Ok, so perhaps it’s not quite as exciting as a “State of the Union“, but after I wrote my first draft, it was just about as long…so I broke this up into two parts. By now, Informant 5.01 has been released and I thought it might be a good time for me to pause development for a few minutes and address some of the feedback we’ve been getting.
If you’ve been hanging around our recent blog entries, or on our Facebook page or Twitter, you’ve no doubt seen (or participated in) a whole lot of feedback on Informant 5…much of it very passionate…and if we’re honest, not all of it is positive. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people really love some of the changes we’ve made…but my focus right now is on all of you who having been offering some “constructive feedback”.
Here’s the thing I want to say up front: regardless of the positive/negative nature of some of the feedback, I love the passion. What that tells me is that even if we don’t always get it just right, you guys actually care about what we’re doing. If we were making an app that no one cared about – our message boards would have been a lot quieter…so whether you love or hate the direction we took in I5, we’re grateful for you guys.
I’d like to offer a little back story to the thinking behind some of our I5 decisions and then give you a little inside scoop on how we’re processing this feedback and where we’re going. There are two things that have garnered the most attention in I5: The new View Picker/Home Screen and the new Date/Time Picker. So let’s talk about it. In this post, I’m going to address the View Picker. Check “Part 2” if you’re interested in hearing more about the Date/Time Picker.
Pick a view…any view
In I5, we replaced the “sliding tab bar” with a new “view picker” button, we call this the SmartBar. Here are the top concerns we’ve heard with this new design:
- It now takes 2 taps to change to any view
- Each view change takes you through the “Informant Home” screen, so simple view changes now “feel” like heavy operations
- The view buttons are no longer customizable (you can no longer hide the views you don’t use)
- It’s harder to see where I want to go because there are no more text labels on the view icons
Personally – I can’t really argue with any of that. So you might be wondering…why replace the tab bar in the first place? Well, it was a series of things actually…
- In I5, we modernized a ton of our codebase. Informant 1.0 was originally released on iOS 2. Apple has done a TON of changes since then…which means the way you “should” do certain things in iOS 10 is often different than how you did them in past OS releases. We kept up with a lot of these changes, but over the years, some of these changes would have required more structural changes which built up until we addressed them in I5.
- We have a lot of views (6 calendar views, Focus View, Tasks, Notes, Contacts, Search and Settings). Apple’s built-in tab bar wasn’t sufficient for what we needed, so years ago, we built our custom “sliding” tab bar.
- To get slightly more technical – in our app, we use “container view controllers” to handle the master/detail view layout that you see in virtually all views.
- Container view controllers don’t always play nicely with Custom Tab Bars (especially during rotation) and we kept chasing down miscellaneous issues with them. Some of those issues could be solved by using private Apple APIs, but that’s a no-no in App Store land.
So at this point, we were in a position of constantly chasing down a lot of little glitches, or perhaps rethinking how we change views in the first place. And let’s face it – for all its positives, the sliding tab bar design did have a few problems:
- Because we have 6 calendar views, we put those into a menu on the tab bar…but that menu was a little finicky (small tap target, and you often had to tap a few times to get it). So while changing between calendar and non-calendar views were often 1 tap, changing calendar views was at least 3 taps away (with a small tap-target)
- Quick Entry was hidden behind a gesture that many people didn’t know about and it was sometimes hard to get to even if you did (specifically, if the active view vertically scrolled)
- The sliding tab bar was unique – so not everyone thought to “swipe” the tab bar…which led to support questions asking how you get into settings and such.
This all gave us the opportunity to rethink if the tab bar was the “best” solution (especially given the calendar view menu problem). Thus, the I5 view picker was born – no more special calendar menu, all views are brought to the same level. And, we could make Quick Entry & Search always be 1 tap away.
Admittedly, we were on some dangerous ground here. We had to redesign a fundamental part of our UX to address “hidden” problems that many people would only encounter “randomly”. And even the more visible problems I listed above, our more experienced users weren’t really affected by those (and had learned to “live with” the calendar menu).
So, as it is sometimes with radical changes – two steps forward, one step back (though, I freely admit – some of you might beg to differ about the specifics of how many steps were forward and how many were back ;-))
Picking Faster
So now the real question – how do we reconcile the reality that led us to the new View Picker with the reality of the feedback we’ve been getting? Well, we’ve been talking about that a lot. Please know that all of these thoughts are a work in progress, but I’d like to peel back the curtain a little and loop you guys in on some of our current thought processes about what we need to change:
- Add the ability to turn off (hide) view buttons you don’t use (similar to our tab bar setting in PI4)
- Add the option to show icon/text like we had on the tab bar
- Stop going “through” the Informant Home screen for each view transition. Potentially what this might look like is tapping the “view picker” button, which will slide up the different view buttons (like it does now) and the search/quick entry drops down from the top – BUT we no longer take over the entire center screen (you stay on your current view). While this doesn’t entirely solve two-taps, it will certainly feel much faster.
- For iPhone, add a setting that lets you force-touch the view button to immediately take you to your “favorite” view…so for me, as an example, force-touching the view picker would give me 1 touch access to my Focus View.
- Toy with the idea of “tap-swipe-release” to change views instead of tap-tap. This idea isn’t fully fleshed out, but we want to play with the feasibility of tap-swiping to the view button you want, then when you release, it switches.
- On iPad – we have the space…we should be able to put more view buttons at the top-level of the view like we had in PI4. Again, details for this are still being fleshed out a little.
These items (and others) are likely going to be divided into a few different upcoming releases. We’d like to get some immediate improvements out to you guys as soon as possible and take time to fully think through the more involved changes.
We may not always nail it perfectly the first time. Heck – even Apple gave us watchOS 1.0 and Microsoft gave us Windows 8, so it happens to the best of us. But the good news is, as the lead developer on this project (and someone who fully relies and lives on Informant daily), you can rest assured that I’m highly motivated to get it right.
Thanks, Chris. This is very encouraging.
Thank you for that. And yes, I’d say your customers are passionate. I thought it was a little strange that my calendar/task app is such a large part of my day, but after seeing the response to the new release I realize I’m in good company!
I think sometimes when a large part of your job depends on you being organized, it makes you sort of obsessive about your methods, and apparently, for a lot of us that means how we had our Informant configured.
Thank you Chris. It’s evident you’re passionate about your work. I’ll also say you’re humble, thoughtful and humorous Your words are reassuring to me and hopefully to many others. With posts like that I feel better about paying $25 for pi5.
With action on those words and the hope you offer, I might think about maybe considering possibly reinstating the subscription I cancelled.
Thanks again!
Thank you Chris
Now I think $25 a year is good value for PI5 with you in charge
I can agree with that.
After going back to PI4, I loaded PI5.01 and it has been very stable and not crashed once. So now that I am actually able to use PI5, the changes you are describing would go along way to satisfying what I need from the application, particularly as a heavy iPad user. So bravo for your responses and for keeping your customer base informed.
That’s good news to customize the view picker buttons! If you could make the view picker buttons and all buttons at the bottom (originally tabs) customizable, that will be perfect. For example, I rarely use the filter button at bottom left and the new map button, but they occupy very important positions.
Actually I never heard anybody complaining too much customization for any software. 🙂
Kevin,
We have posted a new blog on this topic & would love your input.
http://staging.pocketinformant.com/view-picker-debate-continues/
I was going to write a ‘passionate’ plea to change the home screen, and make it a less ‘heavy’ operation (ie taking up the whole screen and psychologically interrupting your thought), and resolving the 2 tap issue. Basically most of Genaro’s posts. But looks like I don’t have to. Most issues perfectly summarised by Chris, plus very elegant solutions for all of them. Please implement hem just as you’ve described (including the tap, slide, release – it’s more efficient that way). I’ll post later about Template functionality not being totally carried over for every field, but that’s another issue. Thanks for taking onboard the constructive critism.
Looking forward, it’s a good way to keep us informed.
Chris, thank you VERY MUCH for your excellent and extremely informative summary of the situation.
Personally, I took a bit to get accustomed to the menu to change calendars, but I got to like it a lot and the small tap target has never been an issue for me. Also, I insist that adding little arrows at the edges of the sliding tab bar would have given a big clue to users about the fact that it could be swept. All the improvements you’re looking at seem valuable (especially the idea to stop going through the Informant Home screen).
It would be great if you could differentiate iPhone and iPad a bit, and make use of all the space you have on the iPad.
Also, please, I would really appreciate if also the new Task View could be given a deep thought. As it is now, I think it’s a huge step backwards compared to PI4.
Thanks again
Gennaro
An idea: tap > swipe > release doesn’t bring up home screen, to alllow a smooth transition to next view (like Chris suggested). A single Tap > release does bring it up (with the same menu buttons of course). This gives both benefits, of quick/smooth operation if you need it, or seeing the home screen if you want, all handled by the same one button. Just a thought.
that’s a good idea. best of both worlds.
Chris,
thanks for the update, this is good news and sounds like you guys are definitely Hading in the right direction! Please don’t compare yourselves to Windows 8, otherwise it would take at least a year and PI6 to fix the issues 🙂 and as for watchOS 1.0, all you could do was watch, and wait, and watch, and wait, so again, I think you guys are doing a great job listening and addressing passionate users concerns. I read a great quote recently that fits well here, “The biggest communication problem can exist when we don’t listen to understand, but rather we listen to reply”. Thanks for listening!
Thanks for the great explanation.
I use task features heavily (as well as calendar features) so I would like to be able to have quick access to Projects and Contexts (with last of each remembered). I would like to replace unused buttons with those.
Thanks for the update.
I am using my left hand to hold the iPhone, could you provide an option to put the “view picker” button at the “bottom left” corner of the screen, so that it is easier to reach. The current design require me to use another hand to press on the “view picker”, very inconvenient. Looking forward to the enhanced UI which gains back the productivity. Thanks.
Takeaction,
Your point about left handed operation is a good one. We have heard that a few times. There is a issue in uservoice forum for that . I’d suggest adding your vote to that item by following this link:
http://feedback.webis.net/forums/562453-pocket-informant-5-for-ios/suggestions/17304526-tabs-on-left-side-of-screen
That will help ensure that issue gets pushed up to the top of the dev que sooner. Thanks for participating and thank you for your support.
I might be saying the wrong words at the wrong time at the wrong place. but Chris we love you AND we love the app…..It is the subscription model which is disliked by the majority of users who are supporting you for a long time. You must be blind to ignore this…..(see the iTunes App Store World Wide)
FYI also Just google what Tapbots did today with Pastebot 2.0 pricing…
Full public BETA. I bet that works better than the friends and family plan.
I’ve been using PI for 12 years. It is ridiculous how LITTLE money I have paid them for the product. Maybe around $20 total. I would hardly call that “supporting them.”
At the same time, though, I would much rather pay something like $15/year. It is the price INCREASE that is so jarring to me. From—practically—free to $25/year. Let’s say I continue to use PI for 12 more years. That would be $20 to $300. That’s a 1,500% price increase.
Boydston01,
I guess the thing we should regret is not making some changes sooner, but doing it more gradually. These are all good insights for us to review.
Keith, I completely agree. Because it’s trying make up for a past mistake(s), it’s so painful now. In other words, it’s too late to find the “perfect” way forward—only a “best” possible route is available. But forward we WILL go!
Informant 5 is having a brutal time worldwide with the reviews
https://sensortower.com/ios/us/fanatic-software-inc/app/informant-5-agenda-task-planner-with-email/1141040577/#review-history?reviews
V4 is doing much better and probably earning more money then V5
With apologies to Roger Waters,
“We have seen the writing on the wall
Still don’t think need to change the pricing at all”
to be fair, it’s probably a rock and hard place:
a) don’t radically change our business model and go out of business
b) radically change our business model, upset our customers, and go out of business
Those sound like some great ideas to pursue. I hope you continue with the “customization” route as you make changes. For example, my first impression of the “navigate thru the home screen to get to another view” was, “oh that can be helpful to get a quick glimpse.”
I love the new informant. There is a few bugs but like you pointed out, they are all being worked out.
I have been using informant since the beginning and have been more then satisfied.
There is one bug that I have messaged you, on here and twitter and have not gotten any response.
The widget comes up all messed up, and does not respond. The only way I can get this working again is to restart the phone.
Are you working on this issue, I haven’t seen it in any of the big fixes listed.
Primarily because of how y’all (the Fanatic gang) have responded to your customers’ concerns, I have signed up for Informant Sync (and thereby purchased Informant 5).
Thanks Boydston01. We do appreciate you!