From the Author Version 2.2 Released
July 30, 2010. Version 2.2 became available for download yesterday. This version adds cloud syncing and a web interface to input recipes! Doing the web interface in this release was not in the plan, but I thought it made a lot of sense to do it now. This was the most requested feature among users, and with good reason-- it's not easy to type a lot of text in the iPhone. With the cloud sync feature, you can upload your data, log into the website, add recipes, and download it back to your device.
Cloud Syncing
June 14, 2010. I have been working on the online sync feature that will hopefully get done by next month. This is going to be the biggest feature by far in terms of the amount of development work needed, not to mention the remote server setup required and the server code to be written. I have to admit that I had been putting this off =), but with users getting iPads and with the upcoming iPhone 4, I think it has become necessary to have this feature which allows users to transfer data between devices.
Also, may I mention that I've gotten a lot of positive reponses to the template feature
released last month. I thought it brought the app's capability to another level.
April 26, 2010. More feature requests have been coming in and I have a started to be really careful about what to add and what to leave off. The last thing I'd like to happen is to have an overly complex product that has every conceivable feature but is hard to use. One user commented that the app has the right balance of form and function and is simple enough to actually use. I plan to keep it that way.
With that said, I'm working on a new powerful feature that will further make meal planning
a snap! I'm excited to use this feature myself. It will be out in a couple of weeks.
March 8, 2010. Soon after Version 1.2 update got released, MealBoard climbed up the rankings and made the Top 100 paid apps in the Health and Fitness Category! I think this is quite a feat considering that the app has never gotten any sort of publicity (I have not bothered to submit it to app review websites) and I have spent $0 in marketing it. I've always believed that if I build a quality app, people will find it. And sure enough, people are finding it. So, this is exciting news.
On another note, I just submitted Version 1.3 update today. It adds an in-app tutorial,
more user-requested features, and usabiliy improvements based mostly on a feedback
I got from a particular user (thanks Mike!).
January 28, 2010. Yesterday, I submitted Version 1.2 update to Apple. It took a while to finish (I had a 3-week vacation during the holidays). Now, it's finally done and I'm real excited about it. This update contains some of the most-requested features among users. Can't wait to get feedback. Thanks to all who sent their suggestions. And keep them coming!
Negative Rating Bias in the App Store
November 9, 2009. Since MealBoard was released, I have gotten lots of positive feedback through email, mostly saying how they like the app and a number of them offering suggestions to improve it. I have been working on these suggestions and I'm happy to say that it will be out by next month. Just a little more time and it should be ready.
Anyway, back to the main topic of this post. Looking at MealBoard's App Store ratings through iTunes, I've found that it has gotten quite a number of 1-star ratings, and all but one of these 1-star ratings did not come with text reviews. Now, I have found out why the 1-star ratings. When users delete an app from their iPhone (usually because they don't like it or it was not what they expected), they get prompted to rate the app (they get prompted for a star rating only, without a text review). I think this produces a bias towards low ratings. They're deleting the app because they don't like it, and asking them to rate it at that moment will most likely produce a low rating. As someone puts it, this is akin to asking people who just walked out in the middle of a movie to rate the movie! I think this is unfair to developers and Apple needs to fix it. If they want to prompt users to rate apps, they should do so randomly.
In the meantime, if you have bought and used MealBoard, I would very much appreciate if you can spare a minute to rate the app (you may do it through iTunes or the App Store). Doing so will help produce a true rating which is critical in helping sales and thus support its further development.
Thanks to all.
November 4, 2009. Version 1.1 update is now available in the App Store. The update mainly contains fixes based on user feedback. And it includes a newly designed app icon.
Initial Feedback
October 11, 2009. It's been two days since MealBoard went on sale and I have received some feedback. Overall, it was very positive feedback but I had to scramble today to come up with a tutorial on how to use the app. I did not realize that there's a bit of a learning curve to use it. I think that the challenge comes from 2 things-- (1) users having to go through the list of food categories before they can select the food items to be added to the mealplan, and (2) the app being extremely customizable (you can add, remove, edit, rename, reorder almost any data that the app displays. While these do make the app a little hard to learn initially, I think users will find it worthwhile as they get comfortable.
I'm hoping to get more feedback and reviews. I have already identified a few
new features to work on. I'll be busy in the next few weekends.
October 7, 2009. Today, I finally received the approval email from Apple. MealBoard should be available in the U.S. App Store in a couple of days (tomorrow for the rest of the world). I have been using the app for the past 2 weeks. It's something that I had been looking for as early as 8 years ago when I bought a Palm Pilot. I hope others will find it useful. I'm looking forward to get some feedback!
MealBoard Submitted for Approval
September 28, 2009. MealBoard version 1.0 is finally submitted to Apple for approval. That comes after 3 months of hard work (design, coding, testing), and prior to that, 4 months of learning Objective-C and the iPhone SDK. That was such a long time. But then, I work on it only on weekends. I hope I have done enough testing to uncover all bugs. I was a little hesitant to submit it yet, but I have gotten tired testing and I couldn't find any more bugs. Now, let's see how long it'll take to get approved.
