The iPhone App Store launched 15 years ago, and transformed the way that we make, use, and obtain software. More personally, it had a tremendous positive impact on my life. I had one of the first 500 applications that launched with the store that day, an open source 3D molecular modeler called Molecules.

It's been a little while since the last update, but version 2.1 of Molecules just went live on the App Store. 2.1 adds full support for the new Retina iPad, and has an enhanced rendering engine to support the detail on that newer device. I've also improved the contrast slightly on newer devices.

Yet another update for Molecules is now live on the App Store, this time version 2.02. The focus of this update is performance, and the new version greatly improves the speed of the new rendering engine. The 3-D models are now rendered at 3-6 times the speed that they were in the previous version, which should make previously choppy framerates on the iPad 1 much smoother. If you're interested in how this significant optimization was achieved, check out my question about it on Stack Overflow. Thanks go out to Tommy and Pivot for pointing me in the right direction on this.

A minor update to Molecules, version 2.01, is now on the App Store. This new version fixes some slight bugs with the new rendering engine in 2.0, including a case where the ambient occlusion shading for a model would sometimes appear too dark, as well as some odd glitches when using pinch zooming on a model.

The 2.0 version of Molecules brings with it a brand new rendering engine that utilizes OpenGL ES 2.0 to deliver realistic 3-D representations of molecular structures. This is a long way from the original OpenGL ES 1.1 renderer that I first wrote about here, so I want to describe in detail how this new version works. The source code for Molecules is available under the BSD license, so you are free to download the project from the main application page and follow along as I walk through the process.

A major new update to Molecules, version 2.0, is now live on the App Store. This version brings an all-new renderer for newer iOS devices, one that is capable of beautiful, realistic 3-D graphics. You are now able to search the NCBI PubChem database of small molecule compounds, something people have been asking for since the launch of the application. In addition to this, the interface of the application has been streamlined and particularly improved on the iPad. As always, the latest source code of Molecules is available for download.

A new version of Molecules is now available on the App Store. This adds iOS 4.0 multitasking and Retina display support, and fixes a number of issues that users have identified.

A new version of Molecules is now available on the App Store, and the available source code has also been updated. Â The new version fixes a potential crash in iPhone OS 4.0 and adds a new means of directly installing molecular structures in the application.

You might have noticed that I updated Molecules to make it version 1.4, which adds some rendering enhancements and bug fixes for PDB searches. However, the highlight of this release is the addition of an iPad-specific interface. Additionally, now that iPhone OS 3.2 is publicly available, I have released the source code to the universal iPhone / iPad version of Molecules.

After a long hiatus, I've finally updated Molecules. Version 1.3.2 is an update focused on performance, with few new features (much like a certain OS version). Rendering speed has been nearly doubled, larger structures can be displayed due to memory optimizations, and a faster search interface is used when communicating with the Protein Data Bank. As usual, the source code for this version is available.

Now that I'm back from the holidays, all immediate issues are taken care of here at work, and iTunes Connect is back up, I've submitted version 1.3.1 of Molecules for review (and updated the source code. This is a bugfix version, addressing the recent crashes when trying to search the Protein Data Bank. The PDB servers stopped responding to one half of the search query I was sending, which was a condition I had not anticipated, and Molecules would crash as a result. Unfortunately, until they fix the server response, the search results will no longer list the titles of molecules.

I thought I should let you know about a new application that recently appeared in the iTunes App Store called iMoleBuilder (iTunes link). It is a $12.99 molecular visualizer that also lets you construct molecules and save them to the device or an available FTP site.

Earlier today, I submitted version 1.3 of Molecules for review in the iTunes App Store. The major new feature that this version adds is the ability to download custom molecular structures. For those of you who can't wait, the source code has been updated .

Recently, I was given the opportunity to write an article about the educational applications of Molecules for the RCSB Protein Data Bank's fall newsletter. That article is now online, and I think it came out well. It's worth reading if you're interested in my thoughts about the scientific and educational applications of the iPhone / iPod Touch.

UPDATE 2: Perspective rendering has been added: see below for the details. UPDATE: 3-D scaling using pinch gestures has been added: see below for the details.

With the lifting of the Nondisclosure Agreement on the iPhone SDK, I'm pleased to finally make available the source code to Molecules. If you go to the main page for the application, you should now find a link to download the latest source tarball (for version 1.2) on the right-hand side. You can also download the source code here. I am working on migrating my personal Subversion setup so that you can check out the latest code and so that I can authorize contributors to commit fixes and additions.

I just submitted Molecules 1.2 for review in the App Store. Sorry it's taken me so long to get a new version out to you, but this version required a complete rewrite of a portion of the core code. I also have been distracted by a few things at my day job and some shiny new technology that I've been playing with.

This might be jumping the gun a bit, but I wanted to let you know that a new version of Molecules, 1.1, has been submitted for review for the iTunes App Store. Even though it will take a bit of time to be approved, I thought you might be interested in a preview of some of the new features in this version.

I had a great time at the satellite iPhoneDevCamp in Chicago, where I was surprised with the number of well-known (to me, at least) developers who are located in the area. Although the San Francisco outpost may have had more attendees, I'd argue that we had as good a technical and business discussion going. We certainly had better shirts (courtesy of Stand Alone).

It looks like things are settling down in the App Store, because Molecules 1.0.1 is now available for download.

I'm pleased to announce a product that I've been working on for a little bit: Molecules for the iPhone / iPod Touch. Molecules is a free 3-D molecular viewer for Apple's handheld devices which lets you manipulate DNA, proteins, and other biomolecules with your fingers. Using a single finger, you can rotate the molecules, and pinch gestures zoom in and out on the molecule. Moving two fingers at once pans across the molecule.