built-blog
+++ title = ‘ Jade Scientific Calculator - Past, Present, and Future’ date = 2024-08-09T13:12:10+02:00 author = ‘Frederic Mrozinski’ +++
Jade Scientific Calculator - Past, Present, and Future
Jade Scientific Calculator (JSC) is an Android application designed for advanced mathematical calculations, yet simple enough to be a daily tool for basic computations. From basic arithmetic to solving differential equations and linear algebra problems, this app has you covered.
Past - Eager Development and the Pandemic
JSC began as my capstone project in high school. During my AP courses, I fell in love with my HP Prime calculator but grew frustrated that our phones, despite their phenomenal hardware, lacked an equally good and user-friendly app. This led me to the goal of developing an application with two key attributes:
- The ability to handle higher mathematics, including calculus and linear algebra.
- A user experience as simple as my phone’s default calculator.
While I developed the app alongside my undergraduate studies, my efforts peaked during the first lockdown of the Covid pandemic. With university classes paused and social life restricted, I found ample time to focus on development.
In the first half of 2022, I finally published the app on the Google Play Store, receiving fascinating feedback from the user community. The app has now reached over 10K downloads with an average rating of 4.8. I am deeply grateful for this support.
As time went on, I began working on a new version of the app, aiming to release a paid pro version with many additional features—perhaps too many. However, as the pandemic became a normal part of everyday life, university courses resumed, and I had to shift my focus back to my studies. As a result, the development and maintenance of the app gradually declined.
Present - Unpublishing and Lack of Time
Currently, I have unpublished the application from the Google Play Store because I didn’t have the time to maintain and update it to comply with Google’s app requirements. Therefore, the app is no longer listed on the Play Store.
Future - The Power of Open Source
I still believe that JSC is among the best mathematical tools for mobile phones, and it would be a shame to cancel this project entirely. Now that my studies have ended and I no longer have commercial plans for the app, I believe it’s time to open-source the project. I hope to build a small team of interested developers who enjoy occasional Android coding and want to make a difference. I, too, would love to work on the project again as time permits. My goal is to document and clean the code to make open-sourcing feasible. Hopefully, JSC will return to its full glory with new features and a vibrant community in the not-too-distant future.