NGN App

A great app isn’t just one that makes a company money. It’s also one that makes a company more efficient. The NGN app does just that and is designed for use by engineers out in the field. The ‘Structural Subline App’ allows engineers to complete installation reports and submit them instantly. This is all handled via an API to a bespoke database and backend system built by Gooii.

The ‘Structural Subline App’ was built for Northern Gas Networks and Radius Systems, using React Native, a cross-platform system developed by Facebook. Furthermore, this enables us to code native iOS and Android apps using one central code base. Key features also include: A QR and barcode scanner; The ability to take in-app photos or upload from the camera roll; Location services; An in-app database ready for submission to the server; Offline mode together with secure online content management system. The NGN app also features an intelligent login system which associates the engineer with their area manager based on their login credentials.

If you would like to discuss an app to make your business more efficient, please get in touch.

Really interesting article from Apple Insider here, stating that despite being behind Android in hardware sales, Apple are way ahead of the competition when it comes to profits (Source: Canaccord Genuity). The main reason is hardware cost, with the average iPhone weighing in at $670 compared to Samsung’s $180. The research isn’t just collated against Android sales either, but also accounts for Blackberry and Microsoft (Windows) devices.

Interestingly and historically, as a company Gooii previously received more requests for iOS apps than Android. In recent months however we’ve seen an increase in Android requests, with a roughly 50/50 request rate for apps with a public release and a swing towards Android for non-public apps, due to the ease of releasing Android apps outside of the app stores.

To read the full article visit the Apple Insider website.

Once known for shrinking things down to miniature size, Apple are clearly thinking BIG with the iPad Pro. Apple’s new iDevice boasts all the great apps we love, whilst closing the gap between tablet and laptop in a way Microsoft just can’t seem to manage. With its Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, the iPad Pro positions itself somewhere between the iPad Air 2 and a Macbook Air, which kind of makes it, well… a massive iPad. Now this is either a good thing if you’ve always felt the iPad was too damn small, or it puts it very much in the “meh” category.

The lure of the iPad Pro isn’t enough for me to ditch my Air 2, though Gooii’s test device preorder will be in place. For me the holy grail will be an iPad that can run both Mac OS and iOS simultaneously. I want to be able to use Adobe’s Creative Cloud design applications and Word one minute (well no one wants to use Word, just sometimes you have to), then download iOS apps from the App Store the next. Perhaps this is a sign such a device is imminent, or maybe this half way stage means it’ll never happen – which is just as likely considering Apple have stated their Macbook range will never support touch screens. It is however Apple’s prerogative to change their mind, demonstrated by Steve Jobs once mocking devices that used a stylus, which Apple now boasts as revolutionary – albeit one that transforms the iPad into a graphics tablet. What if the iPad Pro could be paired with the Mac to form a dual screen graphics tablet? Now that would be something truly special indeed.

To learn more about the iPad Pro visit the Apple Site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbg2gNXpBDM

Gooii were commissioned by Royal Museums Greenwich to design and build a touchscreen gallery interactive for the National Maritime Museum, allowing visitors to explore the museum’s high definition images.

Technical Info – hold tight!: A PHP Content Management System enables museum staff to gather and repurpose their Solr data into customised themes, which are stored in couchDB. The Solr data is populated via Knowledge Integration‘s CIIM middleware layer, aggregated from the Museum’s Collections management and DAMs systems. The touchscreen UI built with AngularJs utilises the Open Source OpenSeadragon library and enables users to smoothly pan and zoom these HD images. Launching the UI with Chromium in “kiosk mode” ensures a slick full screen UX.

To view the HD Image explorer please pay a visit to the National Maritime Museum.

Previously known for cheap books and poor customer service, Amazon has transformed like a phoenix from the Kindle Fire into one of our most innovative and ambitious technology companies, with customer service at its forefront. It would have been easy to dismiss Amazon’s foray into the tablet market but bold moves like this, as well as swallowing Love Film and spewing it up as Amazon Prime Video are strokes of genius. Prime Video for example started off has a bonus added to their delivery service, but despite the price hike has overtaken Netflix as the streaming service of choice in my household. I’m also keeping a keen eye on Amazon Prime Music, waiting for the right to jump ship from Spotify – after all I’m already paying for it, the content just isn’t there yet.

As an Apple TV owner looking forward to the release of the app store boasting v4.0, it’s with keen interest that I see Amazon’s latest Fire TV box is receiving rave reviews. Key features include 75% more processing power, 4K UHD capabilities, voice control, as well app favs Netflix, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, ITV Player, Demand 5 and BBC Sport – unfortunately Now TV and Spotify are conspicuous by their absence but will hopefully arrive soon. The box also arrives pre-configured to your purchasing Amazon account, a very neat and original idea, designed to make your life easier and get you spending. The only question for many will be “how many devices that do pretty much the same thing (Chromecast, Apple TV, Smart TVs, Games Consoles) do you need in your life”? For me, maybe one or two more.

All-New Amazon Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD

Some great feedback from a recent client…

“We would just like to say a big thank you to you and your team, you have been fantastic in helping us move forward as a school. As we all know the website is now the first port of call for most parents. Our new website will definitley help us attract more pupils.

We are so glad we chose Gooii as our website developer. You have created a professional, attractive and easy to maintain website. Gooii have been fantastic to work with and we look forward to working with you in the future!”

If you’d like to work with us on your website or app, please get in touch at [email protected].

Key Skills: AngularJS and HTML/CSS UI for Web and Mobile Development

We are a talented team of designers and developers based in the heart of Nottingham, UK and are seeking a developer to join our in-house team to build websites, web and mobile apps.

Our core business covers the totally rocking heritage, education and corporate sectors. We develop UI in AngularJS for clients such as JISC, the National Maritime Museum, BBC, Museum of London and University of Cambridge to name but a few.

We have an informal, friendly, open-plan office environment. If we invite you to interview there’s no need for a suit – we care about what you can do, not what you look like…

Want to know more? Download the full job spec here.

NO AGENCIES!! Oh, and did we mention absolutely NO AGENCIES??!! 🙂

Royal Armouries data visualisation help celebrate the Battle of Waterloo

The Royal Armouries have been celebrating the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Gooii has been working with them on a new feature page for the Collections Website including a beautiful visualisation.

On the 1st March 1815, after only eleven months of exile, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped his captors on the island of Elba. He landed in the south of France then returned to Paris to overthrow King Louis XVIII. Then regained his position as Emperor of France. This re-ignited a war that had raged across Europe since 1803.

This page is a celebration of that time. It features video streaming, arms and armour, weapons and the characters of that era. The Timeline allows users to move through a timeline containing key moments in the period regardless of device; desktop, tablet or mobile device.

A solution based on CIIM architecture with Javascript. All content is aggregated from the museum’s collections management systems. This provide the best in terms of speed, performance and page visibility.

Gooii have developed and upgraded the Jisc Journal Archives website to handle the launch and publication of the feminist magazine ‘Spare Rib’ by the British Library. Developed in Angular JS, the user interface presents data from a Collections Information Integration Middleware (CIIM) built by Knowledge Integration and allows users to search, filter and view every issue of Spare Rib online for the first time.

View Spare Rib on the JISC Journal Archives website.

Find out more about the Magazine and the launch on the British Library website. The website and magazine is also featured in The Guardian Women and The Guardian Media as well as on BBC Radio 4.

Hailed as Apple’s “Most personal device yet”, the Apple Watch feels like it’s been a long time coming. Whilst it’s essential Watch owners already have an iPhone or iPad, Apple are keen to give it a meaning beyond the device you already have in your pocket. Apple need to sell in its USP in order to market it beyond the gadget freaks and early adopters (yeah, that’s us) and the machine is working full steam ahead to do so.

A quick display of hands in the Gooii office and it’s clear some of us have mentally had our orders in since before the Apple Watch was even a rumour, whilst others will be waiting for another revision; and that’s the rub, you know Apple are going to release another watch within the next year. This is especially pertinent as it’s more glaring that the summer sun that one killer feature has been held back – the ability to FaceTime. Ever since I was child I dreamed of having a watch that I could see people on, it’s the stuff of sci-fi, it was also a feature missing from the iPad 1 and I can’t help feeling that a subsequent revision will refine and nailing the concept, just as Apple did with the iPad 2.

As well as being Apple’s most personal device it’s possibly their most expensive, with the top of the range model weighing in at a hefty £13,500. The starting price however is a more palatable £299 for the 38mm model and £339 for the 42mm watch.