Agendus for iPhone development status update

[adriano]

Hi,

just wanted to provide a quick update as of where we are with Agendus for iPhone, and what to expect in the coming weeks:

- We are in the finishing touches phases, tweaking up functionality, prettying up ui, tying in icons, etc.

- Is it going to be available mid May? Possible, but not 100% guaranteed.

- Features-wise, version 1.0 will include:

. Today view with upcoming tasks, weather forecast, and other over-the-air functionality
. Contact View Compact (showing main phone number, or email if the phone number is not present)
. Contact View Expanded (showing phone numbers and emails)
. Task List View

- Supporting what above, it will include functionality such as:

. Task and Contact cards / edit dialogs
. Item coloring support
. Pictures on contacts
. Contact linking
. Assorted Preferences (which also integrate in the iPhone main prefs) .
. Quick dialing / emailing / sms
. Various others to further integrate Tasks, Contacts, and related views (full rundown as we get closer to release)

- Price: currently being determined. Chances are we'll start with a special early adopter intro price, extremely appealing.

Questions / feedback / etc. as always welcome.

- Adriano

[mokeiko]

Hi Adriano,

Looking forward to using this application with my iPhone 3G (brings back fond memories of my Treo650 days). Thank you for the update.

mokeiko

[witlin]

I don't know if that's just a coincidence, or just a really fast reaction to my posting, but Adriano, your timing is flawless and this kind of informing the people that still want to give you guys money is definitely a step in the right direction :-)
That's basically what I wanted to know, minus a few things like
a) a screenshot,
b) details on the sync and business compatibility
c) standalone app anybody ?!?

Now, I would appreciate it if you could please find the time to finally respond to my questions in the following thread:
http://support.iambic.com/forum/show...t=34428&page=4
Posting No45 http://support.iambic.com/forum/show...6&postcount=45
and
Posting No48 http://support.iambic.com/forum/show...4&postcount=49

Thanks!

[pdadds]

Thanks for the update Adriano. Those of us who have been with you and Iambic for what seems like forever know that you want to release a really good functional product as soon as it's available. Looking forward to this new addition to the Agendus family.

[adriano]

Hi All,

first off -- thank you for your supportive comments. We truly appreciate them.

I'll try to answer the questions that came up so far (witlin -- sorry if I'm missing some of your questions from other threads... if what below doesn't address your comments, mind creating a new thread with the specifics? Some of the Agendus iPhone related threads are 100s of replies long and it becomes tricky to spot what has been reply to and what not).

- screenshot(s): coming up as soon as we got the correct icons in place. Videos coming up as well.

- sync: well there really is no sync. Agendus directly accesses the native contacts. In regards to tasks, there is no task app on the iPhone at the moment, so we developed what we think is a good approach to task management. Task data is not synced with any online service. This might get in as part of a follow-up update, or might just be that Apple will include a native task app, and we'll switch to use its storage.

- calendar: no one brought that up interestingly enough so I'm going to address this before hand. In V 1.0 Agendus simply doesn't have Calendar. Because sadly enough Apple doesn't offer APIs to access the native calendar. Unless one jailbreaks the phone (the iPhone native dbs are all in SQLite format, so no problem getting to them... once the phone is jailbroken)... but we didn't want to go that route. Implementing our own calendar and syncing with something out there? I guess. I don't like the idea though, and given the timeframe we are shooting for, we figured for the moment let's leave calendar out and take some more time to ponder options.

- business compatibility: not sure what would be a requirement for business compatibility which would require something specific added to Agendus.

- standalone app: the Agendus philosophy has always been to directly access the native storages. So no standalone app, at least for now.

Keep the feedback coming!

- Adriano

[lolongan]

Originally Posted by adriano

Keep the feedback coming!

I admit that I understand better now why you don't want to show the baby before it's born. I'm sorry so say that but I am hugely disappointed by your latest update.

1. No calendar feature: I used to use Agendus from the very beginning, when it was named "Action Name", until recently when I abandon Palm to switch to iPhone. I don't think that I, and a lot of users out here, are expecting that Agendus, even in v1.0 release, is just another Todo app combined with "Contact" feature. During all the long years that I have used Agendus, the only "Contact" integration features that I have used and found useful are i) to be able to add link to contact in an appointment and ii) to have a kind of journal of appointments related to a particular contact. But if I don't have calendar, I don't really bother to have "contact" integration. To do what ? "Calendar" was present in "Action Name" from the day 1 and everything else was built around it. It's a really strange product roadmap to consider "calendar" as a secondary feature to be added "one day as part of ongoing updates".

2. No sync feature: even as a mere Todo app, without any sync feature, Agendus is just a toy, not a professionnal tool. Unless it has some "backup" feature that you forget to mention ? Otherwise, I will never afford to enter my tasks/projects/actions... into it, knowing that I can loose my data anytime without having the possibility to restore them. Furthermore, I do not always have my iPhone with me. So the ability to access my tasks from other devices (a Blackberry, a PC, a Mac,...) is an absolute need. Currently on the Appstore, all bestseller Todo apps have sync feature. How could you think that this feature is not important to the point that you will release Agendus without it, even in v1.0 ? Unless your strategy is to rush-out an unfinished product to occupy the market, with an agressive pricing to lure in customers ?

The baby looks ugly. I sincerily hope it will become more presentable when it will have time to grow up...

[adriano]

I'm sorry so say that but I am hugely disappointed by your latest update

how come I'm not surprised? These are the moments I love the most.

Moving right along, since you've been a user of Agendus for such a long time, I'm sure you're familiar with our "one step at a time" approach to developing products.

What I described in the first post is version 1.0. Sync with online services will appear one day as part of ongoing updates. Same applies to calendar support, and we have a few ideas as of how to tie in the native calendars without going for the "standalone calendar" approach. We are already planning for icons, possibly with the possibility of purchasing new sets right from within Agendus using the new API Apple added to OS 3.0.

Thank you for your understanding and your candid feedback.

- Adriano

[HerveB]

Originally Posted by lolongan

..I am hugely disappointed by your latest update.
1. No calendar feature: ... I don't think that I, and a lot of users out here, are expecting that Agendus, even in v1.0 release, is just another Todo app combined with "Contact" feature. ...
2. No sync feature: ... Agendus is just a toy, not a professionnal tool. ...How could you think that this feature is secondary to the point that you will release Agendus without it ?

I am also a long date user of Agendus / Action Name... and I agree with that.
I was expecting a calendar with contacts and todos, not something that I already have.

Originally Posted by adriano

...I'm sure you're familiar with our "one step at a time" approach to developing products.
... Sync with online services will appear one day ...
...Same applies to calendar support, and we have a few ideas as of how to tie in the native calendars without going for the "standalone calendar" approach...
...using the new API Apple added to OS 3.0.

Well... the one-step-at-a-time is acceptable when you enhance a product. Here you have customers / users of a full product on one platform who are just waiting the same on a new one: for me, it is no longer the time of "one-step-at-a-time"!
Not necessarily all features available in the latest Agendus for Palm version to be on iPhone, but at least all the basics: I would have accepted to go back to a early version of Agendus with the 1.0 on iPhone, but again with calendar+contacts+todos.

You decided not to implement a calendar database. It could have been a decision for v1.0 that you would have changed as soon as the API be available.
It looks like your product strategy is based on architectural principles, instead of customer needs: your choice, clearly not my expectation.

You decided not to synch with external service, as others do; you even decided not to "wifi-sync" with the Agendus for Windows: your choice as well, ...

[adriano]

It looks like your product strategy is based on architectural principles, instead of customer needs: your choice, clearly not my expectation.

Our choice is based on many more factors. Architectural limitations / principles one of them, but not the most prominent.

At any rate -- I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to discuss and better understand yours as well as the other users' expectations and shape the product so to meet and exceed them.

- Adriano

[HerveB]

Originally Posted by adriano

Our choice is based on many more factors.

No doubt about it

Originally Posted by adriano

I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to discuss and better understand yours as well as the other users' expectations and shape the product so to meet and exceed them.

We can discuss, yes. But I need it now, not later.
I came to Agendus from the standard PalmOS applications, a long time ago: I gain real benefit to do that move. Now moving from PalmOS to iPhone, I already invested some money and time to look around and test other products. As I said in an other post, I found an acceptable "way of working" with them. Why coming back to Agendus? When?

[lolongan]

Originally Posted by adriano

At any rate -- I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to discuss and better understand yours as well as the other users' expectations and shape the product so to meet and exceed them.
- Adriano

Well, knowing the reluctance Iambic shows in communicating with their (potential) customers, compared to what I experience with WebIS (PI) and also with LCL (SmartTime+), I'm afraid it will take a long, long way for Agendus to meet and exceed user's expectations.

Originally Posted by HerveB

We can discuss, yes. But I need it now, not later.
I came to Agendus from the standard PalmOS applications, a long time ago: I gain real benefit to do that move. Now moving from PalmOS to iPhone, I already invested some money and time to look around and test other products. As I said in an other post, I found an acceptable "way of working" with them. Why coming back to Agendus? When?

Agree. And you can also be sure that it is easier and more rapid to add "Contact" integration to a Calendar+ToDo app than to add "Calendar" to a Contac+ToDo app. It looks like Agendus is starting the race (well, should I say "will start the race may be in 2 weeks") with a big handicap.

Don't take me wrong. I love(d) the product (Agendus on Palm). If not, I won't bother coming here to discuss.

[Ronald NL]

AGENDUS without a calendar function...



oh well, what's in a name???

Some other ideas:

• Triptracker without numbers
• Your Call, but leave out the telephone function
• Sales Warrier, but no possibility to add sales

Sorry to say but coming with this message after promissing a release date several times before to come with AGENDUS for IPhone....

[adriano]

I think I mentioned already, but here's again:

1. It is currently not possible for a 3rd party app to access the iPhone calendar through Apple's APIs. And I'm sure you all very well know this, since WebIS probably went on explaining a number of times the same topic.

2. One possible workaround is for Agendus to keep its own calendar, separate and unrelated from the native one, and get data into it through synchronization with some online service (for example Google Calendar, like PocketInformant does). We are just not a fan of such solution -- why? because whatever else you set your iphone to sync with (itunes on the desktop, some other service supporting exchange active sync, such as mobileme, google iphone sync, etc.) this "whatever else" will use the iPhone's native calendar, and you'll end up with two different calendars, possibly showing different schedules, alerting you on their own pace, etc.

3. Given resource constrains, regardless from what sort of approach we'll go for in order to get a calendar into Agendus, that will require another good couple+ months of development. And we just don't want to have you wait for much longer before having the chance to "play" with our new toy for the iPhone.

Thanks for reading, now you can go on bashing -- we like that

- Adriano

[lolongan]

You don't want to develop Agendus' own calendar, it's your choice.
What I regret is that until yesterday you deliberately let people think that they will get a calendar. How many times have I seen in this forum questions from users about calendars, sync options and so on. Each time, no answer from you guys. Even your announcement at the beginning of this thread was misleading (intentionnally I assume): you wrote about "Today view", "Item coloring support",... all features that are usually associated with calendars, without mentionning anywhere that calendar is not available. Sure it's not a lie, it's lying by omission. But the effect it has on people is just the same.

[HerveB]

Well... no bashing, its useless

Personnaly, I would have been satisfied with a "simple" version 1 which does not include all the features of the latest versions of Agendus Palm, but integrates agenga+contact+todos and sync's with my pc. For instance, I could easily manage not having templates, documents linked to items, all nice icons, ... and so on. All of that would have come in an other version.

This has not been your choice.
We never have all what we want: it's life.