Ask Fortuna for Macintosh and iPhone/iPad

Overview: What is "Ask Fortuna"?

"Ask Fortuna" is an intriguing fortune-generator, creating almost-random sayings and prescient prognostications, with a twist.

However, these are not plagiarized lists of old quotes, nor are they completely random sentences of computer-speak; They are something in between. Ask Fortuna makes millions of uniquely original sayings, guided by "artificial intelligence" that imbues its prose with poetic and thought-provoking wit. You can save and send your favorite sayings to your friends, and even have Ask Fortuna read the saying out loud in one of many computerized voices.

Here are some examples of Ask Fortuna's serious, absurdly funny, and zen-like generated sayings:

This month is an auspicious time to play with wild abandon.
With great power comes a knob that goes to 11.
A journey of a thousand suggestions begins with a single meeting.
Your desire is waiting to be fulfilled, if you find the right spot.
Take care, somebody's cute pet will cause a nightmare.
A wise man once said when interruptions cluster, earplugs will be needed.
The universe knows that if the day starts with a bang, your fortune cookie should be given to a friend.
The right time to read the next chapter is after watching the sun set.
Somebody suggested that when your journey seems the longest, look to your friends for guidance.
Now that you can make a choice, your destiny will go all fractal.

The Roman goddess Fortuna personifies luck and fortune, both good and bad. This playful application calls upon her to spin the original 'wheel of fortune' and deliver a cornucopia of sayings that are equal parts funny, random, portentous, and thought-provoking. Seek her thoughts, share your wisdom with friends and family, and enjoy!

Ask Fortuna is always ready to offer you some stress relief or just a smile, or possibly even some sage advice just at the right time. You never know what sayings Fortuna has in store for you, and so just like life, it will usually be a fun surprise.

Features

What are all the things Ask Fortuna can do?

Read Aloud: Have your fortunes read out loud in any of the installed (macOS or iOS) text-to-speech voices, manually or automatically.

Share: Send your favorite sayings to friends on social media or e-mail, or copy/paste them into your newsletters.

Bookmark & Re-In-Karma: Each fortune has its own unique 16-character "Karma-code" which, if typed in, can instantly re-display that exact fortune again, on any device that is running "Ask Fortuna". This feature lets you type one of these codes and re-display that particular fortune, or choose a prior "bookmarked" fortune. This is good for bookmarking/saving and revisiting prior funny ones, or sending the code to friends so they can jump to it it too, instant "Re-In-Karma". Ask Fortuna will save up to 10 of these bookmarked fortunes, with older ones dropping off as you bookmark new ones.

Daily Dose: Do you want a daily fortune without even running the app? There's a setting for that! Just turn on "Daily Fortunes", choose an hour of the day to have it delivered, and now every day like clockwork, you will get a new fortune from the goddess! You can read it in place in the notification center, or click it to have it displayed in the "Ask Fortuna" app.

Shake it up: On the iPad and iPhone, shaking the device will automatically generate a new fortune, somewhat like a "Magic 8-ball". NOTE: iOS only, Macs are not meant to be shaken or stirred.

Personalized: Fortuna bonds to you, and your fortunes are different from anyone else! Try it! If you and a friend start "Ask Fortuna" on two different devices at exactly the same time, you will each get different sets of fortunes.

Customized: The Preferences or Settings page lets the user customize the appearance, choosing a favorite color as a backdrop tint behind the text, and turning on/off sound effects for the buttons. This is also where the user can play with the computer-voices and enable the "Read Aloud" feature.

Many thanks to my gracious photography models Mojgan and Kris

What's New in This Version

2.0.0, August 2021

Added many new fortunes.
"Read Aloud" feature is now included free.
Added several new color tints.
New fortunes do not repeat prior words as often.
Max stored bookmarks increased from 5 to 10.
Added accessibility labels to controls
BugFix: Fixed the "Review App" prompting.
BugFix: Now after manually entering a "Re-In-Karma code", you can bookmark it for later.
Note: This big update cannot read your old bookmarked items, they will be archived (and still accessible.)
Mac: Updated to 10.12 minimum, and works natively on new Apple Silicon (M1) Macs.
iOS: Updated to iOS 12 minimum
iOS: Works with dynamic type, user can grow/shrink the user interface text labels.

1.1.2 December 2017

Added more fortunes (Thanks Anna!), and fixed grammar on a few existing fortunes (Thanks Ando!)"
Added colors green & yellow as new background color options.
Added "review" and "app website" items on the help menu.
Added the new occasional "request app feedback" popup.
Got rid of annoying "beta" text that showed up on fortune screen.
Updated screen to support iPhone X.
Bookmark button now dims after you bookmark a story.

Murky beginnings

September 2016: 1.0! - First release of "Ask Fortuna" for Mac & iPhone to App Store
2007: (1.0 Beta 1) Ported to MacOS X/XCode/Objective C.
1996: Ported to MacOS X/Metrowerks/C++.
1989: Ported to MacOS 7/Turbo Pascal.
1984: Ported to IBM PC/Turbo Pascal.
1983: Invented initial idea of a simple rule-based sentence generator, created on Apple II in AppleSoft BASIC, then Apple Pascal.

Screen Shots

The main display.

Bookmark your faves and rewind back any time.

Instant help and information.

Customize with the Settings/Preferences screen.

Fortuna can read your fortunes out loud, in your choice of voice.

Easily share the best fortunes with your friends.

Help & FAQ & More Info

FAQ: Here are some common questions/answers...

Q: I just upgraded and it says my old bookmarks are gone, can I get a copy of them back?
A: Yes! They are permanently saved in a little area of the app, until you "Clear Bookmarks". Just click the Re-in-karma button, and at the bottom of the window you will see a new button "Copy Archived Bookmarks". Click it, and all of your bookmarked fortunes will be copied to the clipboard... you can now switch to another text editing app, like Notes or Pages etc., and choose the 'PASTE' option, and your old bookmarked fortunes will be pasted into your text document for safe keeping elsewhere.

Q: Does the Karma-Code show the same saying between Macs and iPhones?
A: Yes, it will be the same saying around the world, on any Mac or iPhone/iPad running version 2. If an app is running an older 1.x version, then the Karma-Code will display a different saying.

Q: My favorite color is blue, I mean green... can I change the background color to that?
A: Yes, simply choose the SETTINGS screen and pick a new color for the text.

Q: After a few months, Fortuna stopped sending me daily fortunes! Is she mad at me?
A: To keep the daily-fortunes coming, you need to launch the Ask Fortuna app every once in awhile. Every time Ask Fortuna is launched, I send 3 months worth of daily fortunes into the future, so as not to use up too much of your device storage. In version 1.x of Ask Fortuna, it was every 2 months.

Q: Somebody said you hid some of your music in here... where is it?
A: In the Mac version, click the Settings (gear icon) and turn on "Sound Effects", then open the About box from the application menu, and you should hear it. On the iPhone/iPad, tap the Settings (gear icon) and turn on "Sound Effects", then tap Help (?-icon), and then click the [CREDITS] button to hear it.

What is next?

Ask Fortuna wants to be so much more! However, after a year of working on it I had to stop adding features and get it out to you! So, now I have to ask you the important questions. What new things would you like to see next?

After you enjoy the software, feel free to send me an e-mail and suggest a new feature you might like "Ask Fortuna" to have. Although I cannot promise answering all e-mails or getting all the requests done, I would love to hear what you want! I will collect and read all your requests, and I look forward to continuing to improve "Ask Fortuna" and making even more fun things for you.

Here are some ideas that are already simmering on the stove of possibility:

Add even more styles of fortunes and sayings to her repertoire.

Randomly display or say a fortune at certain times of the day.

Save an audio recorded file of the spoken fortune.

Limit the generation of new fortunes to once a minute, hour, or day.

Make an AppleTV version of the app?

Make an Apple Watch version of the app?

Can you please stop making these addictive apps, I'm always goofing around with it now!

Prompt you to type your name and other personalized words or phrases (favorite color, pet name, friend's name, zodiac sign, favorite animal...) which would then be sprinkled into your fortunes.

Create a fortune generator in different languages, like Japanese, French, Russian...

Entirely different app ideas... like a silly meeting agenda maker, business-name creator, prompts for school photo assignments or creative writing essays, opening novel lines for Bulwer-Lytton contests, Renaissance faire curses, horoscopes? By the way, I have many of these ideas already working in "the lab"!