Groceries 2.0

I‘m very pleased to announce that Groceries 2.0 is now available! There‘s a lot of improvements and fixes in this version, however the biggest enhancement in this release is the ability share shopping lists over standard email. Aisles and units are now more customizable, and it‘s even possible to define own supermarket layouts for each shopping list.

Groceries

The Groceries 2.0 update is available directly from the App Store, and also (what a coincidence!) on sale for 99¢. This is a limited time offer, and no, the app won‘t get cheaper than this.

Mea Culpa
Sadly some users experienced a rather rough start into the new update. The app would just crash on launch when upgrading directly from version 1.0. Bugs like these are of course super annoying and are such a support hell for me. Have my word that I try even hard to detect such errors from now on.

However, you‘re not totally lost if you‘re experience this crash. Currently there are two options to choose from:

First there is the quick and dirty solution by deleting Groceries from your iPhone and downloading it again from the App Store. Apple won‘t charge you a second time. However, going this route will delete all your customized groceries and shopping list items. So think twice!

The second solution is to simply have patience. The updated version 2.0.1 is now in review by Apple and will surely be available by the week starting on monday. I know, waiting totally sucks but it‘s frankly the best solution with the given infrastructure.

Dankeschön!
I like to send out a big thank you to all the great artist who worked on Groceries so far. These are namely, and in alphabetical order: Emanuel Sá, Joseph Wain, Laurent Baumann, Louie Mantia, Sebastiaan de With and Wolfgang Bartelme.

Also a big thanks goes out to Buzz Anderson for making this super sweet progress indicator view that you‘ll see when importing a shopping list through mail.

I‘d also like to thank all of my testers, especially Alex, Maxie, Volker, Danny, David, Matt and the workers of The Iconfactory for giving me the kind of feedback that helped me to make the app stand out.

Tipulator 2.2

The new version 2.2 of Tipulator is now available through out the App Store.

New in this version is a fun shake feature to quickly erase the check amount for starting over.

More information about Tipulator can be found on the product page, or directly
on the App Store.

Groceries 1.0

I’m proud to announce the immediate release of Groceries for the iPhone and iPod touch.

There’s nothing worse than getting home from the grocery store and suddenly realizing you forgot something you needed. For those of us who aren’t accustomed to making lists, it happens frequently. Paper and pen are so passé, though. Groceries aims to remedy the problem by easily allowing users to make grocery lists using a huge database of name brand and generic products.

More information about Groceries can be found on the product page, or directly
on the App Store.

Happy Birthday CoverSutra!

It‘s surprising how fast time runs by. Today CoverSutra already turns two years old. I can still clearly remember the evening when I prepared version 1.0 for the public release. Believe me, it was an absolutely horrible day for me, not knowing if CoverSutra‘s sales will allow me to stay independent or not and, more importantly, if the Mac crowd would accept CoverSutra. A certain french artist even described it as „suffering a stressed german girl“. Well, well …

Now to the less boring part of the post: CoverSutra 2.1.6 is available now and should fix quite some smaller bugs and odds. Head over to the product page to download the update, or use the Build-in software update if you‘re already running CoverSutra.

But what would be a birthday without presents? So just for today CoverSutra is available for free! Go to the Store to get one of the cheapest CoverSutra serial numbers ever! Yeah I know, you could also use a pirated serial, but that‘s bad for your Karma, right?

Update: The birthday party is over, we’re resuming to regular pricing ;-).

Baby got home

I’m happy to announce that the sale for Where To?, the points of interests application for the iPhone, is finally complete.

Where To? was once a product of tap tap tap, but due to some conflicts the company got split up and the iPhone app was offered for sale.

It took quite some time from the initial sale announcement back in october to today’s finalizing of the deal. However, I’m glad that Where To finally found a new home, one that I feel confident that it’s the right one.

So as of today, Where To? is officially available from FutureTap, a new iPhone development company founded by Ortwin Gentz. Ortwin isn’t new to the Mac scene and is probably best known for co-founding equinux in 1999. equinux in turn is surely well known for it’s quality Mac application iSale. It’s worth noting that iSale won not one, but two Apple Design Awards. Believe me, it’s a good feeling to hand over your baby to a Design Award winner…

That’s maybe the best thing about the whole sale. The application doesn’t just go to someone with interest in iPhone apps, or even to some investor digging for the Cupertino gold rush. It goes to an indie developer with equal ideas and an equal mindset.

You can read more about this sale, and about Ortwin’s experience about „How to purchase an iPhone app“ at the FutureTap blog.

Also I’m very happy to be involved in the future of Where To. I’ll support him during the transition phase with ideas and coding help. All in all this should help to bring Where To? back on track and hopefully back in the App Store charts. Keep in mind: The best features are the ones yet to come.

Refresh’d

Alright boys and girls, it‘s time for a long overdue refresh of the Sophiestication Software website. Though I have to admit that the changes in design are rather minimal. There‘s nothing groundbreaking, just the plain old blue panel design…

… sigh … I love it!

In case you already wondered why I put this shampoo ad on top of the site: It‘s the new Sophiestication Software Logo! It does indeed look like ripped straight from a shampoo or perfume bottle. And who knows, maybe one day I‘ll sell my own home made body lotion through this site. But for now the logo should represent who‘s responsible for all this stuff here: me!

But to be fair, I like to thank Wolfgang Bartelme for creating all of the quality artwork that you can find in all Sophiestication products today. This does not include of course the crappy strange locking graphics that I probably made by myself :-P.

Also now finally available is the new Web store to purchase CoverSutra. Instead of using PayPal as a payment processor, I now rely on eSellerate for all of my store orders. This allows customers to purchase a license without the hassle of creating a PayPal account. Those who prefer PayPal shouldn‘t worry, it‘s still an alternative payment option.

So to celebrate the new website, and my birthday tomorrow ;-), I thought it would be nice to have something special here. I have to admit that I wasn‘t able to release a certain iPhone application for today. So instead I cut down the price for CoverSutra from about $19 US down to $10,95 US.

There are also two new discounted packs available: The family pack for up to five users and the big 10 pack. All three items are available for a discount price and, of course, only for a short period of time.