The Dossier

Big changes are coming!

When we first started writing The Dossier, we had pretty strong opinions about how it should work. Since we didn’t have the actual device, we had no idea how well those opinions would hold up to real world use. Now, a few months in, we’ve heard from enough people about what they like and what they don’t, and have reevaluated some of our opinions.

So, without further ado, here’s some of the big changes that are coming in The Dossier 1.1:

• Dossiers now need to be explicitly created. When you start up the app, instead of seeing empty folders for all your contacts you will only see the dossiers you’ve actually created. If you want to create a new dossier, you tap the New Dossier button at the top. This was probably the single most common request from people.
• Dossiers no longer need to be associated with a contact. When a dossier is created it doesn’t have to hook to a contact. You can create a dossier for any topic you’d like. If you do want to, you can easily associate a dossier with a single contact, and get the benefits from doing so (birthdate display, star sign, ability to view their contact info, etc), but if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. This is the second most common request.
• Photos are not longer fixed to the top right corner. People wanted to put in more photos, and they wanted to position them in other places. So, we’ve made photos first-class blocks, just like clothing sizes and notes. You can position them where you’d like, and can have as many as suits your needs.
• Search. You can now filter the dossier list using the search box in the toolbar. Another huge request.
• Speed improvements. Load time for the application is now well under a second, even with hundreds of dossiers! Load time for individual dossiers is also greatly improved.
• Stability improvements. All known crash bugs have been fixed.

We’re currently working on the finishing touches to make the update go smoothly for everyone who already has The Dossier installed. This may take a week or so, as there is a lot to keep track of. Once that’s done, we’ll submit it to Apple for approval, and will let you all know when that happens.

Thanks again for all your comments and support. It really helps keep us motivated!