Wandle SoftwareToday marks the start of both “National Breastfeeding Month” if you’re in the US and “World Breastfeeding Week” if you’re resident on the Earth (I assume you are if you’re reading this).
As a small way of supporting and recognising these events we’re offering our baby feed feed reminder and timer app, Rootn Tootn, for half the usual price for this week only. That’s only 99c in the US, 69p in the UK or your local equivalent.
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.
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:
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!
A press release announcing the launch of Rootn Tootn went out today via PrMac:
London, United Kingdom – Wandle Software Limited is pleased to announce the birth of its latest app, Rootn Tootn, a quick and effective way to remind you when your baby needs feeding or changing – or as we like to say, your baby is rooting and tooting.
Especially in the first few weeks when you’re feeding around the clock, it’s easy to lose track of what needs to happen and when. The last thing you want is an app that insists on endless details just to get started. Rootn Tootn just has a single button to start or stop a timer. It automatically records all the details for your reference and sets a reminder for the next time. You can add notes if you like.
You can add as many reminders as you want and there are three different types. One records the duration of an event (feeding for example), one is a point in time (changing a diaper/nappy) and one is a left/right side reminder. Check out the blog for stories of how other people use them.
In addition to customising the timers and reminders, you can personalise how it looks by adding your own picture to the background. We think that Rootn Tootn offers a great balance between simplicity and features that you’ll use. Created using feedback from nursing mothers, we are confident that you’ll love it too.
Device Requirements:
* iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, 3/4G iPod touch and iPad
* Requires iOS 5.0 or later
* 1.4 MBPricing and Availability:
Rootn Tootn 1.0 is $1.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Health & Fitness category. Promo codes are available on request.
As of this week you can fill the dock on your iPhone or iPod touch completely with Wandle Software apps. I know that’s not significant in the big scheme of things but I like to think that it’s quite an achievement for a one-man shop that operates part-time.
From left-to-right, and in the order that they were released, there is Yummy, Yummy Browser (the “lite” version of Yummy), www.cut and, new this month, Rootn Tootn.
I’m very pleased to announce Wandle Software’s latest app, Rootn Tootn. Here’s the description from the App Store:
Rootn Tootn is a quick and effective way to remind you when your baby needs feeding or changing — or as we like to say, your baby is rooting and tooting…
Especially in the first few weeks when you’re feeding around the clock, it’s easy to lose track of what needs to happen and when. The last thing you want is an app that insists on endless details just to get started. Rootn Tootn just has a single button to start or stop a timer. It automatically records all the details for your reference and sets a reminder for the next time. You can add notes if you like.
You can add as many reminders as you want and there are three different types. One records the duration of an event (feeding for example), one is a point in time (changing a diaper/nappy) and one is a left/right side reminder. Check out the website for stories of how other people use them.
In addition to customising the timers and reminders, you can personalise how it looks by adding your own picture to the background.
Rootn Tootn offers a great balance between simplicity and features that you’ll use. Created using feedback from nursing mothers, we are always happy to hear how you’re using the app.
It was inspired by the birth of my son exactly six months ago today. You can get it on the iOS App Store for the introductory price of US$1.99, ¥170, €1.59, £1.49 or your local equivalent.
You can read more about it on the product page and, of course, there will be more more in this blog in the coming days.
A week later than I had originally planned, but here is another app update that has been submitted to Apple for approval. In some ways it’s a bigger update than the 0.0.1 increment might lead you to believe. But let’s start with the user-visible changes:
The second item has pretty much the same caveats I mentioned in www.cut 3.1: it’s designed to be quicker than the functionality it replaces, though it is sometimes less accurate. That is, websites that do “clever” things with the title, such as using frames (1996 called…) or updating with Java Script after the initial load, may well fail. But overall I think the speed-gain is a net win.
The greater performance made one extra feature possible. Last month I mentioned a flaw in Delicious’ new “get links from Twitter” functionality. Namely, that those bookmarks when pulled into Yummy lack the website title. (As a quick aside, it’s only because of what’s arguably a bug in Yummy that these bookmarks could be saved at all. Normally the title is a mandatory field.)
In Yummy 2.6.6, if, when downloading a bookmark, it finds that the title is missing it uses the new “Get title” feature to populate the field as you’d expect.
Three small points: if the bookmark has already been downloaded then Yummy will not go back and get the title. You can do this manually (press ‘Edit’, then ‘Get title’ and finally ‘Done’) or, if you have a lot of them, as I did, then you can simply log out and log back in again.
Secondly, the title does not come from Delicious, so I can’t guarantee that it will be the same. It should be most of the time, but if they differ it’s (probably) not a bug.
Thirdly, Yummy gets the titles after finishing its normal sync process. There is (currently) no status update posted on the main screen but you can see that’s it’s working because the “network activity” spinner in the status bar will be going.
If you don’t like this functionality (or it causes problems for some reason) I added a setting to disable it.
Keep an eye on Twitter (or the available updates in the App Store) for when it makes it out of Cupertino.
I have just submitted www.cut 3.1 to Apple for approval, so hopefully it should be available for download some time in the next week.
It’s mainly bug fixes and cosmetic updates, including new Retina graphics for the new iPad, but there’s one new feature that I hope you’ll like.
Previously when you Tweeted a link or sent it to Facebook, it sent just the link with no information about it. In this new version, you should get the title too.
A couple of minor caveats:
Still, I hope you find it useful.
You’ll notice a change wherever your usual destination is.
I have merged the previously separate Wandle Software and the Yummyapp websites. It’s basically the old Yummy website with extra content, covering details about www.cut and Wandle, the company.
You should find the same (or more) content but if you find anything missing, please let me know. I’ll do what I can to put it back again.
Since it’s been a while since Yummy 2.6.1 came out I thought it might be worth a quick post to talk about what’s been happening behind the scenes. Despite appearances to the contrary, I’ve been very busy!
First, and I mention this for the sake of completeness, is the new website. What you’re seeing right now is probably what I’d call “Phase One” and is already a vast improvement over what came before it. In the future I will put up more content, with the intention of explaining the product to new users more effectively and allowing existing users to get the most out of it.
I have release 2.6.2 of Yummy waiting in the wings. It’s pretty much ready to go (though I do keep making minor changes) and has been for a while now. I’m waiting for two things before pressing the ‘go’ button.
It’s mostly minor bug fixes and behind the scenes changes, but one aspect that you will see is the removal of the Yahoo! ID authentication method. (Yes, Yummy was the first to add support for it and will likely be the first to remove it!) Once the sale to AVOS finally goes through, this method will be no more and will just cause confusion to new users. However, while they said that the deal would go through in July I can see no signs that this has actually happened.
Having said that, even if the deal had gone through, until yesterday I was unable to submit updates to any of my apps. This is because I am putting Yummy on a more formal footing and have formed a company, called Wandle Software Limited, to be the legal guardian of all my iOS software. Transitioning my developer account from that of an individual to a company took nearly seven weeks. For this time I was unable to make changes or work on beta releases.
For you this change makes very little difference. For me I get an awful lot of extra paperwork to fill in, but on the plus side I have a new corporate logo.
Finally, the next major version of Yummy will likely be numbered 3.0 and it will be a significant update. Major new releases take much longer to develop and test than smaller ones. I have multiple aims for this new version, spanning the UI, new features and an important overhaul of some of the technical stuff under the hood. I’ll write more about this as it nears release.