When you install, you’ll notice few changes. The UI is streamlined and more consistent. Top bar is now working as identical as possible, both on lists and on items view. This is lists view:

And this is items view:

The UI is also working consistently and enables / disables buttons as needed. Thus now, when you’re in Edit mode, add-new-list or back-button are inaccessible. This lessens the available workflow paths and allows you to focus on singular tasks.

Import / Export

That new button next to Edit is where the main 1.4 feature is. Tap it on lists view and you’ll see the options slide down:

Here you have the option to add lists in, from another device (more on this later). Tap at least one of the local lists and then the other two options become available:

Of course, you can still import lists, regardless of what is locally selected, thus middle option is not disabled.

On the items view, this is almost identical, with the difference that all 3 options are always available, except when list is empty.

So, how this works?

Mailing

If you mail lists, it will open the mail controller inside the app, including all the lists you have selected. If you do this on items view, it will naturally add items from that list. This is how the mail contents looks:

- - - - [only to do items] - - - -

Coffee for the office

2 large mochas

1 large late

- - - - [only done items] - - - -

Coffee for the office

*1 small late

- - - - [all items] - - - -

Coffee for the office

2 large mochas

*1 small late

1 large late

The layout is pretty clear; list items are shown in 3 groups:

• only to-do items
• only done items
• all items

This corresponds to the three tabs you see on the items view in Quickie. The * in front of the item denotes a done item. In order to get this into Quickie, select whatever group you want and copy/paste it into Quickie’s Add new list (+ button on lists view) or Add more items (+ button on the items view) screens.

If you mail out multiple lists, their contents will simply be added to the mail body, one by one.

Of course, you can also copy this in the mail controller screen before sending, then close that screen, switch to Messages app and send the list over SMS. From then, copy/paste into Quickie on receiving end.

Bumping

Bump™ is a service that exists for quite some time, but which recently got a big stamp of approval when PayPal implemented it in their iPhone app.

How it works in Quickie:

1. Select some lists in Quickie that you want to transfer to another iPhone. Tap Bump lists out
2. Tap Bump lists in on the other iPhone
3. On both devices, the Bump connect screen will show up. Once you see this screen

   
   then simply bump one device with another. You don’t have to bump the devices themselves, it’s enough to bump hands holding the iPhones (as the Bump logo shows).

4. You’ll be asked to confirm the transfer on both devices and after that, the magic happens. Data will be transfered, Bump screens will go away and you’ll see the lists on the target phone.

You can bump any number of lists you want. The common way I use this feature is when I get home from work and my wife bumps me the list of things I need to fetch from the store; pronto. :)

So happy with this. Version 1.2 should be on sale soon, bringing better performance and some new features to play with.

Run Mate 1.3

Run Mate 1.3 is out on the store for a week or so. It features two new programs included, tailor-made for people that have never, ever run before. You can now set a difficulty level for each program. Program level is shown with an icon in front of program and all its sessions.

The great new feature are completion checkmarks. Those new icons have another use — once you complete the session, it will automatically be check-marked so you can easily track your progress.

More settings are added – you can now turn off voice alerts for sequence repeats and finishes, leaving only pace changes announced.

Our first iPad app

Did you notice all the frenzy in tech press around the April Fools Day? code·aplus has an app right from the start — Animated Mood Lamp. It’s a simple application, showing great animation, best experienced in dark rooms. It also doubles up as a really large map/flashlight when you need one, with the choice of thousands of colors. I hope you will like it — when you get your iPad, please write back how it runs as I don’t know yet when I’ll be able to get an iPad for myself. :)

Quickie

Quickie is not forgotten, 1.3 version is almost complete and will feature some nice improvements. Stay tuned.

Or you can watch on Vimeo or YouTube, possibly in larger resolution.

When designing Run Mate’s integration with iPod music library, my main goal was to be a good neighbor in the iPhone OS and to not impose unnecessary actions to start the run. Thus, if you had any music already started — regardless is it playing or paused, it is enough that iPod app with its library is in memory — Run Mate will go along and re-use that.

If that is the case, then when you get to the Sequence screen this is the display you will see if the background music is playing:

With background music is playing, Run Mate shows pause and stop controls

or this one if background music is paused:

With background music paused, Run Mate shows play and stop controls

If you now tap “Start run” that music will be reused.

If you tap the red Stop button, you will effectively clear out whatever playlist is in memory and thus no music will be available to Run Mate, so the screen will change into this:

No background music available, “Pick music” buttons shows up

Thus now you can tap “Pick music” button and the iPhone’s music picker screen will show up:

The standard iPhone’s music picker

Here you tap any number of songs you want (or just tap “Add All Songs”) and then tap “Done”; you’ll be returned to Run Mate which will again show the appropriate interface with play/pause and stop buttons.

I hope this helps.

I hope this above is correct in all the languages that Quickie is now localized: German, French, Spanish and Hebrew. :) There’s also support for my own, Serbian (both in Latin and Cyrillic) but since Serbian is not an official language on the iPhone, it will have to wait until Apple adds it to iPhone OS.

Translation is the main feature of Quickie 1.2. I built Quickie to support localization from the first version and this is just the first fruit of that work. German, French and Spanish translations were done by LocalVersion — major kudos to Toni Rovira for great response times, mostly under a day. Swedish is done by my brother Damir, while Hebrew translation is by Ziv Kitaro, a writer and journalist from Israel. Big thank you to all of them, for the generous help and their time and effort.

The new icon is the most obvious visual change. I’m pretty happy how it turned out, I hope you will like it too.

One of earliest requests was for the application badge. I was thinking how to do it, since there’s room only for one number. One option was to add up all the to-do items in all lists and show that; I quickly gave up on this, it would not make much sense if you have one week-long list and one for the day.
Thus I decided to use the number of to-do items in the top most list. That would probably be the most urgent/important list to you, so it makes sense to use it. Re-ordering lists is easy, in case you want to change which list is connected with the application badge.

Minor improvements: UI is refined, buttons are re-drawn, a list with no t0-dos left is grayed out a bit.

Please note that while Quickie is now localized into 4 more languages, I don’t speak any of them. Thus if you write to me, please do so in English or Serbian. As usual, comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

First, you can now add multiple items to existing list at once, in the same way as when initially creating the list — using separate multi-line input field. When in items view, tap Edit then the + button in the top bar and type in. I was contemplating other solutions but in testing they proved to be counter-intuitive and surprising. This solution adds to the consistency of the interface, which I value greatly.

Second, you can now re-order both items and lists. This was originally planned for later versions, but I switched gears due to UI changes and features got moved up a bit. This is primary reason why I never publish road maps for my apps. Things that seem easy when outlined can turn out to be quite a challenge and could actively prevent the releases.

Third, in-app help is gone. Quickie is very simple and that icon was taking space that can be used better. More important is that help text, as the single largest body of text, was actively stopping the internationalization process. Apart from the help, the Quickie UI has about 20 words and short phrases — help section was like 20x that. So it’s gone and translations are coming in.

I intended to ship 1.1 with at least 2–3 translations, but decided to leave them for future, as I did not want to postpone the 1.1 anymore. Once first translations are in, you can expect 1.1.x in the updates.

Forth, the green check-mark for done item is now on the left. I really liked the left/right split, as it clearly separated the done and to-be-done items. However, with such layout, there was no place to put additional stuff I want to implement; I tried all UI layouts I could think of, nothing worked satisfactory. Thus, change. The space on the right is now free and will be used for a lot of stuff soon.

Fifth, audio cues are changed. Hopefully for the better. :)

Sixth, the UI widgets are re-visited, as they were few pixels larger than regular iPhone OS widgets. The interface is also polished a bit and extraneous movement of the items when entering/exiting edit mode is removed and whole experience is better. Widgets now slide in and out while the text stays in place.

I hope you’ll like the changes; please let me know in either the comments or through Feedback page.This is by no means an end, there are quite a bit more useful additions already in the works.

A review on the App Store page for Quickie is also very welcome. ;)

P.S. Quickie got great review on Smoking Apples. Very happy.

What Quickie does

Quickie is to-do application, made for people who occasionally need to quickly write down a list of things to do, checked them off one by one as being done and forget about it. This kind of ad-hoc lists is usually done in a hurry, of the top of one’s head.

Take this for example, a take away list of food to get for the office co-workers or for friends who dropped in to watch a movie or football game.

Creating new list

This can be typed in 30s — you don’t really want to spend any more time on this.

So the fast entry is paramount and Quickie delivers – list of things in Quickie is created by typing the list name, followed by items, each on separate line. No back and forth through multiple screens, no picking items from endless lists — just type what you need. I often just type-in shorthands for the things I need, not full names. Here’s the usual shopping list

• br
• che
• yog
• milk
• apl
• ora

which translates to bread, cheese, yogurt, milk, apples, oranges. On tapping Save, this text is instantly transformed into list of items ready to checked off.

List items, instantly ready to be checked off

Don’t worry if your forget something - adding items is just as easy and quick. Tap Edit and type-in new item, directly in the list.

Adding new items

Convenience and fast entry again — no need to go to another screen to enter the name, just type directly in the list. If you need to add multiple items, tap the green + icon and new placeholder will show up. Keep repeating that and you can add several entries as fast as you can type.

More goodies to come

Quickie’s development is driven by my needs so far and there’s already few new features planned for the future. I would really like to hear what you need. Few suggestions from beta testers are already in development for one of the next versions. Let me know what would you like to see in the comments, or through this Feedback form.

All suggestions will be considered, taking into account the basic Quickie premise — simplicity and speed. Give Quickie a go through the App Store. Or watch the demo first on Quickie pages (where you can find more screenshots) and then decide. I’m sure you’ll find it useful.

Editing sequence in Run Mate

I first heard about the competition through this post by Dan Grigsby of the Mobile Orchard fame, when I started reading blogs again after finishing initial Quickie development.

What

I nominated Quickie in the Best Productivity Enhancer category and Run Mate in the Best Outdoor Use App category. These are the links for nominations:

Quickie nomination
Run Mate nomination

If you like our apps, please visit these links to help us spread the word.

Why

Since its inception in July, Run Mate is still (to the best of my knowledge) the only running trainer app that allows you to fully customize your running plan and individual sessions. As such, I can say — with no faked modesty — it’s a welcome change in the sea of similar apps that offer hard-coded single plans. With the planned feature upgrades in the next several months, I aim for the Best running app on the store, period.

Lists view in Quickie

Quickie on the other hand is as simple as simple can go. Combining beautiful interface with simple and fast execution, Quickie is (again) a welcome refresh in the sea of GTD-monster apps. Experience tells me that most people don’t need full GTD productivity and only need a simple list of items that can be checked off and possibly an alert (n.b. alerting feature is coming in future upgrade). Quickie is a young app, but already indispensable in my daily routine — I built it because I needed it. I’m certain there’s a bunch of people that would also find it extremely useful.

One small new feature is the ability to prevent the screen lock during the run. So if you like to visually check your progress, turn this feature on in the main iPhone Settings app.

Voice and sound alerts toggles

The main new feature is ability to independently toggle voice and sound alerts. You can do this:

Setting options for all sessions or sequences

• for one sequence
• all sequences in particular session
• all session in program
• all programs

This feature is also handy to setup your preferred defaults before creating new items.

There’s only one sound alert in the app — it’s that ping sound at the end of each pace interval. Voice alerts are various spoken cues during the run. Important distinction is that sound alerts are mixed with the background music – they don’t interrupt the music. Voice cues however pause the music while they are on then continue playing it when done.
If you prefer to not have the music interrupted, turn off the voice alerts and leave the pings on and you’re good to go.

New edit sequence screen

On the other hand, if you use carefully crafted music background, like music mix prepared for HIIT type of training, you’ll probably want to turn both off and use your music changes as cues.

Along with this, cooperation with iPod is thoroughly re-tested and improved, as well as interruptions like phone calls. Application will pause when you answer the phone and continue when it’ over.

Google Analytics

This feature is useful only for us here. :)

This allow us to anonymously track the way Run Mate is used and plan the features, possibly spot problems etc. This tracking will not interfere  with the way app works and you’ll not even notice it. If for any reason you don’t want this to be on, it’s easy to turn it off, again through the Settings app.

With hope you’ll put Run Mate to good use, wish you good weather and clean tracks.

In the meantime I have completed the feature set of the 1.2 version and I’m tweaking the UI, not really satisfied with what I have now — too cluttered, too easy to make a mistake and change you might regret as user of the application. That’s all general regular work.

Main issue I have is that enduring this long wait times is really hard and discouraging. I can’t possibly send 1.2 for approval until 1.1 is live. Then I need to wait at least few weeks after 1.1 is live, in case there’re bugs and issues I missed, so I can include them in 1.2. And that means that anyone actually having issues could potentially wait over a month for a fix — unless he/she contacts me and I give him ad-hoc build to install (this is an option, please contact me if you have serious problems running the app).

So, I have not forgotten you nor abandoned the app. Things are largely out of my control here and can only further test my patience with the App Store.
Hoping for good news in the following days…

Update: 1.1 is approved on 30th day. Feedback more than welcome

New icon

New icon :)

Not really a feature, but it will be a relief to me. New icon is a bit unusual, in that it does not have a background at all and no shine that Apple is adding by default. Hopefully you’ll like it too.

New pace types: warm up, cool down

Needed before and after each run, they can be anything you like or are used to: brisk walk, stretching, jumping etc. There are no rules, do whatever you feel like doing for warming up or cooling down.

Time intervals definable in seconds

We opted for the 5s increment, mainly to prevent too much scrolling when setting pace interval. I wanted to do this in the first version, but Apple time picker has only hours and minutes.

New pace types and new interval picker

This time I wrote my own, it looks rather fine. Upgrade will update anything you might already have defined.

Ability to clone entire session

This allows quicker setup of the weekly running programs where sessions are often repeated several times in one week with few or no changes at all.

No music required

If you want to run in silence – maybe you want to hear your breathing rhythm – now you can. Run Mate will fully work with no music, even with screen locked.

Access iPod library from Run Mate

This removes the need for switch into iPod app and back into Run Mate — access all your music and pick individual songs, albums or playlists. Through iPhone’s default Settings application, set your preference should music start as soon as picked (this is default) or when you actually touch the “Start run” button.

Of course, there’s inevitable bug fixes. I have fixed few that I have found and some reported to me and all that have shown up in iTunes Connect as crash logs. Hopefully this will also help with issues few of the people that left a review on the App Store had. As I don’t know what the actual problem is — I can know this only if I receive the crash log — I can’t be sure. And App Store does not have any means of contacting people that left the review. Frustrating, but that’s how it is. If you do have a problem, of any kind, please contact us, I’ll do my best to help.

Now, off to working on 1.2 :)
I hope to have a shorter period between updates, adding few features at a time.

In-app music access

No more switching apps, all conviently accessible from the Run Mate. Working hard to bring this up.

New in Run Mate 1.1: interval picker now allows time resolution down to 5s

This is laying foundation for many things in the future, like HIIT training and for the famous Couch to 5k running plans from CoolRunning.com.

Photo by: Vicky McCormack on Flickr

I was in terrible shape last autumn — I would get tired just chasing a bus a short while. I hated this but all my attempts to get into some regular workout failed. I’m also a bit overweight, but that did not bother me much like the out-of-shape state. I know people more over weight than me and in way better shape.

So I gave Nike’s plan a chance. If you haven’t checked it yet, Nike’s plan is basically this:

• Run 4 days a week: Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun
• Mon, Wed, Fri are 20mins workout on average
• Sun is more relaxing, but lasts 30 to 40mins
• It lasts 6 weeks; on the last Sunday you should be able to run 5km with no stopping

First week looked easy. 1min walk, 1min easy jog, repeat 10x. Easy, yes?
Like hell.
I would be hyperventilating after 10mins, which was just plain embarrassing. I realized just how badly out of shape I was. So, instead of pushing myself into injury, I repeated first week 3 times, until I got into good enough shape that I felt comfortable to continue with week 2.

This is the key: do not follow this blindly, you’ll end up injured and it will do you no good. If you can’t walk home after finishing the workout, you’re overdoing it.

The program lasts 6 weeks, but it does not says anywhere it should last exactly 6 weeks. It’s just a plan. What’s important is that you stick with it ’till the end, regardless of how much it takes you.

Why?
This summer, I started the same plan again, after not running for over 6 months. I went through first week like a breeze and continuing with the second. There was enough “shape” left in me from those 8 weeks last autumn, even after entire winter and most of spring of not exercising almost anything.

You don’t have to get into serious running. Stay casual and still be in good shape. But don’t give up.

p.s. Run Mate is perfect companion to these plans. Check out why.

No crashes reported through iTunes so far, which is fine. Run Mate was extensively tested before going on sale but experience tells me that some obscure corner always gets un-dusted in software development.

Regardless of this, if you do have problems with 1.0, please let me know — the sooner, the better — so I can fix them before 1.1.

This has been an interesting week, to say the least, with each day of the week my sleep time was around 4am. Main reason was that Run Mate went on sale on the App Store last Sunday, while I have not yet finished the web site. Thus 24 full hours of working later I had a passable site live. if you have visited the site in the last several days, you could see the design coming along, day by day, to its current form.

At the same time, I needed to get the word out. Contacting blogs, review sites — that took a lot of time, just doing the research. Opened an account with prmac.com which does press release distribution — great service, very quick. Writing a good press release is seriously hard job — it took an entire day of writing, re-writing, editing and re-editing to get to the point of being acceptable.

At the same time, the sales took off. This was really surprising as I did not expect any, until I get the word out. But the very first day Run Mate sold few dozen copies! Big thank you to all of you who bought the app, you made those long nights more than worthwhile.

And with sales comes feedback, with some really good feature suggestions. Feature request list is growing steadily, along with work progressing on the 1.1 version.
Keep the feedback coming, either here in the comments or through the feedback form.

I’ll write more, when 1.1 enters beta stage.