Jonathan King

Computing Undergraduate, Musician and Designer. London

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Installing .mobileconfig Locally From App

Mobileconfig files are an incredibly useful way of manging devices (iOS and Mac) en masse - configuring email accounts, VPN settings and much more, however there are some other interesting (and more novel) uses.

Over two years ago I first thought about using them to configure connecting to our school WiFi, which is both password protected and uses a proxy. I wrote a simple PHP script where you enter your school account’s username and password (for proxy authentication) and it generates a profile which is then downloaded and installed. However in order to do this, you need an internet connection - something the user won’t have, so you end up in a ‘Catch 22’ situation.

Recently as I have been preparing to update the app I developed for the school over 5 years ago, it occured to me that if I could build in profile generation this would be a really nice touch. I also decided to include...

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Push Notification Composition via SMS

For two current projects I’ve needed a really simple way for the administrators to send out push notifications to all users. While I was Initially not keen on this idea, I’ve since convinced myself that in a small set of situations, it delivers an amazing user experience.

The first is for an update to my school app, where announcements can now be sent out as push notifications.

The second is for a small music festival, where notifications need to be sent throughout the day about upcoming events.

I chose the following as important metrics:

Steps/time involved in sending a notification

Ability to add more admin

Development time

And a requirement of no training or specific equipment.

Pushing Water Uphill

The usual way to send notifications is via the website of the provider. I found it took around 2 minutes to log in, get to the relevant page and send the message, (including page...

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Haptic Cycle Navigation System

I started writing this article as an idea in the last summer on the train journey back from the Custard Factory in Birmingham and decided to prototype it in late August. Since then I have had little time to develop it further, and am unlikely to either, so now seems a good time to share the idea.

Last summer I attended Young Rewired State’s Festival of Code, it was a really amazing experience and I was lucky enough to make it through to the finals with a word of the day iOS app called Snnpt. I was impressed by the many original and novel ideas, including a project named PiCycle which went on to win “Best In Show”.

I Like To Ride My PiCycle

Inspired by PiCycle, a bicycle Sat-Nav system which gave instructions to turn left or right by flashing LED’s on the handlebar, I felt that cycle navigation had serious potential, but that there must have been a better way of implementing...

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