myLS is an app that I wrote over the past ten years, starting in 2012. Its purpose is to help me (and others) keep track of the Block Schedule we use at Lincoln Sudbury Regional HS. It was completely rewritten in 2020 to take advantage of some new Apple technologies, and to account for the Hybrid schedule we used in the Fall of 2020. To learn more watch the video below.
You can use the myLS app on your iPhone or iPad. You can also use it on “M1” or “M2” Macs – the most recent ones from just the last few years.
When you download the app, you’ll see a list of school days, with blocks. There are two types of user information you can add to this list.
By tapping the “Classes” button at the bottom, you can enter your classes and what blocks they meet. If you tap into a block from the list, you can make a note attached to that block. You’ll be able to see that note on other devices, if you use iCloud. You can even see your notes on the Apple Watch.
As the developer of the app, I have no access to your classes or notes! They are stored in iCloud and will remain private to you.
The myLS app supports two homescreen widgets.
The first one is a small widget that shows the current or next (if its not currently class time) block. If the circle is grey, its between classes – this one was taken about 5pm on a Wednesday afternoon – block 2 is the next morning and I have a Creative Computing class then. If a block is currently in progress, the circle will be blue.
The second widget is a large widget that shows the schedule for the current week. If you’ve added classes to your schedule (in the “Classes” tab as described above), they will appear in your week view. The week view changes only once a week, on Friday afternoon.
I’ve also made an Apple Watch app, which mostly exists to show the complication that you can see on the right side of the dial. It matches the smaller home screen widget, showing the progress through the current block, or the time until the next block.
I enjoy working on the myLS app, and I hope it’s useful to you. This summer I worked on some of the new features coming in iOS 16, including lock screen widgets, which are much smaller than the home screen widgets. A new version of the app will appear on the iOS App Store shortly after iOS 16 is released in September.
I sometimes teach a Mobile App Development class at Lincoln Sudbury, and maintaining a real app on the iOS App Store is an important part of my preparation for that class. If you have any ideas to make it better, let me know by email. If you’re trying to use it and have any questions, you can find me and ask – the Computer Science office is in B329.