I’m extremely pleased to introduce the newest update to the Maple Companion. In this time of wide-spread remote learning, tools like the Maple Companion are more important than ever, and I’m happy that our efforts are helping students (and some of their parents!) with at least one small aspect of their life.  Since we’ve added a lot of useful features since I last posted about this free mobile app, I wanted to share the ones I’m most excited about. 

(If you haven’t heard about the Maple Companion app, you can read more about it here.) 

If you use the app primarily to move math into Maple, you’ll be happy to hear that the automatic camera focus has gotten much better over the last couple of updates, and with this latest update, you can now turn on the flash if you need it. For me, these changes have virtually eliminated the need to fiddle with the camera to bring the math in focus, which sometimes happened in earlier versions.

If you use the app to get answers on your phone, that’s gotten much better, too. You can now see plots instantly as you enter your expression in the editor, and watch how the plot changes as you change the expression. You can also get results to many numerical problems results immediately, without having to switch to the results screen. This “calculator mode” is available even if you aren’t connected to the internet.  Okay, so there aren’t a lot of students doing their homework on the bus right now, but someday!

Speaking of plots, you can also now view plots full-screen, so you can see more of plot at once without zooming and panning, squinting, or buying a bigger phone.

Finally, if English is not you or your students’ first language, note that the app was recently made available in Spanish, French, German, Russian, Danish, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese. 

As always, we’d love you hear your feedback and suggestions. Please leave a comment, or use the feedback forms in the app or our web site.

Visit Maple Companion to learn more, find links to the app stores so you can download the app, and access the feedback form. If you already have it installed, you can get the new release simply by updating the app on your phone.

"Frame your math" does not work on a new iPhone XS; however, surprisingly, it work just fine on an old iPad (4th gen).

I am logged in. The app has access to the camera. The companion app does allow manual entry of equation to upload to the Maple cloud.

I expect it's something simple--like some sort of permissions setting, but I cannot find it . . .

BTW: The error is "The request timed out. Check your Internet connection."

I’m starting a large project in education for which I can see great potential in the use of the “MapleCloud”.  For many of the students, the ability to see information on their phone is a game-changer. Hence while my students do have access to Maple on their computers, they are more willing to check out a worksheet if they can view it in a browser.

Unfortunately, in the little time that I have started using MapleCloud, and sharing my work with others, numerous issues have arisen. Some examples:
  * the file system is too simplistic and can be overwhelmed easily as I add content;
  * the group sharing system is too limited – one must log on, which is not true for worksheets;
  * the display of the mathematics is sufficiently quirky that it is not easy to read;
  * the hiding of input mathematics appears not to work;
  * plots, animations and the output of the Explore function fails too frequently.

So, my questions:
  1) are you using MapleCloud, and
  2) if so, for what?
  3) And if you are using MapleCloud, do you have similar problems?
  4) Have you developed solutions that you would be willing to share.

If there is no interest, I’ll look in another direction. But if there is sufficient interest, I would hope Maplesoft notices and works to correct and improve. Some of it may be my own failing to understand Maple, but instead of overwhelming MaplePrimes with questions, I would rather converse with similar interested folks.