3 weeks before current orders will be shipped.

I have not reached out to WIMM for comment on this, just noting it. But that doesn't mean we can't have some fun with wild speculation here! So here are some possible explanations for your consideration:

1. China is running at full capacity making iPad 3s, does not have time for WIMM Ones right now.
2. There are plenty in China, but would need to be transported by car through Russia and Alaska before hitting the continental United States.
3. The artist Christo has created a giant digital sign out of a matrix of 320 x 240 WIMM One units, plans to unveil it in the mountains of Southern California displaying "Who's feeling lucky today?" and a tiny, yellow umbrella.
4. My Dad really wants one, therefore, not available to purchase at this time.

If you have an entertaining theory, please post in the comments.

Update: James from WIMM posted on the forums. They expect to be shipping again in about a week.

Update: Now back in stock as of Wedneday, March 7.

Quick Review: Precious

Quick glance of relevant information... That's what Precious does. It gives you recent market prices for an ounce of gold and an ounce of silver. These prices are updated each time your WIMM One syncs.

The display has a stack of gold coins with its price on top, a stack of silver coins with its price below, and the date and time of the last quote update. It's cute but not as extensive as, for example, the Stock Market Indices app.

Before I get to the rating, I want to offer a couple ideas about where apps like this could go. First though, this is a wonderful first screen. Easy to read, easy to act on. I would not mind seeing an "update now" button (with a shorter caption) that makes the app request an immediate sync, rather than having to fish back to Settings to get an update.

So some concrete ideas:

1. If the information is a available, add additional screens, accessible by swiping, that show trends for gold and silver, perhaps intraday, weekly, monthly, yearly, and historically.
2. Show prices relative to opening price for the day. I want to know if gold is spiking or taking.
3. Add platinum and palladium. These would distinguish the serious precious metals bug from the typical Ron Paul delegate. Keep the size of the icons and prices, but use vertical scrolling to get to the other prices.

Here's the scenario I'm getting to... Imagine you're at lunch with an old friend and it's the first time you've shown them your WIMM One. You bring up Precious and see the stale price quotes. You tap "Update" and within 15 seconds have updated quotes. That's cool, fun, informative. Then you swipe right twice and down once and have a yearly chart for silver. Trends right on your wrist. Your old friend would be impressed.

Rating: WI–MMMM
I give this app 4 Ms. It's easy on the eyes. The developer, Nolte Burke, has figured out how to pull live information off the Internet periodically and display it nicely. I think the app could "go deeper" and be a richer, more interactive experience when you need that, while remaining quick and simple most of the time.