Announcing Lab for iOS

It is been a while since I last posted here. I am happy to do so to announce our newest product, Lab. Lab is an app that I wanted. I found myself often wondering when and where this or that picture on my iPhone was taken. So, now, using Lab, you can get detailed information about the picture in your iOS device's photo library. That way, you don't need to transfer your photos to a computer to find out details about your own photo library. Sporting a gorgeous design, Lab is the perfect complement to your iOS device's photo album. Using Lab you can:

• Find out the resolution and size of your photos.


• Let Lab remind you when and where a picture was shot. The location, when available, will be displayed for you in a map.


• Examine advanced info including histogram, exposure and shooting details, right in your device.

Lab 1.0 is available now for iOS 4 in the App Store. If you like to take photos, give it a try for just $0.99. We hope you like it.

iPad: 7 Things to Love, 7 Things to Improve

To Love

Size. If there is something I like is to be able to use the iPad practically anywhere. I am writing this on a plane where it would be hard to fit a laptop, given their "fit as much people on an aircraft as possible" policies. The iPad fits nicely and allows me to get the job done. It is very portable and you do not even need to take it out on security controls.

Screen. Colors are vivid, resolution is nice and the overall usage of the screen is a joy. At 768x1024 pixels games look great, but almost all other applications can benefit from the screen too. Sketches 2 has even more potential here than on the iPhone given the screen real estate.

Sound. Due to its thin size, I was not expecting to get good quality sound. I am glad I was wrong. For my ears, the speaker on the iPad is practically of the same quality of those on my 2007 Macbook Pro.

No heat, no noise. On most laptops, and computers in general, CPU or graphic intensive applications cause the temperature to raise. In the case of laptops on your lap, it can get uncomfortable. But it is not only that, raising temperatures imply heat dissipation mechanisms, which are normally noisy. Not with the iPad. Even while playing games, the iPad is cool and quiet.

Battery life. You can play games, watch videos, listen to music, browse the Internet or whatever you like to do. The battery will last for at least 6-7 hours. In my experience, it can even surpass the 10 hours of the Apple specifications. Amazing.

Instant on. Casual use feature never one. No waiting for your computer to boot up. Want to google something? Grab the iPad fire Safari and surf away. Look up an article on Wikipedia? Play a game? Same thing.

Safari. If there is a killer app that comes already installed in this device, I would say that is Safari. Browsing the Internet with this is a joy. It was not long ago that many Internet sites read "this site looks great at 1024x768". Here you have it in the palm of your hands.

To Improve

Memory. The iPad has 256Mb of RAM, the same as the iPhone 3GS. I find this the weakest point of the iPad. Checking the crash logs, running out of memory is the primary cause for most of them. Having much higher resolution than the iPhone, this is not strange. I would have guessed that Apple had placed at least 512. Maybe on the next version.

Weight. Obviously, at 1.5 pounds (680 grams), it is much lighter than a laptop. However this machine is supposed to be easily held with your hands. Reading a book or playing a game can easily get tiring given the heaviness of the device.

Battery charging. If you connect your iPad to your computer it will take a while to get it charged. In my tests 5 hours did not get me a full charge. Fortunately, the charger included with the iPad, even with the same size and aspect of those of iPhone and iPod, is more powerful, so it is able to speed the charging process. Still long.

No protection included. With such a big screen, the iPad can easily get harmed if unprotected while traveling or if handled carelessly. A simple cover to protect the screen would have sufficed to keeping the screen safe in most situations.

Screen becomes dirty. Oleophobic or not, the screen easily gets full of fingerprints. This is not much of a problem while working with the device, but does not look good when the screen is off.

iPhone Apps. I am glad that I can run iPhone apps on my iPad, don't get me wrong, but they do not look good. At 1x apps look too small, at 2x they look pixelated. I believe we could see a better 2x mode in the future.

Mail app. While email look good, navigating between accounts takes several steps. In addition, there is no mail list while reading your mail in portrait until you hit the email list. Then, there comes a popover, you select a new message, the popover goes, and you have to repeat this process again. Personally, I want to be able to switch messages and accounts quickly independently of the device orientation.

Conclusion

Overall the iPad is an amazing machine, more taking into account that this is version 1.0. These are just some of the small things I would like for Apple to improve. However, I must say that I am very happy with it both as a user and as a developer.

Written on an iPad, using Pages.

Application Blacklisting

Recently we received an anonymous message requesting a new feature: Adding new apps to the public blacklist. In addition to this request, from time to time we receive email requests to blacklist this or that app.

Xslimmer has a feature already that helps us a lot in blacklisting apps. To use it, you should open the History window. It will show the list of applications you have slimmed down. Then, you can click on the "report icon" (exclamation mark) for the application, and this will open the "blacklist report" dialog:



After receiving a report, normally we test the app ourselves. It is not possible in 100% of the cases, but whenever it is we do. Then, we proceed to blacklist it with the information from the report, crediting the person who sent the report, if his/her name was included.

When an application is reported to us, it is marked as "excluded" or "privately blacklisted" in your preferences. That way, if you recover it from a backup or reinstall it, it won't be unwillingly slimmed again.

I hope this clarifies how our public blacklist is managed. Should you have any doubts, do not hesitate to ask. Thank you!

Want to try Xslimmer 1.2.3 Beta ?

Xslimmer 1.2.3 is finished. Quite a few things have changed from the previous version:

• Column headers, sorting. The application list now features column headers, allowing you to sort the applications by the criteria of your preference
  
• Additional application information through drawer. Using the "Info" icon of the toolbar you can get a side drawer that adds information on the application, and offers a couple of actions: exclude and slim.
  
• Single application slim. You can use the drawer or the secondary click on an app to slim that app alone.
  
• App exclusion is now accessible through toolbar, secondary click menu and drawer
• Progress bars and several icons design has been updated
• 3 new localizations have been added: Japanese, Dutch, Swedish (not complete yet)
  
• Delete, Backspace keys now eliminate applications from the list
• History is now resorted after slim has finished, maintaining the selected criteria
• History and backup purging are no longer active by default

So, we want volunteers to test it for a few days before launching it. Please remember, it is beta software. Should you detect any issues, please contact us!

Xslimmer 1.2.3b2 can be downloaded here.

Back...after the break

As with every major release of an application, not only the days prior to the release are very intensive, but also the days after. With Xslimmer 1.2 it has not been different. Issues, doubts, questions, bugs, feedback. Lots of hours of dedication and little sleep.

The most important bug was what I initially called the "UK English Bug", which at the end also had an important impact on our German customers. After a few hours of being detected, we released 1.2.1 in order to fix it. Incredibly, none of our beta testers were German or UK English people. We apologize to those who suffered this issue.

A few days later, with 1.2.2 we fix some other minor fixes and tweaks were introduced. Then, we took a break. For a few days, we had enough with our day jobs and our families.

Right now we are back, and starting with 1.2.3 and our general Xslimmer roadmap. We shall keep you posted.

Xslimmer 1.2 is Out!

That's right. The anticipated release of Xslimmer that allows language stripping from applications is here. In this release, we include a series of benefits:

* Language stripping. Xslimmer 1.2 allows you to easily select how many languages you want to preserve and will remove the rest, thus greatly increasing the amount of disk space you'll free.
* Send apps to exclusion list. A new menu option allows you to easily add applications to your personal list of excluded ones, directly from the Xslimmer window. No more search for the app to exclude!
* Quicksilver integration. Allows Xslimmer to become a target for Quicksilver's "Open with..." feature.
* Localizations. Xslimmer is now available in English, Spanish, French and Italian!
* UI improvements. A variety of minor UI improvements have been added that contribute to (we hope) a sound, consistent and polished user experience.

Hope you enjoy using Xslimmer 1.2.

Season Greetings

The last 2 months have been very intensive. We launched the first public beta of Xslimmer on November 1st. Since then until now, we have had several different releases, 10 in beta, 6 non-beta. Beta releases were mostly oriented to issue resolution, while non-beta have been dedicated to adding new features to the product. Today, in addition to what was included in the very first version, Xslimmer includes:

* Dock-drop feature
* History log window
* Restore function
* Report function
* Growl support
* Direct Slim feature
* Revamped Preferences
* Improved Window animations and transitions
* Other UI improvements
* Many performance improvements
* Panther compatibility

We continue with our roadmap, which includes quite a good number of additional features, and some major new functionalities, like the ability to strip languages.

This is not all. During this period, we have executed 3 different marketing actions. We started with the GiftZOT bundle (at MacZOT), then a MacAppADay one-day feature and the AppZapper/Xslimmer Christmas bundle.

Hundreds of emails, many hours dedicated to the website, particularly its backend and much, much more. Seeing the results, it clearly has been worth it. Pedro and myself would like to thank you all for the support and feedback you have provided us.

We hope you enjoy a very happy Christmas and a great new year.

Making History

Making Xslimmer's history functionality took a little bit more than what was initially scheduled. The basic reason was that new ideas kept coming while we were designing its window. From these new ideas, we implemented the possibility to restore a backed up application and the possibility to report issues with applications slimmed.

Additionally, we took a while to design the window. In its initial conception, the history window had only text, and too much information. Little by little we transformed it into something like this:



While this image was pretty close to the final version of the window, there were still many little details to take care of. First, the color buttons. These did not look completely right to the eye. In addition, they did not behave too well while one of the apps was selected. Second, the sorting buttons in the segmented button were not showing correctly. Third, I had made it so that when an application was restoring, its restore button would show a spin progress indicator, so the window did not really need one. Finally, the window was in need of some gradient.

As a result, we kept working, and the window was almost ready a few days later:



Still solving the segmented buttons bug in Cocoa was going to take quite some code. Louie commented: "I know how to solve that bug: get rid of the buttons, and make the table headers the sort buttons". That is what finally went into 1.1.4:



So, tell us what you think!

We are getting there!

This is how the initial version of Xslimmer used to look. We thought we were almost done. Every aspect of functionality we wanted to add for v1.0 was there. Then we met Louie Mantia. He redesigned the interface, and a month later, we are still working to get it right. We have changed the look significantly, hoping users will like it better. Soon you will be able to judge for yourself.