We appreciate all of the love we've been given the last few weeks. We've received overwhelmingly positive feedback along with some astute, insightful, constructive criticism. We've already incorporated these suggestions into version 1.1, which should be available on the App Store by the end of this week. You're going to love it.

But today is an important day for us, because the judging period for the BYU Mobile App Competition ends tonight at midnight. That means this is your last chance to download, have your friends download, and play Card Table and have those actions count towards our score in the competition. So please please download, play, and share Card Table with your friends and family tonight. It would be a big favor to us, and an easy favor for you to do, because playing your favorite games on Card Table is so much fun!

Also, if you are in Provo, come to the app competition Final Event on Friday, February 28 at 3pm in room W408 in the Tanner Building. At the final event the app with the greatest fan support wins an additional $1000 cash prize! But even better, attendees are entered into a door prize drawing to win an iPad Mini!

This is it! Card Table is here! You can follow this link to download Card Table from the App Store. 

Please download it on all of your devices (iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) and play it often, especially the next couple of weeks. We are in the midst of the BYU Mobile App Competition and our usage and download figures count towards our score.

Check out this page for instructions on how to play.

We think everyone will be well-served by an in-depth explanation of just what Card Table is and how it works. So here goes...

In an upcoming blog post we will give a sneak peak at the technology we took advantage of to make Card Table a reality. The short answer is: Bluetooth LE.

Right now we want to quickly link to a few articles about the power of an exciting new implementation of Bluetooth LE: Apple iBeacons. An iBeacon can be any iOS device. The technology is built into iOS 7. Simply, an iBeacon is an iOS device emitting an efficient, low energy signal that basically says, "I am an iBeacon! Here I am!" along with a unique ID. Devices running apps that listen for these iBeacons will begin communication or perform some action when they find an iBeacon emitting a signal that interests them.

Card Table did not require the use of iBeacons, but it was a work project involving iBeacons that tipped us off to the power of Bluetooth LE and set us down the path of creating Card Table. Here are the articles:

From The Washington Post: How iBeacons could change the world forever
From The Guardian: Is 2014 the year of iBeacons?
From MacRumors: Apple's iBeacon brings new possibilities for location-based gaming