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!

The Dossier 1.0.5 Submitted!

We’ve submitted an update to The Dossier to Apple for approval, so hopefully it’ll be available Tuesday or Wednesday. We didn’t get everything we’d hoped to into this release, but we’re hard at work on the next version already. Here’s what’s been done:

• Improved integration with the address book. We now get the photo and birthdate from the contact record, as well as let you tap the person’s name to view their contact information. You can even tap on an email address or web page, and it’ll send an email or view their website accordingly.
• Photo zooming and positioning. You can now use a slider to zoom in on the dossier photo, as well as position it with your finger, so you can focus in on one face from a group photo.
• Cached tweets. If you’re not connected to the internet, you can still see tweets from the last time you viewed the dossier.
• Improved moving. No more false starts when moving blocks around the screen.
• Saved state. When you enter The Dossier it’ll return you to where you were previously. This is expecially great when you make use of the contact actions mentioned above.
• Improved stability. We were using ridiculous amounts of memory, and the iPad wasn’t having any of it. We’re now well within the limits, with fewer memory spikes and therefore fewer crashes.
• Bug fix. The Done button was sometimes hidden behind the keyboard when editing notes.
• General speed improvements. This is especially noticeable when dealing with large numbers of dossiers.

We still feel that searching and an index are extremely important improvements, and we’re working on them for the next update, as well as a few other nice things (like the gift block).

Thanks to everyone who has purchased The Dossier, as well as all the kind words from people. It’s really kept us going these last two weeks!

Headway!

We’re about a day away from sending our first update to The Dossier out to Apple for approval. There are a lot of behind the scenes changes that have been made to make The Dossier more memory friendly and feel better on the iPad. Additionally, we’ve moved to address the major requests people have made:

• Search. Yep, that was an oversight that is being remedied. 
• Caching Tweets. Now, even when you can’t connect to Twitter, you’ll have the tweet from the previous fetch.
• Photo zooming and positioning. Similar to Keynote, you can zoom pictures in and position them on the face of the person you’d like.
• Pulling the photo and birthdate from the contact if they already have one set.
• Done button on Notes occasionally gets hidden. That’s been fixed now.
• Displaying information from the contact right in their dossier.

We’ve also got a few things planned for the next update as well, including:

• Multiple photos
• Making the photo block movable
• Adding additional blocks (gifts for sure, others perhaps!)
• Viewing contact groups
• … and a few surprises.

We’re listening to what you’ve got to say, and would love to hear from you if you’ve got any suggestions, comments or just want to say hi. What’s your pet feature request?