Tranquil — Immersive Study app for Apple Vision Pro
An immersive visionOS study app built and crafted specifically to help students stay focused and free from external distractions.
Date
Fall 2023
Role
Lead SwiftUI Developer
Project Overview
Create a visionOS app, built for the Apple Vision Pro, that accommodates attention deficiencies among students, particularly those in college. Utilize SwiftUI, Apple’s developer framework, and design tools such as Figma and Adobe Premiere Pro to create a desirable user experience.
The Problem
Today, it is a never-ending challenge to stay focused in common spaces and keep your attention away from technology with the temptations of social media and notifications. Tranquil was designed and articulated with distracted students in mind. With overcrowded student centers, libraries, and common spaces and the seemingly never-ending bombardment of notifications and temptations from technology, Tranquil allows the user to block out all distractions whilst studying flashcards for an upcoming exam, quiz, etc.
The Solution
Introducing Tranquil, an immersive study app, built using the native capabilities of SwiftUI, for the Apple Vision Pro.
Rooting from the common problem and struggle that students face of staying focused for extended periods, Tranquil offers the ability to study flashcards in an immersed environment, free of distraction.
Utilizing Spatial Computing, one’s physical environment can blend seamlessly with a digital experience. We understand that our users may not always desire to be immersed in a virtual environment. Therefore, users can study their flashcards in their physical environment if they prefer.
Collectively, we crave something new and profoundly capable of helping us get free from social environments, our personal devices, and common spaces. Sometimes, we need an escape!
We implemented the immersive environments of outer space, the ocean, a sunset, and a lecture hall to bring the user to a distraction-free space where they can study their flashcards.
Based on our research, it was clear that students appreciate having options when it comes to studying. Our environments range from the most extreme to more realistic when it pertains to students’ regular environments.
Users can opt to be fully immersed in the selected environment, where they can move around & look around, all while studying their flashcards.
Utilizing the Apple Vision Pro’s hand-eye gesture tracking technology, students can effortlessly study for an upcoming exam, quiz, etc. all from their living room, or outer space if you will.
Results
As the lead developer for Tranquil, I was presented with the opportunity to visit Apple in Cupertino, CA to experience the Apple Vision Pro and test our app on the product.
What’s next for Tranquil? With many other study methods being popular among students including matching, fill in the blank, etc., future iterations would include these methods and more. With the extremely capable Apple Vision Pro, the possibilities are endless for the act of studying. Using the fluidness of the Apple ecosystem, we want to create an iOS/iPadOS/macOS app that acts as an accessory to Tranquil. It would allow the user to input study information via another device in the Apple ecosystem and send it directly to the Apple Vision Pro.
New Media Narrative
Hi! Jack here. As I wrap up my certificate journey in the New Media Certificate, I am feeling not only grateful for each and every project, assignment, course, etc. but also the chance to explore the creative side of me that, for most of my life, was dormant. As a freshman Computer Science student at UGA, I found myself, quite frankly, bored in my Intro CS courses. Yes, I was introduced to what has been largely agreed on as a very difficult degree, and I appreciate the value in that. However, I still felt like I wasn’t doing exactly what I expected and hoped to do when I came to college — using strikingly innovative pieces of technology and doing UX Design, all of which I couldn’t formulate at the time.
One day, I stumbled across the New Media Institute and thus the New Media Certificate. I finally found it — an opportunity to do more with my college experience and learn about the things which I was curious about such as making apps for iOS and web development. Summer entering into sophomore year, I began my journey taking New Media Design. In this course, I got a taste, no, a solid chew, of the Adobe Creative Suite, truly for the first time. I vividly recall asking myself, ‘There isn’t a UGA degree for this?’ In New Media Design, I created various graphics using Illustrator, adjusted photos in Photoshop, and crafted mock-ups and prototypes in XD.
I continued my journey in the following Spring by taking a course in iOS Development. This was the jackpot. Conveniently enough, my infatuation with Apple tied right into the course with being introduced to SwiftUI, Apple’s developer framework, and Xcode, their integrated developer environment. For the first time EVER in my college career, I found the coursework to be, well, enjoyable! I found a passion for sitting down and developing iOS apps. This was monumental. How I could write a line or two of code and be able to see it represented in real-time on a simulated iPhone was what I had been craving. I just didn’t know it before. Throughout the course, I was able to gain more experience with crafting friendly and visually stunning mobile UIs. Additionally, and most importantly, I was able to submit the app for my final project to the Apple Swift Student Challenge, where students from all around the world submit their personal Swift applications and hope to win the competition. While I didn’t win, I received an invite to attend WWDC ’23, a dream of mine since my adolescent years. I couldn’t believe it, my dreams were coming true. At this same time, I also began to realize that without the New Media Institute, not only would have not gotten to go to WWDC, but I could not have confidently said that I would still be a computer science student. At WWDC, also referred to as dub-dub, I was surrounded, for one of the first times, by developers and people who love Apple just as much if not more (although highly unlikely) than I did!
The same Summer as dub-dub, while also doing a project manager internship in Virginia, I was able to take the online web development New Media course. We hit the ground running for that fifteen-week course jammed into four weeks, but it was lively and impactful. This was my first taste of HTML and CSS. Designing beautiful websites was another newfound passion of mine, alongside app development.
In the Summer of 2023, during my second rotation at Delta Air Lines, I found myself using the skills and practices taught to me by the NMI. At this point, I knew UX Design was my desired career path, which brought me to the team I was and am still on at Delta, the In-Flight Entertainment team. On this team, I am a part of UX initiatives to design the future of the seatback experience. I do this using my favorite design and prototyping tool, Figma. Without the New Media Certificate, I would have gone into this role having not a clue as to what UX Design is, much less what colors, fonts, and other aspects of design language create intuitive and enhanced user experiences. Furthermore, because of my background in development, I bring a unique perspective to my team when we are considering adding everything from new features down to button placement. Understanding product feasibility is a valuable skill to hold as a UX Designer.
Closing out the certificate with New Media Capstone has been one of, if not the most impactful courses throughout the certificate journey. Capstone was the perfect culmination of the skills and practices I have been introduced to since starting the certificate including but not limited to app development and UX Design. What made this course so unique, however, was that I had the opportunity to develop an app for a brand new, unreleased, piece of technology, the Apple Vision Pro. This also presented the chance to go out to Apple Park, once again, and use the Apple Vision Pro in a secured lab and test out the app I had been developing.
If I had never found the certificate, I think I might have switched degrees in search of something different. Who knows, maybe I would have switched to Marketing and Advertising. Are those majors bad? No, not at all. Would they have been a fit for me? I have my doubts. What I do know is that I am grateful to have stuck with Computer Science and most importantly, to have found the New Media Institute those three years ago where a version of Jack was hungry, but didn’t know what to eat. While my certificate is coming to a close, my journey has only just begun.