Ok – Informant 5.02 is out the door now and I’ve had some time to work on Part 2 of my little series here. If you made it here, I’ll assume that you’ve already read Part 1. If not, that’s a great place to start!
So in Part 1, I talked about some of my thoughts with the new View Picker in I5 and here in Part 2, I’d like to take some time talking about the new Date/Time Picker. As with our new View Picker, the discussion around this one has been….lively.
Date / Time Pickers are a difficult beast to “get right” on a mobile device. To be completely honest, I’ve seen a lot of different “interesting ideas” in this space, but not one that I would personally call a slam dunk (including our own iterations over the years). The challenge is that you have multiple competing priorities and invariably, with the limited space on a mobile device, it becomes a game of choosing which priorities you are willing to sacrifice. This is clearly evident even with Apple’s own Date/Time Picker:
- On an iPhone SE, you have a vertically scrolling set of wheels embedded in a vertically scrolling editor (and the wheels take up about 50% of the visible scrollable editor). It’s not the end of the world – but it’s a tradeoff.
- You have absolutely no frame of reference for where your date falls on the calendar or how far away from “today” you are. Try this exercise in Apple’s calendar: Start on today, then create a new event and schedule it for 3 weeks from today. Did you lose your place? Unfortunately, now there’s no way to jump back to Today and start over without canceling the entire editor and going back into it.
- If you thought that was bad – try scheduling an event for something a year from now…that’s a lot of scrolling!
And just to make it even a bit more challenging, Informant has to handle a few things that the Apple date picker doesn’t – optional components! With calendar events, you are guaranteed that Start/End dates will exist. You also have a global All Day switch that applies to both Start and End Dates. With tasks, however, everything is optional: You can optionally have a Start and/or Due time. Also, within the start/due time – each one can optionally be date-only or date + time.
In my opinion, we did a lot of things “right” in our PI4 design. It was relatively easy to add/remove individual date & time components. And since it showed you an actual calendar to pick the date, you had complete context for where that date fell relative to today and relative to the month. So why mess with it? Well, we had a few motivations:
- Probably the biggest one: it consumed an entire separate page of its own for arguably the most common thing that people need to adjust when they create/edit an event/task.
- It was fairly “tappy” for “quick” changes. So to change a meeting by 1 hour, slide into the date picker, tap the time field, type out the new start time, tap save and slide back. So while (I think) we were better than Apple’s date picker in almost every area, Apple had us beat on this one…with Apple’s picker, bumping a meeting by an hour was a tap and a nudge…and you never left the main editor.
- While we were arguably better about scheduling a date several months or years in the future, changing years was still kind of annoying with the PI4 picker. Especially in the case where it’s near end of December and you needed to schedule something for January.
- The visuals on our date picker were starting to feel dated (no pun intended…ok – it was fully intended, and fairly clever if you ask me)
So, while PI4’s date picker did a lot of things right, there were some gaps that we aimed to address in the I5 Date Picker. We wanted something that could be displayed inline with the editor…we were attempting to avoid vertically scrolling wheels in the editor…and we wanted something that was quick to jump in, bump the meeting time by an hour and jump back out. But like I said, it’s hard to find the silver bullet with this type of control and while we did address many of the PI4 Date Picker gaps, we certainly created some new ones. Here are some of the top concerns I’ve heard about the new picker:
- The color of the date/time picker blends into the containing editor, so it’s really hard to visually separate the two.
- Changing the selection on any of the “wheels” is disconcerting. The “selection” box moves when you scroll, then snaps back to the center when you’re done.
- Months/dates don’t wrap, so you when you are at the end of the month, you have to scroll dates back to the beginning of the date wheel.
- You’ve kinda lost the context of where a date is relative to today. You do have that text description telling you it’s X days/weeks/months from today, but in terms of giving you a complete frame of reference for the date you were picking, it’s not quite as good as the calendar view we had.
- The controls at the bottom of the picker are too confusing (some are on/off buttons, some advance the date picker, some adjust the granularity of the minute wheel, etc…and none of them display any on/off state or react when you tap them.
- The Time Zone picker no longer remembers recently used time zones.
- We don’t have a consistent date/time picker throughout the entire app anymore.
- Not everyone is a fan of vertically stacking date/time.
Well….wow. Where to begin? I guess my general assessment is that while it is certainly faster to get in/out of and make small “nudges” to appointment times, we did take some definable steps backwards on this one. Heck – the #1 feature request from y’all on our UserVoice page is to go back to the PI4 date picker. So yeah – we’ve got some work to do.
We’ve been talking about this one a lot internally…which I’m sure feels like an eternity to all of you who are waiting on a decent response from us. I think we’re on the right track. And I genuinely appreciate the patience and all the feedback you’ve given us – so, I thought you guys might like to see a mockup of our current thought process. Please please please keep in mind – this is a mockup, not the actual thing. There will be differences in the final product – but this should give you a general idea of where our collective head is at. And just to make sure I’m not setting false expectations – anything I’m about to say below is subject to change. So, with that disclaimer out of the way, here are a couple notes about our current thoughts:
- The final product may look very different for iPhone SE and/or iPad. I can’t solidly say what that would be – but ultimately, we are basically saying that we are not married to a one-size-fits-all approach if it makes sense to adapt to different screen sizes. The image shown here is on an iPhone 6/7. Perhaps on an iPhone SE we have to compromise a little and on a 6+/7+ or iPad we can take advantage of the extra space.
- We will be fixing the “recently used time zones” feature that broke in I5.
- We’ve talked about that time picker piece a lot. We toyed with horizontal scrollers there to save space…but our current leaning is that the clock-like design just “feels” more natural. Though, it will a third to half the height of the standard Apple picker.
- Whatever we wind up with here will ultimately work its way into all the areas of our app that use a date picker. It may or may not be in the very first release, but that is our goal.
- We think we’re on track to give you the best of both the PI4 and I5 designs. We have a calendar-based date picker, but changing months & years in this picker is WAY better than PI4. And it’s inline. And you don’t have to tap to flip between date & time. Not bad.
So I’d love to hear from y’all in the comments below – what do you think? I should mention that a lot of you left some great comments on Part 1 of my blog post. Please know that I do read all your comments and spend time processing them, but I don’t often have the time to reply to many of them. But, please do let me know your thoughts – it very possibly could influence the final result.
My first reaction to the new PI5 date/time picker was, “What the heck?! What is going on here?! What a terrible idea!” Then I thought about it for a while, saw the elegance, and realized it had real potential but it would take a couple months of use to determine if it’s “better.” I have not had enough time yet… But I can say that the only thing actually missing (versus just being very different) is the visual reference of the date (iow, the calendar view). Personally, I think the current iteration should be refined before dumping it, but anyways…
This new draft does look nice. I love seeing the calendar view back! My critiques: a) assuming the month and year are horizontal scrolling, I cannot imagine that is easy to do, even with my small fingers. b) The time picker also looks like it would be hard to scroll.
Oh, and what I mean by “refining” the current iteration is to get a calendar view in there, along some of the other user feedback that Chris listed.
Chris, thank you for taking the time to open up the blackbox of the PI design/development process – and sharing with us your thoughts about future revisions. Please accept my apologies, in advance, for the length of this post, but since the date and time picker interface is my biggest issue with the “new and improved” PI – and for the majority of those who have weighed in on UserVoice – I wanted to give you the perspective of a long-time PI user (going on 10 years, all the way back to Windows mobile and Blackberry). I’m greatly relieved to see that you are considering bringing the calendar back to the date picker – because, as you noted, without it one loses the context for accurately selecting dates in the future. I also wish to point out that the calendar-based date picker is much speedier to use then either the Apple vertical selection wheel or the PI v 5.0 horizontal “wheel” – because one simply taps on the date they want to select, rather than having to use imprecise finger swipes to get the wheel to land on the intended date. I implore you to take accuracy and speed into consideration when re-thinking the time picker as well. The vertical time picker that you propose in your original post would have the same limitations of the Apple time wheel – slow to use for any major time changes due to the need to scroll though many hours and minutes, and inaccurate because one cannot specify times to the minute (such as 12:43). In practice it probably would even be worse than the Apple picker, given that you propose to make it smaller. Although you are correct in asserting that the time picker in PI 4.x was hampered by the need to go to a separate page, in my experience it was superior to the Apple wheel (and PI v 5.0 wheel) not only because of its accuracy, but because multiple taps (up to 4 for to select the digits, another tap to select am or pm, and 1 to save the change) is actually faster than scrolling through 3 wheels (hour, minute and am/pm). Sure, an Apple-style wheel is quick for a minor change (such as 1 hour later or 5 minutes later), but is slower for pretty much everything else. If you are hell-bent on discarding the old time picker, perhaps you would consider exploring some other alternatives? For example, what if rather than wheels which we touch and then scroll through, we could tap on the actual start (or end) time, and then change the value by tapping on number(s) in an additional row above the standard keyboard? Even on my diminutive 5s, I would happily sacrifice some screen real estate to be able to enter times quickly and accurately. For example, six taps on the extra keyboard row (such as “1” and “2” and “:” and “4” and “1” and “p” to specify 12:41p) would be faster than spinning three wheels (for all but minor changes in times) – and would mean less vertical space devoted to the time (than if a wheel is required). The extra keyboard row with numbers would make address entries just a tad quicker too. I imagine that for casual users who are creating just a couple of events per day, Apple-style wheels for date and time work just fine. But when you live and breathe by your calendar, and are creating or editing dozens of appointments each day, speed and accuracy of date/time entry is essential. Pocket Informant for iOS has always been better than the stock app in this regard – until v 5.0
Greg makes a very good point that sometimes more taps = faster. Especially when more taps makes it easier to be accurate, like here. In most cases, spinning wheels will be slower for two reasons: 1) having to go “far” for big changes 2) having to slow down to get the stupid wheel to stop at the right place. In fact, for me the wheel ends up being just as slow for small (nudge) changes because of #2. Come to think of it, I really dislike wheels.
Thank you, Chris and team, for all that you’re doing to listen to us and improve v.5. As another longtime user going back to my Palm days, I am thrilled to see this mockup! Greg has done a good job putting my thoughts into words — imho, the calendar-based date picker remains the quickest, most-intuitive option for power users to add date information to tasks and events. As others have noted, I assume that the month and year options here would scroll horizontally. I think this is a great compromise to your original iteration. Ideally, I’d also like to see the calendar dates here continue to scroll horizontally like they did in PI4, with the month title (and year when applicable) scrolling along. It took me a while to adjust to that change, but since then I’ve come to love it!
Additionally, I do think it might be faster to have the option to simply type the 4 digits for the time, with a wheel or “switch” for an/pm. Otherwise, I do think I might prefer the Apple style time wheels.
And finally, the all-day line at the top of the screen does seem to me to be redundant. Unless it serves a purpose I’m not seeing, I would remove it; then I would move the all-day slider up, to the open spot just below the word “starts.” This slight adjustment would save the bit of unnecessary effort (and thus time) in switching one’s view down to adjust the time in those instances where a specific time isn’t needed.
Apologies for the novel… I take my productivity seriously, which is why I’ve come to love and depend on PI for so long. 🙂 Thanks for making the best product out there — I’m looking forward to seeing what else you’ve got in store for us!
Just a thought for anyone who is frustrated with the way that Date/Time is entered…. You can enter the time of the appt by typing it in as the first characters of the appt name if you have the appt entry box that shows “Title (or event description)” if your appt title box just says “title” then swipe left. So instructions would be:
If you see “Title” in the New Appt Title field
1) Swipe left on Title field, It should then read “Title (or event description)”
2) Type “7:23 Flight to Dallas” > the time will detect 7:23 and put it in the time box.
If you want to avoid using the date selector, you can (from the 30 day view), click on the date you want to schedule the appointment for, and then click the “+” button, and enter the time as just described, and then you can avoid using the new date/time picker entirely.
Hi Chris,
This mockup looks FANTASTIC!!!! This very well may end up being even better than the PI4 date picker!
You didn’t explicitly state it, but from looking at that preview pic I’m assuming that the month and years are horizontal scrollbars…is that correct?
Also, are you envisioning this date/time picker dropping down when you enter the Starts field? Or is it immediately visible when you enter the Event creation screen? And if that is the case, then you would just need to scroll up to get to the Ends entry field?
I personally would prefer to just be able to type in time and select an am/pm button instead of having vertical scrollbars to select time. Would you consider a settings option to pick scroll bar a direct entry for time fields? I don’t understand vertical scrollbars to select time (in any app), they take longer than the approximate ½ second to just type in a 3 or 4 digit number vs. the 4 or 5 seconds to scroll 2 separate bars. Maybe my mother should have let the doctor put me on those ADD/ADHD meds like he wanted to….
One other thing I’d consider changing is the All Day toggle location: there is an All Day field just above the horizontal line (with the text “Starts” just below that horizontal line)…any chance the All Day toggle can be repositioned to that field? That way, for an All Day event entry workflow, the rest of the date/time picker can be completely ignored (assuming that you started the workflow with the date already selected, that is).
I hope these questions don’t come off sounding critical, because I think this initial mockup is a thing of beauty!
The date picker you’ve shared has characteristics of the one I’ve suggested in a couple of posts. So I kinda like where you’re going with it. Specifically I proposed the old picker with new horizontal year. Maybe ok with month horizontal scroll?
From the top of screen down; No need for title/location (that frees up real estate for larger date font…big fingers, thumb users and old eyes will thank you) that’s a large population of users over all.
All Day chooser, ok. Is it redundant? (Mid and Lower screen)
Started Time… Not needed here. Especially not other time zone in this particular screen.
Thanks for listening Chris
And BTW… You are a power user (congratulations), you’ve been with this app since palm pilot (thank you for your loyalty), you paid 99¢ for it 23 years ago (you got your money worth), you designed calendars since ’79 or 2009 (awesome)… You may have assisted Pope Gregory XIII with the current layout …BUT WE ALL paid 25 friggen dollars for this version PERIOD!!! I paid $15 one week then got email the next offering it for half price (who cares?!) …
One thing I haven’t figured out how to do is to change a task that has a date, to None. I’m on a 5S, so maybe there is something not showing up on the screen? Your mock up doesn’t seem to show a None or icon to remove the date (although your mock up is for Events, so this wouldn’t make sense).
In the task date picker tap on ‘date’. That should take it back to none.
Thanks for the “tap on date” trick – it works!
I like this a lot better than what is currently there. The calendar is a must. Thank you. I think the scroll for the time will be fine (maybe better) as long as you can double tap on the minutes wheel to get single minute increments like on the apple wheels. I fly a lot and the airlines insist on scheduling flights at 2:53, etc.
MagicRat,
For things like flights, you can just type in “7:23 Flight to dallas” in the event name and it will pick up the time.
you may need to “swipe left” on the event title field for this functionality to happen.
If your event Title reads “Title (or event description” then it should work. If not, you would swipe left.
Quote from Chris
“It was fairly “tappy” for “quick” changes. So to change a meeting by 1 hour, slide into the date picker, tap the time field, type out the new start time, tap save and slide back”
The way I do it on PI4 is to
Slide to the right on the event
Tap the date picker
Tap time field
Tap new time
Press done (there’s no need to slide back it’s saved automatically
Very quick, accurate and easy!
1. For the date picker, in your mock-up you show a top line that says “Starts today 7:00pm.” Consider making it so that when you tap on “today” (or the actual date if it isn’t one replaced by a text description like today/tomorrow) it shows this calendar, which looks great. (I also assume that the month and year are horizontally scrollable.) But if you tap 7:00pm, the calendar is replaced by a separate interface for entering times. I’d suggest a numeric keypad complete with an AM and PM button at the bottom. Time is displayed in big blocks above the keypad – one block per digit. Like
| 0 | 7 | : | 0 | 0 | PM
If you tap into a block, say the first 0 in the minutes side, and type a 1, it puts the 1 in and automatically tabs ahead to the final 0 in case you intend to change 00 into 15 or whatever. Tapping on AM/PM toggles it. Big “All Day” button across the bottom (or somewhere). Could also quickly change to all day by left swiping across the big time block section at the top. Could also +1/-1 any digit or toggle AM/PM by swiping up or down on a digit. If user enters a military time with hour > 12 both AM and PM should be deselected/vanish/display MIL or something. Times entered with hour <13 should default to AM. This would all be very fast.
2. For navigating between main app views (month, day, task, focus etc.), consider using pinch and zoom gestures. Zoom gesture while on month view could take you to focus view, zoom out gesture could take you back to month. You could allow the user to customize which views those two gestures took you to and it could be specific to which view you started from. This would be so fast and would nearly eliminate the need for the nav buttons (which obviously should remain anyway.) Pinch and zoom are so engrained in everyone's mind that people reflexively try to zoom into physical photographs that way. You should incorporate those gestures.
Thanks for a great product!
Lee,
Take a look at this video https://youtu.be/v1IE_EMv4S8 at 6:00 you can see a few tricks for typing in the time in the event name box so that you don’t have to select the time from a wheel or type it in separately. This is probably a little known feature that could really help in this case.
First of all let me say that I have no problem paying for a updated and improved PI. I’ve used your software daily since I installed it on my Compaq pocket pc. (It replaced Agenda fusion..remember that?)
I know the disappointment many of us had since upgrading will be addressed and improved. You’all have always done that.
If pi5 had been the version I’d been using for the past year and had just updated to a pi4 type version, I’d have been delighted, especially on my iPad. Really, since installing pi5 minutes after it was released, I’ve not noticed a thing that seems better than pi4 visually or in using the app. On my iPad, I’ll stay with pi4 for now since it just seems far superior to me on that device.
Here’s what I’d like to see:
1. Several versions back (pi3 perhaps), when on the task page, you could then tap the task icon again to bring up the menu that listed all the filtered views (just like tapping way up at the top left icon). This was a really useful feature that just went away after a major update 2 or 3 years ago.
Perhaps there could be an option to view this menu (or whatever the user prefers) when tapping and holding the big blue button instead of going back to a previous view as it does now.
The sideways scrolling filters at the top of the task view isn’t user friendly and actually wastes my time scrolling back and forth trying to tap a moving object that I can’t see very well anyway.
2. Any date picker would be better than this one on pi5. Glad your working to fix it.
3. Just an idea, but It would be great to see a log of all my activities while using pi in a daily note format each day if that were possible. I will often add a comment to a task or event to remind me later of any action I’ve taken regarding it. A feature to contain these notes or comments in a daily ‘journal like’ context would be a great feature. I’d pay extra for that one. (I used journalsync back in the day).
I’m confident in you guys and you’ve still got the best Calendar-DayTimer productivity type app available. I don’t mind paying a premium for Fanatic/Webis software because you’ve always built the best and deserve big profits (although I want to own the basic app). Good luck and hurry.
Chris, well done. Appreciated. I’m sure you guys are heading back to the right track now. I guess the challenge that your team is facing now probably due to company politics or different school of thoughts in the company. Too many school of thoughts hinder development and delivery, this is not a win-win situation. If most of the people are happy with the wheel, why bother to re-invent it? Enhance it, not to re-invent it, unless everyone is not happy with the wheel like the one in I5 now. It is very important to have your blog posted here as you are capable to pacify users and your tone make lots of sense. Too many previous blog discussion on the money and subscription model before, let’s put it aside, it’s distracting your goal. At the end, we are all talking about a good product, that’s essential, that’s what people buy in the market. If you build it, they will come, and the money will also come accordingly. No need to drill too deep, as most people are not sophisticated enough to use a so called perfect tool. The message is well received, I5 is a brand new tool which will cost user to pay again, and because of that, it has to look different than PI4. No problem with that, just do not reinvent the good wheels. Not worth it. Thanks.
Hi Chris
Why does the calendar take so much space on the screen. It is less readable, less usable. In my opinion
I mean in the mockup.
Dom,
We seem to be getting a wide variety of dissenting opinions on the new date picker… Nothing is set in stone yet.
Whatever you do, please bear in mind the US isn’t the whole universe.
In practice if you have a numerical keyboard for time, please allow in settings 24 hour time, and drop the annoying AM business (coming from one with six years of Latin )
Also, make the time zone optional. If the user says he doesn’t want it, don’t display it, for an uncluttered look on the 6se , just as you do when the user has no use for @context.
Cheers
Great Points. We will take that into account.
Could you also start a discussion thread covering what is in the pipeline for the remaining Android users . I will be upgrading to a Pixel XL so Android 7.1 so be very interested in what the next version of PIA has in store.
That is a good idea. We do have plans to get deeper into the Android app soon. We have been tied up w/ the iOS one a bit longer than we hoped. (Development is kinda like that unfortunately)… Perhaps we will put a blog post out with some ideas on Android and start a discussion. I’ll put that on my task list for later in January.
-Keith
I hear what you say Keith, I know how long these things take to test and release. I would say however, that the latest version of PIA doesn’t seem to allow Exchange tasks sync on my new Pixel XL No probs with my previous Note 4 ( Android 6). My office 365 account is the same in both cases. So prior your blue sky sessions with PIA could you also divert some resources to any fixes for those of us who have not intention of running PI on an iPhone.
Have you guys considered asking for reviews? Not in the app, but on your blog. It works for Procreate. There’s so many of us that’d be happy to, but just need the motivation that comes from being asked. Currently it looks like only the disgruntled folk are sharing their views on the App Store. Love what you do guys. ‘5’ took me a bit of time to get used to too, but I’m enjoying it now. And you guys have only ever given me reasons to trust you as to how you’ll move forward. Patience. All the best.
If you carefully read the comments since the launch of informant 5, you would not use the term “disgruntled” so casually. Many of the posts are from individuals who have supported Pocket Informant since it was introduced to iOS (I am one of those) and several are from individuals who have used it earlier on other platforms.
We have expressed our concerns on the change in the UI that has made I5 less user friendly and the pricing model. It took a while for the Fanatic team to recognize the input from their support base. We continue to hope that Fanatic will cater to their “non-power” users, by:
1. carrying over features that worked well in the previous versions.
2. offering “cafeteria style” pricing rather than the current “buy the set meal or leave”.
Graeme,
We would LOVE to have your review. Please do.
Thank you,
Happy New Year.
I note that the App Store now offers developers the ability to offer In-App discounts. This is mentioned as a “Limited Time” feature. You might wish to consider using this option (instead of the current convoluted way to try out I5).
m_g58,
Can you find a link to that? I mentioned it to Alex and he was unable to locate anything like that.
A PI4 review should have been mentioned in September or October – not in a recent newsletter when everything is about PI5….
Anyway, to me PI5 is not worth 26 € a year, so I’m out. I wish you all the best.
PI5 is definitely worth $25 per year only if it wasn’t such a downgrade from PI4
PI5 could’ve been so much better with all the experience gained from PI4 but unfortunately for me it’s a total mess and I hate using it.
UI changes, lack of customization and no significant improvement in functionality of the app are the major causes of dissatisfaction.
I bought pocket informant back in 2009 or 2010 and has been my calendar app for all this time. I understand the business move of moving to a subscription app, even changing of app name. However, I feel paying users should have a bit more respect and get the app updated when ios gets major updates. New features, ok, only subscribers would get them, but those who have paid the previous version should not be “abandoned”.
Thank God I downloaded for free weekcal and calendars 5 when they got free, if PI leaves me out, maybe I just switch
marcosimoes,
First off, thank you for being a long time loyal customer/user of Pocket Informant. We do appreciate that and DO want to make things right by you.
Also, I may need to clarify a few things from your post…Are you saying that you bought the app back in 2009-2010 and that you are expecting “free maintenance” for some period of time? (like even now???) How long are you expecting that a $5-$10-$15 purchase would work/last? (Keep in mind that these apps are highly integrated in to dozens of other systems that are constantly changing (iOS5,5,6-10, google, toodledo, evernote, etc,etc)
Also, Informant & Informant 5 both have a FREE mode that offers quite a bit.
I’m not suggesting that we have it perfect, so please offer some helpful feedback. How much is Pocket Informant worth to you on an annual basis?
Keith,
From your responses to long- term users expressing concern about Fanatic’s shift to an annual subscription model, it appears that you are set in the direction you want to go. What is very evident is that we old timers are willing to pay one time to upgrade to a version that has new functionality. Wake up & read the App Store reviews, and comments on your Facebook page & Twitter feed. The unifying theme is your unjustified pricing strategy.
m_g58,
We will have a post with some thoughts on pricing in the coming days… It is not falling on def ears.
You have sought user feedback via a survey and have read their comments on various forums. Six weeks after the release of I5 is not the time to still be thinking about pricing options.
This (dated). article might help you decide what to offer:
https://www.cnet.com/news/wall-street-journal-plans-micropayments-model/?_escaped_fragment_=
m_g58,
Our #1 priority right now is to get the app functioning at a 5 star level. The feedback that we have had so far has made us feel like fixing the View Picker, Date Picker, Watch App, Triggers, and various other small bug fixes is the most important thing we can do. Sure, we could drop the price on the app as is, but that would not make it any more of a 5 star app than addressing the other things we mentioned. We have had a certain percentage that have validated the $25 price point and said that Informant provides much more value to them than $25. If we drop the price now, we risk frustrating those who paid for the product at the $25 level.
With that said, we have also heard (loud and clear) that there is another (larger) segment of our user base that thinks $25 is too much, or doesn’t find value in the $25 offering. For those segments, all I can say is you will need to wait a bit longer. We are thinking of ways that we can offer the app in an a’la carte model. The trouble is…all those changes take development time as well. And, well…we think our development efforts are best spent (right now) on fixing the items I mentioned above.
Please understand, we DO LOVE and appreciate ALL of our customers and ALL of our customer segments. I’m just saying that we are focusing our efforts on making those happy that have already agreed to pay our “asking price”. We are absolutely committed to being the best app in this category. Many people spend FAR more than $25 searching for a good app. Our goal is to have a reputation of being the absolute BEST so that people don’t need to search further. We know that we can get better, and that we can come up with better pricing for certain market segments. So, if you consider yourself in one of those segments, then you may be justified in “waiting to see” what happens with pricing. Will we offer a lower price for some reduced functionality? Probably, but only time will tell. As soon as we have a clear decision and active development on such an initiative, we will share the news here.
And thank you for sharing that resource.
Best, Keith
Keith:
I like this approach. Although I would like to see a different pricing structure, I much prefer an app that allows me to remain productive, and PI5 in it’s current state is no there yet. It certainly more stable, but I would like to see the improvements that you have listed made and then work on pricing. Good luck with that.
Keith, could we know when is the next new release coming? Could you indicate the schedule? I need to know how long do I have to put up with the current design UX. Thanks.
I am working on a blog post with an updated schedule now. It should be out in next 24-72 hours.
We should have a 5.03 that is going to beta users next week. This release has mainly bug fixes, etc. There “might” be some adjustments to the view pickers if we can fit it in time. Otherwise there is going to be a 5.1 that is being worked on that has fixes for the Date Picker, View Picker, improvements to Triggers, and the watch app. That (5.1) is still a few weeks out. The schedule will go something like this: 5.03 to beta, then we are getting a 1-2 week cycle on the Mac Desktop for a M0.9 beta, then back to the iOS app for the 5.1 release. A more detailed post will be coming with specifics of each of these.
Hi Keith, is there any “bug log” available? I don’t wanna sent some detailed bug reports to your customer service, just to find out, these are already known issues.
Many regards ,
Andreas
I’ll be posting a blog shortly with some of the known issues and an idea of their position in the que…