Month: July 2012

Categories
news

What does iOS 6 have in store for Wandle apps?

I’ve been looking at the new version of iOS, trying to figure out what it means for Wandle’s apps. There’s only so much that I can say publicly at the moment, since the details are still covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement, but I think enough of the “interesting” bits were shown at the keynote that it’s worth jotting some notes.

iOS5, launched last year, was big. You’ll probably remember the Notification Center and the Twitter integration. But there were also lots of neat new technical things “under the hood” that I was keen to use as soon as possible. So much so that I re-wrote www.cut using them and Rootn Tootn is iOS5-only too. (For various technical reasons that I won’t bore you with, I didn’t extensively update Yummy in the same way.) iOS6 is not like that. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of nice improvements, but little that I feel the need to integrate right now.

“Little” is, of course, not “nothing.” There is one part of Yummy and www.cut that is third party software, is not terribly reliable and is really difficult to keep up with technically. That’s the Facebook integration. As you may have heard, iOS6 has Facebook built-in. So what I plan to do is remove the Facebook API and just use the one included in iOS.

The good news: it should work much better, it will be more reliable and you’ll no longer need to log in separately.

The bad news: unless you’re using iOS6 you will lose this functionality.

As far as I can tell (looking at the crash reports) there are very few people who won’t be able to run iOS6. The main “victims” will be owners of the original iPad. If it’s any consolation, that includes me…

Categories
faq

Why you would need a reminder to feed a baby? Don’t they let you know?

A few people have asked the following question, so I thought it was worth discussing in more detail here:

Why you would need a reminder to feed a baby? Don’t they let you know?

There are two simple answers to that:

  • Crying is a late sign of hunger. Hopefully you’ll know that they need feeding before that. However, especially in the first few weeks, you won’t be in a position to know what the other signs are either because you’re new to the whole thing or because you’re exhausted!
  • In the first few weeks the midwives are very keen that you feed every couple of hours and with everything else going — so much that’s new, so little sleep — you may find it easy to lose track of time

There are other reasons too:

  • You might find that a reminder is a good way to get into a regular routine
  • You don’t even need to use the timers to remind you to feed your baby. The reminders can be for anything. Nappy change. Medication. Whatever you want and whatever makes sense
  • Even if you switch the reminders off, you can see at a glance when the last feed was and approximately when the next one is likely to be. Of course you can do this in your head, but why would you?

Even if you’re still not convinced, reminders are only half of the “baby feed timer and reminders” description used on the App Store. Rootn Tootn also records all your feeds, changes and anything else that you want. Suffice it to say that that log of events could be enough reason to use the app, even without the reminders!

Categories
trivia

Dear Amazon

Amazon Email
I got this email from Amazon…

Dear Amazon,

Many thanks for your recent email. Unfortunately, your normally very accurate data mining and customer relationship management software seems to have turned up very much the wrong product recommendation for me.

You see, as great as the Itzbeen is, Wandle Software now has something even better for any mums (or moms) to be or those with recent new-borns: Rootn Tootn.

Not only do you always have your iPhone with you, making it much more convenient, but Rootn Tootn does more too! You can set as many timers as you like and rather than just telling you when your last feed and your next feed will be, it also keeps a history. And who’d want an Itzbeen with its green plastic when you could have a sleek iPhone and Rootn Tootn which allows you to use your own pictures as a backdrop?!

So I’m sorry Amazon, but I’m going to have to pass on your recommendation. Rootn Tootn is more useful, prettier and cheaper. Maybe you could recommend that next time? Take a look on the App Store…

Kind regards,

Stephen

 

Categories
news support

Delicious Twitter Import

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times in passing now, but I’m not sure if I’ve really made clear how cool this little feature is.

Delicious has recently added a neat new feature where you can import all the bookmarks that you Tweet. That’s great. What’s not so great is that when using the API — the thing that Yummy uses to get your bookmarks — the titles are all missing. It looks like this:

I’ve checked two of Yummy’s competitors, and they do exactly the same thing.

But in Yummy (version 2.6.6 and later), the same bookmarks look like this:

I hesitate to shout too loudly because it’s covering up a defect in someone else’s code but it’s just so useful that I couldn’t help myself this one time.

Categories
news

www.cut 3.1.1

A minor new release of www.cut is with Apple for review and should be in the App Store shortly.

If you recall, version 3.1 added the ability to find the title of a link before you post it to Twitter or Facebook. Version 3.1.1 refines that ability, trimming excess spaces and converting weird HTML characters into something that’s readable by humans.

Apple say that they’re review 94% of app updates in five business days so hopefully you’ll have it before the end of the week.

Categories
news

Yummy 2.7.0

I have just sent an update to Apple for review. It’s not one of the bigger releases ever but there’s some nice new stuff that I thought was well worth releasing:

  • Built in web browser
  • Use iOS native Twitter functionality when present and configured
  • Improved “Get title” reliability and correctness
  • Refer to “Pocket” rather than “Read It Later”
  • Restore iOS 3.1.3 support

The main new feature is the web browser. It’s limited in some respects but for people who are frustrated that it’s not possible to put a “Add to Delicious” button directly in Safari (if you want this functionality, please ask Apple) it may be a convenient option.

 

You can find the option in the middle of the main menu screen.

The Twitter functionality is not so much new functionality as a change. Yummy will use iOS5’s built-in Twitter client rather than its own if it’s present and configured. The advantage is that you can now post to multiple Twitter accounts and you only have to configure your Twitter settings once. If you’re still using an older version of iOS you won’t notice anything different.

Finally, I have restored the ability to run Yummy on iOS 3.1.3 which was accidentally removed in the last version. This is just a temporary reprieve, though. Apple’s most recent developer tools no longer support anything older than iOS 4.3 which means that soon I will have no choice but to set that as the minimum version supported by Yummy.

Still, this is a great new release to run on your five year old phone!