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Birth Announcement: it’s an app!

A screen shot from the main page

My Five-Minute Yoga Practice, the iPhone app (works also on the iPod touch and iPad), was released into the world on July 15, weighing in at a robust 25 MB.

Already a lively little thing, it moves if you hit “play” on any segment, and the photos go by in synch with the words.

It can remind you that it’s time to practice, twice a day if you like, by sounding an alarm on your phone.

It has sequences for longer practices, from 15 minutes, to half an hour, in the morning, afternoon and evening, and a 15 to 20 minute restorative practice.

I feel proud, grateful, and most of all, modern.

Viewing hours are generous. Just visit the App Store, any time.

Dom's the one on the right, in the red t-shirt

Conception occurred just over a year ago, when Dom Brecher, a long-time student, asked if I’d like to turn the download version of My Five-Minute Yoga Practice into an iPhone app.

Dom came to Vancouver from England to do post-doctoral work in high-energy theoretical physics. Now he writes software that prices financial derivatives for a company headquartered in New York.

So I believed him when he said making an iPhone app would be fun for him.

I had to say yes.

I love my iPhone. I particularly love never being lost any more, almost as much as I love being able to take a picture and send if off by MSS. The calculator, the notepad, the timer, the voice recorder, the app that let’s you know what the weather is like in London or Mumbai – I love it all.

Besides, there are by some estimates as many as 41 million iPhone owners.

That’s a lot of people who might potentially stumble on the Five-Minute Yoga Practice message:
If you devote five minutes a day to cultivating the free flow of intelligence between body and mind, you can begin to build a yoga practice that will change your life.

It took an unexpectedly long time to build the app. Partly that was life. Dom and Jenny’s second daughter, Connie, was born this spring. Mostly it took time because as we went along we kept finding ways to make it richer.

For example, each of the 11 five-minute practices has a screen called “What and Why,” where you’ll find an introduction to the sequence, and pose-by-pose information on benefits, cautions, Sanskrit names, pronunciation and meaning.

We had some exciting moments.

The first time it popped up on my phone, for one, with the sequences all working. Then there was the day when Dom had finished the design, and it emerged looking crisp and clear.

The last push – submitting it to Apple, completing the paperwork – seemed endless. But now it’s done.

Someone in Italy bought a copy a few days ago. People in Ireland, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Indonesia, as well as the U.S. the U.K. and Canada have bought it and are, I hope, revolutionizing their mornings with the kitchen counter stretch.

Please help me spread the word.

Check it out, tell your friends, and if you like it, please write a review.

 

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Cathy October 13, 2011, 2:46 pm

    I downloaded your app to my iPad 2 last night.

    It appears as an iPhone sized image in the middle of my iPad screen (I really need my yoga app in a larger format so I can prop it up on the floor and see it while performing my practice). I am able to enlarge it, but it becomes pixelated and blurry. It will not orient to landscape (with my book-style iPad cover, I am notable to prop the iPad up in anyway so as to make this a useful app for me). The settings appear to be blank – when I click on that section nothing is in it. Overall, I am disappointed as I paid money for this app, of which I cannot get a refund :(

    I also tried rating this app on the iTunes site and was unable to do so.

    • Eve October 18, 2011, 10:27 am

      Hi Cathy,
      I’m really sorry to hear that you’re not happy with the app.
      It was, in fact, designed for the iPhone, and the pictures will not be sharp if you enlarge them.
      It doesn’t orient to landscape because the orientation is set according to the pose. Mountain pose in landscape, for example, doesn’t make much sense.
      I’ve heard from several people who use it on their iPads very happily, but they’re okay with the size of the photos.
      And I’ve checked with iPad users about the settings, which work just fine in their apps, as does the ratings function.
      So I don’t know what’s going on there. I don’t even know if it’s possible to get a faulty download – it seems unlikely somehow. I’d be happy to send you a code for another download to replace it if you’d like to try that.
      And please don’t think you can’t get a refund. I will very happily send you your money back – in fact, I’ve emailed you twice to try to do that. Perhaps you might check your junk mail to see if those emails were filtered out. Please get back to me when you can.

  • Anita August 12, 2011, 12:55 pm

    Eve – well done to you and Dom on producing your app. I hear it’s quite an involved process.

    I’m enjoying having it on my iPad – it’s just the umph I need to step away from my email when I hit the mid-afternoon doldrums …

    • Eve August 17, 2011, 1:17 pm

      Anita,
      Thanks for this! We didn’t know if it would work on the iPad, and it’s so good that it does.
      I’ve been away from blogging for a week or two, hence the delayed response.
      So glad you like the app and find it useful. Yoga is the best refresher I know of as a break from desk work. So nice to come back to the email with a fresh mind.

  • Victoria Henderson July 30, 2011, 8:14 am

    Congratulations, Eve! I am SO impressed. This is one more reason for me to consider retiring my antique cell phone (from 1998), and going for an iPhone.

    • Eve July 30, 2011, 9:33 am

      Thanks Victoria!
      I’m impressed by you keeping your cell phone in operation for 13 years. That’s one good cell phone.

  • Jen July 29, 2011, 3:08 pm

    Hearty congratulations to both you and Dom. The quality of the app reflects all the hard graft put into it – a job very well done. This is going to be the backbone of my daily practise as I reestablish my routines now that baby Connie has settled into home life. Even when I can’t make it into the studio, I can still benefit from your guidance. Thank you!

  • tru July 29, 2011, 7:36 am

    Please consider making this app available for Android and Blackberry, too. We don’t all have iPhones and I would LOVE to carry you around with me.

    t.

    • Eve July 29, 2011, 9:02 am

      Ah, Tru, I checked with Dom this morning, and sadly that’s not an easy process. Apparently it’s an entirely different platform, and the apps are written in a different language (Java as opposed to Objective-C). It would basically have to be rewritten from scratch.
      So I think we’ll have to catch our breath first, and then look at the possibilities.

  • Daphne Gray-Grant July 28, 2011, 8:02 pm

    It’s an App! I’d offer to babysit except I think the App will want to remain in charge! Hearty congratulations.

    • Eve July 29, 2011, 9:03 am

      Thanks Daphne! As babies go, it is an assertive one.