My dad is in the hostpital and is physically impaired. He can still kinda use his iPhone, but with very limited dexterity. His speech is also impaired, so communicating with him is difficult.
He's a ham radio operator and has been since he was a teenager. So I figured Morse was worth a shot.
Putting aside the physical limitations, I was sorely dissapointed in the existing Morse code apps. Most of them are learning apps, which is cool, but there's not much in the way of simple, efficient keying apps. The ones that do exist are clunky, ugly, and not very user friendly. It's probably okay, I mean who uses Morse code anymore.
I downloaded a few apps and tried them out with him. None of them worked well for his situation. He couldn't lift his finger off the screen quickly enough to get the timing right.
Having an ungodly amount of free time on my hands, I decided to make my own app for him.
I made an app called ForceCode that uses Force Touch to send Morse code. The idea is that instead of lifting your finger off the screen to end a dot or dash, you just vary the pressure of your touch. A light press is a dot, a hard press is a dash. This way, you can keep your finger on the screen the whole time and just vary the pressure as needed.
I've been programming for 15 years but this was life changing when it worked.
The source code is openly available as is the free app. A neat Hacker News discussion happened that really made me feel good.