storc gets a 5 star review

Finally, one of my apps gets a legitimate review. A user gave storc, the contraction timing app, 5 stars, and wrote very nice things about it. I'm very pleased. This coming just when I made the app free (though the review is from a paying customer), gives me some hope that I will see an increase in downloads.

So to that customer who wrote that nice review, thank you. I'm very happy you found the app helpful, and congratulations on the birth of your daughter.

STORC 1.1 released, now FREE!

The latest version of STORC, my Playbook app for tracking contractions (first tested almost one year ago with the birth of my son) is now live (http://bit.ly/kGNVuw). There are a couple new features including smoother scrolling for the charts, and a feedback link that should help users contact me if they have issues.

The other big change is the price. The app is now free. I didn't put in any advertisements, but I did add a notice about Cord Blood banking, including a referral link that we would benefit from if people use it. My wife and I feel very strongly that Cord Blood banking, while not for everyone due to financial constraints, is something that every expecting parent should at least be informed about.

While we're on that topic, I might as well take the opportunity  to talk about cod blood banking. At birth, the blood in a baby's umbilical cord contains stem cells. A lot of stem cells. These are the same stem cells you hear about in the news, being possible treatments for diseases that are otherwise difficult to treat. And it is not just research for the future. In a lot of cases, stem cells are already being used successfully (leukemia is the most common example). The controversies surrounding stem cell research don't really need to be considered, since the cells from the cord blood already belong to your baby. It is a chance to save stem cells perfectly matched to your child, just in case. But it truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity, as they must be collected at birth, and arrangements need to be made with the your doctor and the banking company ahead of time. The trouble is, not many expecting parents seem to know much about it, and I believe doctors are reluctant to advocate it, due to the costs. 


There are a few different companies that do cord blood banking, and there are fees for collection and for storage, so parents need to do their own research. Even those that choose not to bank, should still consider donation, since this is something that could save a life, but will just been thrown away as waste if no plan is made.

We recently learned that for us, as a mixed race couple, cord blood banking is actually even more important than we first thought. We read an article about a sick child that was desparately seeking bone marrow donors, but because of his mixed race heritage, a match was unlikely. If our son were to need such a donor, he would also have problems matching, but his cord blood could be used to treat that same disease (some form of anemia, I believe).

Anyway, those are my thoughts. If anyone is interested in contacting the company we used to bank our son's cord blood, the Cord Blood Registry, please feel free to use the referral link below (Full Disclosure: referrals will give us credit towards the banking of our son's cord blood).
http://www.cordblood.com/landing/referral?contactid=1-SSKNS4

Negative App review

I while ago, I wished for reviews for my apps, and now one of my playbook apps got its first review, and it is incredibly negative. The app, ExerTrak, is for logging workout exercises, and the customer's complaint is that the app does not allow for new types of exercises to be added. But they are mistaken. Most of my effort went into making the app flexible, and adding your own exercises is central to that goal. I find it very frustrating that the review would have you believe the core functionality is missing.

So, I will take this more of criticism of my UI design, as the customer clearly missed this functionality altogether. It's true that UI design is not something I excel at, so I'm not altogether surprised that the usability needs to improve. I'd really like to reach out to the customer to explain how to use the app, but I guess that is not how app marketplaces work. Instead, I will try to get the review retracted, and see if I can update the app in a way that makes the UI easier to understand, and perhaps add more documentation.

Ironically, this mostly negative review did compliment the app's "nice interface", though I am quite sure it is shortcomings in the interface that are truly to blame here.

Need reviews

To the (few) people who have downloaded my apps for the Playbook, please post some reviews, or send me email with feedback.

I actually had an uptick in sales over the holidays. Maybe some people got Playbooks as gifts. But I still have received no feedback, one way or the other. I really don't expect to get rich this way, but I'm hoping I can learn more about app design and development. Positive feedback could help raise the apps' profiles and bring in more users, and negative feedback would help me improve the apps.

ExerTrak 1.1 Released

Just released a new version of ExerTrak, for the BlackBerry Playbook. This one just had a few usability tweaks, including an integrated numeric keypad for entering exercise stats. Using the soft-keyboard proved to be a big pain, from the usability standpoint. You couldn't always see what field you were editing, and it always defaulted to the alpha keypad, so an extra button press was required to get to the numeric. Now entering this information with the integrated keypad is a breeze.

Next feature to work on will be to support portrait screen orientation, and get into the Nook store!

Sales are still pretty slow, but there are now some users out there. I really wish some would post reviews, or send me some feedback.

ExerTrak 1.0.1

Just pushed out the first update to the ExerTrak app for the Playbook in the Blackberry Appworld. I fixed a small bug where the Date selector lists were not scrolling properly to display the current date selected. I also updated the style of the UI. It's actually pretty amazing how much better you can make something look if you spend a little time.

So far, only one person has bought the app (hope you like it, whoever you are!), but I believe it can appeal to many users, and now with much nicer screenshots, it might see some growth soon.

Hopefully the updated screenshots get accepted. The AppWorld vendor site is not very robust when it comes to making these kinds of changes.

Still looking into a release for the Nook tablet. The Nook store seems focused on development companies, as opposed to individuals, so I'm not sure of my chances are there.

exertrak submitted

My first app attempt was a workout stat log, which I called exertrack. But it had some significant bugs that essentially made it unusable, and I felt compelled to remove it from the appworld while I fixed it. However, due to beta software that I had used, fixing it might entirely rewriting it, so I ended up starting over from scratch, and resubmitted it under the slightly new name of ExerTrak (it turns out there was already an ExerTrack out there).

It has been thoroughly tested, has quite a few new features, and of course, it actually works. I submitted it to the app world for approval today, and i'm looking forward to getting it out there. The original app, despite its flaws, actually garnered some positive feedback, and I've tried to incorporate some feature requests for the original in this new release.

So far, only released on PlayBook, but I have plans for other platforms as well. First up, Nook Color.