Let me start with the good news: as of this week, I am using iBank Mobile for my personal finances.
At this stage I would consider it an internal alpha. Some of iBank Mobile’s features aren’t complete, and we’re flushing out some bugs, but I am using it. Developers would call this eating your own dog food, and it does have that dog food aftertaste. But using it every day it really helps me get a sense of what needs to be polished and what is working well.
So now for some bad news. If you read my last post, it sounded pretty positive about our progress. But just a few days after I wrote that, we hit a memory wall for syncing transactions. Not a wall made of hay, or sticks, but a reinforced brick wall, and it stopped all development until we got around it. Then I had to go back and rework some of the guts of the sync engine. This was a non-trivial task, so now I am behind where I would like to be (maybe by weeks, but not months). I know many of you are eager to use iBank Mobile for your own finances, because we’ve received a lot of requests to help us beta test. I’m really sorry that you might have to wait just a little longer.
Finally for the ugly news. In this blog we have talked about what features *will* be in iBank Mobile. Now it is time for me to say what *won’t* be there for 1.0 – it’s time to just pull the Band-aid off. For this release, we will not have support for your stock portfolio on the iPhone; the other big feature that we won’t have is budgeting. While you’ll be able to see money spent by categories, you won’t have all of the budgeting capabilities that iBank 3 currently supports. These are features that I’d want in a mobile app, and so I imagine many of you do as well. However, we felt it was better to get the core functionality right and into the hands of users to get feedback, and to add more features later. There’s already a lot of great capability in iBank Mobile for keeping track of your finances on the go. But for those of you who were hoping for the abovementioned, I wanted to let you know up front that they will not be in 1.0, though they are on my radar.
As always, thanks for your feedback on how to make this a great mobile app.
Thanks,
James
- Direct Access 2 and Open Banking Support in the UK and EU - February 17, 2021
- A chunk of sync update - June 27, 2014
- 2013 In Review - December 17, 2013
Well, it’s better knowing what to expect. Thanks for the update.
As always thanks for the update. It’s great to here that it’s in use and you have been able to get around the walls that have popped up in the way. Not sure if I mentioned before or not but you have another eager bata tester here. Looking forward to the next update.
Thank you for all your work. I can’t wait for a solid mobile banking app for my iPhone.
Thanks for the update, even given the unfortunate news. And in all honesty, having the full gambit of features in V1.0 is hardly to be expected. Good luck with the rest of the work and I’m eagerly looking forward to the release!
I, for one, can say that portfolio and budgeting isn’t important to me in a mobile app. I just want to be able to enter transactions and maybe search a month or so of history. Also, the ability to use two iPhones with one iBank account.
Thanks for your hard work and keep the updates coming. I am anxiously awaiting this product but it is nice to know that progress is being made.
I can’t wait to get it in my hands. The additional features are a nice add on, but most of us just want to be able to record our transactions on-the-fly and know what are balance is a.t.m.
I will be ecstatic with a solid program that does that and syncs to my mac without a hitch.
Thanks
KJ
Personally I think that less is more in this case. The beauty of iPhone applications is the ability to keep things simple and avoid over complication. So, core functionality gets my vote. If you must, do the other stuff as well later but not t the expense of the core elements.
I would like to add my voice to the general support for a speedier release of a less functional app. Let’s get the essentials in the hands of us users and then go about adding the budgeting and the portfolio (if wanted, I’m not carzy about wither).
Go James, go. Let’s get this baby out there.
I’m really looking forward to this app since I like to track where my cash goes when I’m out. Question – Is there a way to subscribe to the blog as a whole instead of just the comments?
Bravo Zulu on iBank. First impressions are favorable coming from gnucash.
I look to ibank mobile to solve the stealth merchant problem. Here in Newport many merchants, even national chains, list by address. Often this address is different than the shop address. The single most important ibank feature for me is easy point of sale transaction entry. Even without net access. It would be cool to have a combo entry gadget for merchant.
Anything beyond is gravy.
I’m looking forward to your product release. If you need a Beta tester let me know.
James, we need an update… It’s been over a week since your last post, how’s it going? Are you getting close to a real release? I’d like to add a vote for basic functionality. All kinds of bells & whistles would be fine but a large number of us simply want a way to sync with our desktop accounts to our iPhones without having to access via web. Thanks for all of your efforts!
I would also like to put my vote in for simplicity. Maybe even two versions one that simply allows you to add transactions, see account totals, and sync with our desktop to do the rest. Then another with all the fun stuff. Just a thought.
I’ll toss a vote in for keeping in simple. I’m looking for something where I can input a debit card transaction when I buy lunch at Panera and have it sync to my mac when I get home. Something similar to “Things” – I don’t need reports on my iphone in the first version.
Curious where things are at in the process as well.
James,
Any word????????
I could use an update too. How goes it? Can’t wait to see it.
Wouldn’t be a bad thing if iBank Mobile was sort of like iXpenseIt. I love the UI, and it has quite a few features. I like the looks of the budget, report and home screens.
http://www.fyimobileware.com/
A huge vote for simply being able to enter transactions and sync two users with one iBank account! Man, I really appreciate you doing this. I’ve constantly scoured the web and app store for ANYTHING that would make this possible without having to get on the internet while standing in line at the cashier’s.
PS. . . I’m STILL available for beta testing!
I’d really like to see another status update. I’ve been checking this site since before IGG even started working on the native iPhone app, and I’m getting a little antsy… Actually, it’s more the fact that you’re loosing my attention.
Any update on the status of this? I know it has been delayed, but is there an approx. ETA?