Well – this is it! After a fantastic 9 week internship it’s sad to be leaving behind the code, co-workers and, of course, coffee machine I have got to know so well. From the very first day I was plunged straight in the deep end, coding new features and fixing bugs. It’s been fun, frustrating and interesting in equal measures, but I can assure you that an internship here is never dull!

So what is it that I’ve been doing? My first few weeks were a steep learning curve, as I battled to comprehend the delegate design pattern while also trying to work out why there’s a small toy bear which lives in the office. (Though I am now completely au fait with the former, the latter continues to bemuse me)! A couple of code reviews later I had free reign to amend or add code, and moved onto adding social media compatibility to several of our apps. If you’re planning to do this yourself, I would recommend ShareKit as a good starting point.

By mid-August I was working full time on Optiscan. There’s a host of new features which will arrive on the AppStore soon, including much more support for creating QR codes. As a member of the engineering team I played a big role in delivering this functionality, both from a coding perspective and by participating in numerous (friendly if raucous) office arguments! The last couple of weeks have seen development give way to testing, so I’ve been scrambling to fix any bugs before I leave. For any of you who are newbie iPhone developers I’d have 3 words of advice – watch out for memory warnings, be careful when using UITableViews, and always keep an eye on your reference counting!

It hasn’t all been coding though. I’ve spent many a lunchtime dreaming up app ideas on the office kitchen whiteboard, with concepts ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. The company lunches and barbecues were a particular highlight, as was a (slightly surreal) morning of set theory in order to write a Python script. These and other amusements unique to a small company like Airsource made this summer particularly enjoyable, even on the odd occasions where I did stare at the same bug for hours before seeing the simple solution!

Time to say farewell to everyone here, and thanks for a great summer. Keep an eye out for future releases of Optiscan and Cellar (there’s some quite cool stuff to come, by the sounds of things in the office). Adios!

(Oh and I must ask someone about that bear before I go…)

So there I was, scanning for the latest in the world of QR codes and what should pop up? A mention of The Sunday Times recommending three QR code apps. Curiosity got the better of me so I paid the ferryman and jumped behind the paywall for a day to see this article for myself. Planet of the Apps is The Sunday Times apps blog reviewing “the best and the brightest” on smartphones. Yesterday they chose three apps to talk about QR codes and guess what? The only paid app being recommended was – Optiscan!

We like that.

Not using Optiscan yet? Get it on your iPhone today.

You may not have heard of SET Japan, but if you’ve seen some great looking QR codes around you’ll probably have seen their work. Producing designer codes for the likes of TIME magazine and Louis Vuitton, SET Japan are recognised as the ‘inventors’ of the designer QR code that is becoming so popular now. They created their first a few years back and have been involved in virtually every major new use of them since, working with companies such as Warbasse Design in the US recently.

With all their great experience of working with QR codes, it was with great pleasure and honour that we received an email from their development team praising Optiscan!

“We use a lot of readers when we are testing and the team is always looking for the fastest reader – it is like a badge of honor if you can bring in the best reader to a meeting – and we are all huge fans of your Optiscan reader. It is our go to app and the one we recommend to anyone looking to get clicking.”

It’s always good to be appreciated!

Get your copy of Optiscan today.

Louis Vuitton designer QR code

True Blood designer QR code

Some of the more eagle eyed of you will have noticed what looks like a new logo floating around – it is! We’ve had a complete refresh of our logo and branding. So far it’s only made a public appearance via our spangly new business cards (they are lovely, eh?) but you’ll soon be privy to our new website and blog – all coming in time for the New Year!

New Airsource business cards

We released the latest update of our QR Code scanner and creator – Optiscan – onto the iTunes store last Thursday (12th). Along with stability improvements in preparation for iOS 4.2, you’ll find better decoding for newer devices plus a surprise new look! The new icons and UI tweaks have been brought in to match Optiscan’s continually growing success in the field of QR Code scanning. Expect more tweaks and new features to come in future releases as QR Codes take the world by storm in 2011!

We’ve been making continual minor improvements to Optiscan, fixing some issues with cut and paste and handling of certain types of addresses. Unfortunately a serious bug slipped into release 1.8.2, which hit the App Store yesterday. Apple helped us immensely by fast-tracking approval of version 1.8.3. If you are seeing crashes in Optiscan today, check if you are still running 1.8.2. If so, check the App Store for an update! (It may take up to another couple of hours till it’s fully propagated through their distribution network.)

Several news items on Optiscan! Last week we sent version 1.8.0 to Apple (hopefully it will make the App Store this week). Together with some other cool stuff, this version adds support for structured append, which has been widely requested by users of the King Jim Pomera DM-20. An update to the Optiscan library for our commercial licensees will follow shortly.

We’ve had a note from Greg at SET Japan: their latest designer QR code promotional video features Optiscan, which seems to scan it better than the competition. Check it out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=M5lAT3gVzFc.

Also Optiscan is now featured on the readers page by MSKYNET, which has a rather nice online QR code generator. They “rebrand” QR codes as sparqcodes in the US.

Optiscan has been successful with consumers on the Apple App Store, but it has also piqued the interest of businesses. If you are interested in licensing the image processing library of Optiscan for your own application, or in developing a white-label version of Optiscan for use on devices specific to your company, we want to hear from you.

We will only license the library for use on the App Store if the intended use does not directly compete with Optiscan. To request additional details or an evaluation package, send details of your intended use to optiscan-licensing@airsource.co.uk.

It’s been not quite a year since we released our first application onto the App Store, and we’ve sold over 30,000 units in total across 68 countries. This comes despite the fact that Optiscan was off the store for 6 months for reasons largely beyond our control.

This year we’ll be looking to more than double that, and I think we’ve got a good chance!

Optiscan 1.6 is now available on the App Store. This is a minor update, containing some essential bug fixes.