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Still working on Extreme Agenda 2.25(version # may change). Have also been trying to do a lot of stabilizing things to the product that I’m releasing updates with just those things and very few new features(saving those for the bigger update). We are trying to work with people that are still seeing run or speed problems so thank you for helping us out, as they appear to be tricky stuff at this point, that we can’t replicate in house. But that is our #1 priority right now is to get it working for everyone with good performance. The more customers we get the more strange fringe cases we see, but we want to clear those all up, if we can get your help to do it.

Otherwise summer and some other things have slowed us down a little bit but we are still working hard to get XA to where we want it to be features and performance wise…

Thanks

Update:

If anyone out there is still seeing a kickout problem where it is shutting off your contacts(try turning them back on with the info in our FAQ) we’d really appreciate if you’d email us and work with us on logging where your data is causing this. We have been running the program with over 2500 contacts with big images, and over 500 events in the current month, with no problems/crashes and very acceptable performance, with version 2.24. Please help if you arent getting the same results…

Thanks to all you Extreme Agenda and Extreme Calendar users. With the release of Extreme Calendar, we have really gained traction and increased the popularity of these two apps over night. We’re loving it, and its really pushing us to keep churning out these great updates with new features and fixing what few problems still remain for the thousands of users! So Thank you.

And thanks for all the great feedback and suggestions either by email, on Facebook, on Twitter, and in the iTunes Reviews. Good reviews and keeping your iTunes reviews up to date with the newest version is really appreciated! Shout outs on Twitter and ‘Likes’ are great as well. And if you are on Apps like Chomp.com, or want to check it out, we appreciate some love on those types of apps too!

So, in keeping with the our open development plans. We are still roughly sticking to the plans laid out in the last post. Version 2.20 has been submitted to Apple, which contains a couple of new features like a Default Alarm setting, adding tasks from the calendar, and Work Day Hours. It also tries to address almost all of the outstanding issues that we know about including the duplicate calendar switching problem, removing iPad orientation startup restrictions, multiday recurring event problems and a couple more little things.

Now we hope to attack Version 2.25 which will have a bunch of really neat features. If everything on the list gets in, it will basically wrap up a lot of the “Integration” features that make using Tasks, Contacts and Lists even better and more powerful in XA, and meshing them all together much better.

And then 2.5 will be the big summer project. It likely will become Version 3.0 with what all is planned. That’s when we really leave all the other Calendar and Organizer apps in the dust on iOS. It should be fun!

So keep that feedback coming and help us to push the product to be the Organizer or Calendar you want!!

Thanks again!

Update: Version 2.21 has been submitted which cleans up a bunch of known issues and adds some more loading memory optimizations, and then add Italian Localization, Event Templates, Event Calendar switching, and Tap-n-hold toolbar on week and day views. On to the next version…

We made a mistake. Well, we missed something in testing with the XA database(that doesnt show up to most people if you were running XA 2.0 first). So its our fault.

And we can’t believe that Apple missed it too! They had the application ‘in review’ for over 12 hours after a week wait. And still ok’d it with a problem that affects a ton of mostly new users.

We had this problem debugged, an update submitted(and request to be expedited) all in the same morning it was released. And a simple workaround in place to fix the problem for people experiencing it.

But we don’t feel that is really good enough…and we’re sorry.

1. We can’t update fixes fast enough.

In the older Windows Mobile days we could have had a fixed app out in a matter of minutes after we fixed it, and saved hundreds of people from ever even having the chance of seeing the problem. There was just another level of trust there that Apple doesnt allow.

Why isn’t there a way that developer’s can get ‘trusted’ status from Apple. So if they have a minor update, they can go through a quick review channel. That way the fix is out there right away…

The quick channel right now is the developer finding an obscure form in Apple’s help system to basically beg for an expedited review, and then get a scolding “we don’t want this taken advantage of” letter back with a yes or no on whether they’ll do it quicker. This usually comes after a day or two. If they do agree, well then you’ll see the review start maybe a day after that.. So 3-4 days instead of 7-8+.

I know there are a lot of apps, and a lot of junk, so they are having to police. But what exactly did they do to review my app, if they didn’t catch what is essentially it not starting at all on some hardware if its a fresh install…

And I would think it would be somewhat obvious to Apple who is a more trusted developer, and who is turning out daily rss feeder or fart sound apps… Charge us a little more, and/or put it out there that if you do anything malicious you are kicked out of trusted status, and/or the AppStore. I know that a reviewer should be able to review a bug fix app(send it to the same tester that did the full review),and have them run through the whole thing covering all the screens of most apps in less than 10 minutes..

2. And then when a problem like this comes up, people think reviews are the way to get tech support.

Why is this bad?

Well, there is no way to get rid of them once its fixed. And about half the people don’t go back and change their review after it is… Go look at Extreme Agenda’s reviews right now. Some were nice enough to change their review, and some weren’t. But what is funny about that is if you actually read the product description. One of the first things I say is, ‘hey, if you have this problem email me and i’ll get it fixed’. And then towards the bottom I ask you not to use the reviews for tech support. In most cases(this not being one of them), I will not notice your problem review for weeks or months. Developers aren’t notified of new reviews, and have no way of contacting you once we do see the review, to see if we can help you fix it or get more information. Its just not a good idea, except to let your temper out, for getting tech support!

You aren’t really “showing this evil developer who purposely gave you a broken product”. Its amazing how many people think that if an app is broken for them, it doesn’t work for anyone and this app is obviously some kind of scam… What perpetuates that is we also have no control over refunds. Id give you a refund in a heartbeat if you are one of those people that can’t or won’t use tech support and try to spend a couple minutes resolving an issue. I know the AppStore and low prices promotes instant gratification, and I’m fine with that…

I had a fix for this done yesterday, but some people will still be seeing the problem after a week, and that part isn’t my fault.

So give us developer’s the benefit of the doubt at least initially if the app is not working correctly. There are a lot of factors, and a lot of different hardware and configurations that we can miss things or not be able to test for everything… and a good developer will help you resolve the problem as quick as they can.

And we are handcuffed by some of Apple’s systems, some that should be fixed up…

Thanks

We are almost done with XA 2.1 now.. It turns out there is a bug that a VERY few people are experiencing that we think we may have an answer for, that we want to push out. But we also had a target date of the first of April for a 2.1 submission, so I think we are going to finish off about 3 features, do testing, and then submit.

It basically means we are going to push a couple features back to 2.2 that were originally planned to make it in. Like getting contact grouping in there and acting like categories, for filtering and icons and… We have the code half in there but there is just too many ways this branches to get it done this week with the other things still on the table.

What did make it already:

1. Universal Support – Basically all done with the basic iPad update mentioned before.
2. Calendar Text – Yep, that’s done too. You can either have the main calendar use icons and time bars or show small text of the events now.
3. Mini Calendars day numbers will be color coded, red means a task on this day, or green if events exist on this day.
4. Time Bars on Days. All day views have the option to show the time bar in its title bar or in its own list cell. That includes week view days , and the mini month preview day.
5. Today Color – Another setting to change the grayish color that depicted today on the day background or calendar.
6. Hide Big Event Icons – The huge icon at the beginning of an event in a day list can be hidden now, and it will appear in the right icons at the smaller size now if this is turned on. No more big Calendar icon if you don’t use icons for all your events.
7. You’ll notice we’ve improved the drawing of the time bars as well.
8. Several other bug fixes and cosmetic and UI enhancements

What we still hope to get in there:
1. We are close to having category coloring setup, so you can associate colors with categories and then use these for the color coding in the time bars. Really hoping to add calendar coloring as a choice too.
2. Icon badges. We hope to put at least a couple of the planned choices in for the icon badge count.(Tasks OverDue.. events today.. etc)
3. ‘Last View” start on option choice.

We don’t think this is too bad a list for a .x update release. I know I’ve seen less… I hope you are looking forward to this and many other upcoming enhancements and are helping us spread the word on Extreme Agenda.

Thanks

Update: Its Submitted. Got a bonus feature in too…