We love it when people refer to their Pocket Informant app as “Old Faithful.” When something is called Old Faithful, it’s usually because it’s reliable and dependable—much like Old Faithful—the famous Yellowstone National Park geyser.
Did you know that Pocket Informant has been available on various platforms since 1997? In that time the application has changed a lot—as have devices and our customers.
Informant continues to evolve, we listen to our customers, we follow the market trends for similar applications, and we always try to look as far into the future as we can and prepare Informant for the changes.
Along those lines we’ve spent the first quarter of 2018 shoring up all of the improvements we made during a busy 2017. As a result, Informant for iOS and macOS is more reliable than ever before. The watch application has been made much more stable and a myriad of behind the scenes improvements have been made.
Now we’re turning to the fun part, bringing new features to the application and basing them on the many great suggestions that our customers have submitted to us. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to contact us!
While we cannot implement every idea that is submitted, the top vote getters on our interactive feature request system get the most attention from our engineering team. Make sure your opinion counts by visiting our feedback forum.
Yes, Pocket Informant was “Old Faithful” until Informant 5 was rolled out. It is now “Big Letdown”.
The watch application that you made more stable continues to have major issue’s, The feedback forum has about 100 items of which 2 items are marked “in progress”. The remainder say under review. Forum is nothing more than a customer wish list, where good ideas go to be buried.
“The feedback forum has about 100 items of which 2 items are marked “in progress”. The remainder say under review. ”
That is no surprise. With change in ownership, the focus changed to revenue generation.
I am now back to informant 4 – as long as it works. I candled my Abo, because there is no improvement of the app and so many bugs. I also found some really good on time paying calendar apps I am testing in the moment,
Suggest that you try CG, if you have not already. I have switched to this App and it satisfies all my requirements.
CG = CalenGoo.
I still think that informant 4 is absolutely the best calendar app with toodledo task integration – and it still works perfect. If it stops working I will ether use miCal or two apps Calendar 5 as calendar and 2Do for tasks.
Agree. I made the switch out of concern that it would cease to work with iOS updates.
This is ironic. The lack of stellar reliability is my major complaint about Informant. In fact, just this morning, I tried to edit a smart filter. It would not save my update. (I eventually found a way to update the filter.)
You might say, “That doesn’t sound like a big deal.”
However:
1) Little unreliabilities like this are not unusual.
2) Even little problems are a big deal because they erode confidence in the app. If you can’t get the little things right, how can I trust you are getting the big things right?
Also, UI elements can erode confidence (even when though everything is functioning correctly). For example, setting an event time FEELS very precarious which impacts how I feel about the reliability of Informant. (I know y’all fixing this which is great)
Additionally, a support technician just told me there is no way to filter the today widget. Then I found the function in managing smart filters. Erroneous info from support also erodes confidence in Informant.
i can’t believe the “Major Release Coming” post, is now 2 MONTHS 10 DAYS OLD, and the “Time Picker Changes Coming” post is now EXACTLY FOUR MONTHS OLD (iOS)!
WE ARE NOW PAYING A SUBSCRIPTION, FOR GOD’S SAKE! WHERE IN HELL ARE THE PROMISED “FREQUENT UPDATES” ??????? WHAT IS BLOODY HAPPENING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS APP?
We users have been totally abandoned to ourselves, nothing is happening to Informant any longer, updates have never ever ever been less frequent. Fanatic is in shambles, Informant is in shambles, long time users are being insulted and ripped off, AND WE ARE LOSING OUR PATIENCE!!!!!
Gennaro,
I am surprised that it took you so long to recognize that you are being ripped off. Informant’s demise started just before we were introduced to a new “spokesperson”!
m_g58,
to be fair I haven’t liked it from the start, but this is turning out to be so much worse than I’d ever have imagined. Updates have never ever been so slow and it actually feels like we were on a subscription in the past, and the new owner decided to change to pay once and subsequently stopped all development. Honestly: no interaction with developers, extremely limited improvements over 18 months, each minor change takes months and move at the pace of a sloth. Honestly: how much worse can it get? This is shameful, an utter disgrace, and I am surprised Alex Kac even considers still being involved in this disaster, even if only as a part time external consultant.
And have I mentioned the bugs? Never ever experienced so many! When I enter a new event, I fill the location and then when I move onto other fields (notably the crap time picker), the location I had tapped in disappears, and I have to enter it again. More: currently the appointments I enter sync with iOS calendar and PI4. if I enter an event on a UK based calendar (GMT) while I am in Italy (GMT+1) and I add a couple of alarms, once I’m back in the UK and the events approaches, the alarms go off when expected with iOS calendar and PI4, while I5 wakes up at the usual sloth pace and rings the alarm one hour later!!!! If the event was set for, say, 12, it properly shows at 12 in the I5 calendar but the alarm says “coming event at 13”. If Informant gets so confused with time zones, one of the strong points of PI4, this piece of garbage should really go to the junkyard where it belongs!
…and I have not mention the useless irrelevant marketing babble like “just call us Old Faithful”. Man, how annoying is that? I’ll call you whatever you like, and actually respect you, if instead of writing nonsense you make the app as reliable and good as it used to be in the past
I share your frustration. Unfortunately this is what happens with a marketing person with no product knowledge takes over. Promises the moon, resorts to gimmicks, fails to deliver………
If iOS apple store is a big indicator, our complaints are almost completely irrelevant. They have 1.75K ratings averaging 4.4 stars. That is a lot of very happy paying customers.
Assuming this accurately represents the situation, we can’t really blame them much for not giving a lot of resources towards a tiny percent of unhappy customers. That’s just bad business.
Still, I echo your sentiment: “We are paying subscription now–where are the promised frequent updates?”
You get it! About every 10 weeks! A tiny little update! Is‘nt this enough?
(sarcasm end)
I question the “a lot of very happy paying customers” part. I think that a lot of the 1.75 k ratings are five star ratings without supporting verbal reviews. Remember, all you have to do to be able to rate an App is to download it, you do not have to pay to unlock the functionality of a “free App” before you rate it.
Some developers have used this loophole to boost their App Store ratings. Informant 5 apparently “repeatedly solicits 5-star reviews” (see a review posted yesterday).
Has anyone else noticed how silent Fanatic Software is since they announced the Major Update? Apple announced IOS 12 and I am willing to bet Informant will blame Apple on the delay. They will say it was ready for release then Apple had all sorts of issues with the new IOS. Guessing we will never see this update materialize. Informant certainly doesn’t care about customer satisfaction.
They have your money and seem not to care. If I remember correctly, one of the reasons given for the new “pricing model” was that the code had to be rewritten to ensure compatibility with future iOS releases. So, they cannot blame for failure to deliver on their promises. Bug fixes may be necessary, but not “major updates”.
As an aside, I am using the public beta of iOS 12 on my iPhone X and it has been very stable. All my Apps are working without any problems.
Yes and informant 4 is still working on iOS 12, better than informan 5
Old Faithful is a dangerous name as it happened in Blackberry smartphone.
Still no comments from pocket informant. Plenty of talk with numerous surveys, serious lack of action. I have always understood the no definitive dates for release, however 3 surveys going on 3 and 6 month and no action. Thanks for nothing Keith
Sad, but true. The person introduced as the “new spokesperson” for the company did a great job in convincing the gullible into thinking that the subscription based model was the path to eternal bliss.
m_g58,
I just wanted to let you know that I’m still here & still reading your comments. Although you continue to criticize the business strategy of moving to subscription, we ARE still in business and we ARE still pushing out new releases. At times the pace may seem slow, specifically as we get to the end of a quiet period (where all of our energy is going to finishing up a release), but ultimately we are still here and still doing what we do. We are still pushing out improvements, fixes, keeping up with Apples latest User Interfaces, devices, and new iOS version. Eternal bliss… maybe not… Better organization…Yes. Certainly.
@m_g58
LOL! Well, I imagine a lot of people are like me: I was never convinced (though hopeful). But it comes down to Informant is sufficiently serving my needs (even with all the very frustrating stuff) and it is too hard to find something else. As long as progress does happen, I will probably stick with them. What they have really lost with me is an advocate. I cannot understand how they have such good reviews at $25/year!
If you look carefully you will note they have a whole lot of “5-star” ratings, most of which are not accompanied by reviews. Smells fishy, if you ask me.
craig.lohmann,
I am sorry I left you hanging without an update. We were busy working on the app & had held off on making some decisions about including the new view picker or not, so didn’t have much to report until the decision was ready… But, now the iOS 5.4 version is out and a small android update 4.20.16 is just a few days away also.
Where do you live? If you are ever in SLC you can stop by the office for a personal update. I really am happy to chat about it. I’ve learned to be a bit more quiet externally lately, but I always love to talk about our plans.