I am very happy to announce that this morning we submitted iBank Mobile to the App Store. I want to thank all of the people that helped make this possible, and especially to everyone who volunteered to be a beta tester. Your input made this a solid product.

We have also been testing iBank 3.5 in the private beta and today we are making it a public beta.  You can check it out from the iBank website http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank.  Remeber this is a beta version and it is not backward compatible with iBank 3.4.2 so please BACKUP your data file BEFORE checking it out.

There have been some questions that have come up since the last post that I will try to answer.

What will it cost?
We have set the price at $4.99. We think this is a good price for a high quality productivity app.

What iPhone/iPod Touch OS version do I need?
iBank Mobile should run on any iPhone or iPod Touch running OS 2.2.1. iBank Mobile will run on the upcoming iPhone 3.0 OS but is not required.

Will iBank Mobile use any iPhone OS 3.0 features?
iBank Mobile will not take advantage of any iPhone OS 3.0 features for this release. iPhone OS 3.0 was announced by Apple well into the development of iBank Mobile. We did want to make sure that we were compatible with it, but we did not want to adjust our schedule to add more features. We wanted to get it in your hands so that you can tell us what you want next.

How long will it take to get approved by the App Store?
We don’t know. But we hope to have iBank Mobile available to everyone before the end of the month, and we’ll be sure to have iBank 3.5 readied for release by the time iBank Mobile is out.

Again I want to say thank you to everyone who asked questions, gave comments, and helped in the beta. It has been a longer journey then I would have liked but I am really happy with the results.

Thanks,
James

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34 comments on “Stick a fork in it…

  • Great news! Eagerly awaiting when it is approved….

    Maybe once approval is given, an email to all Ibank users could go out letting us know of approval and availability – then, we won’t have to be glued searching for it.

    Thanks again!

  • Great news!
    Can’t wait to get it!
    The price tag is really fair for me.

    Thanks for the update.

    A post on this blog once the app is approved would be nice too.

  • Disappointed that the iPhone app is not a free app. License fees are already paid with iBank. Greedy sods. After waiting for years for iBank to be actually usable, much less a first-class piece of software, now I have to pay or the iPhone app also? Gee, back to QuickenOnline.

  • ff1959 lets see…..
    iBank for Mac 59.99, 60 bucks for an application as solid as that is well a steal. If you think about all the man hours they put into that everyday, the employees they pay, and the website they run 60 bucks is a deal.

    and as far as iBank Mobile lets see 4.99 is also a major steal, You have $99 iPhone developer fee, and all the man hours they pulled. and from the screen shots of this application it seems just as good as quicken online and cha-ching combined.

    I have been a iBank follower for a long time and I feel that it has been very usable… Enjoy your featureless, half thought put together QuickenOnline!

  • I am extremely happy about this. Quicken online mobile sucks. I love quicken but just recently started using ibank. Not disappointed, its cool, but ibank mobile is going to make me love this ibank 3 better.

  • This is terrific news! Can’t wait to snag my copy — $4.99 is more than reasonable for an application like this. To request that IGG receives no compensation for the past few months hard work doesn’t make much sense, and if you’re not willing to provide $5 for an application you’ll probably be using at least once a day, you’re the one being greedy.

  • Could you please give us a bunch of scean shots to help with the wait?
    Thanks for your work and for the fair price!

  • Not to be a pooper, but I don’t get it. What do people plan on using the mobile app for? What’s the advantage to being mobile for personal accounting? Are people really entering in the purchases as they make them throughout the day? Isn’t that why you download transactions from the bank? Sure, that doesn’t work for cash, but do people REALLY enter in all their cash transactions? Other than entering transactions, the only thing you can do is check balances. What’s the point?

    It’s an honest question… why are people so excited about the mobile app? Especially when there seems to be so much room for improvement in the main application? (Such as more flexible reporting, tags/classes, better UI, better performance.)

  • I just emailed them and asked them if they could and they responded with a link the already posted screen shots and they said keep checking the blog!

  • What? Not for free?

    ff1959 is right- everything should be for free because otherwise we have to pay for it.
    Companies should bankrupt themselves in the pursuit of satisfying our unreasonable solipsistic demands! For no fee!

    Seriously, I’m looking forward to it, and am happy to pay to make my life that little bit easier.

    Anyone who doesn’t think they should have to pay can come and clean my house for free!

  • @ bmrosen
    I enter my transactions manually and then reconcile by downloading from the bank. This ensures that I am considering transactions (like gas pay-at-pump) that don’t post right away. The ability to enter on my phone would allow me to punch in my transactions quickly as I make them or when I have a couple of free minutes and free me from having to sit at my desk at home and do it when I could be doing better things.

    It isn’t the most exciting thing but I am looking forward to the capability, especially for under $5.

  • I use my iPod Touch to keep track of expenses when I’m out of town. I’ve been using QuickBank and exporting it to Quicken 2007 for Mac. I’m looking forward to using iBank. I’ll probably purchase it even though it won’t calculate loan payments for existing loans unless you have your entire history of payments. It seems well worth the $60 plus $5 for the app. C’mon, don’t be so stingy out there. IGG is a business. At least they’re supporting their product, and it seems to be a great one. Waiting for Quicken to get on the ball is about as much fun as a visit to the dentist. (No offense intended to any dentists out there).

  • Wow, this is starting to look like the Cha-Ching approval. Apple says it takes them 2-3 days for most apps but this is the 2nd financial syncing app that has taken way longer than projected for approval. Here’s to hopin’ this weekend changes that. (BTW we bombarded apple w/ emails and that seemed to help)

  • The suspense is KILLING me! I can’t wait! OS 3.0 and iBank Mobile released on the same day… Now that would be a day to remember!

  • Might I suggest a .99 sale for the first couple days it is in the store?

    This would give the loyal fans that follow your blog a chance to grab it, get talking about it, and push your ranking up more quickly in the store… also helping your customers to feel warm and fuzzy about the new app.

  • Can we get a clear answer to the point that Gazza and Nico raised – will it be available worldwide (specifically in the UK)? or is this just for the US.

    Having waited soooo long for this app it is almost too painful to consider that I might not be able to get my hands on it.

  • @bmrosen
    Yes, I was hoping that the budgets would make the initial release for the mobile version. I don’t plan to enter transactions as I make them, but it would be really nice to be able to see my current spending as it pertains to my monthly budget before making a purchase. In any case, I will buy it when it comes out to support a later release that hopefully has what I want.

  • No news on the approval process?
    Can’t wait to give it the “hands on” treatment.
    @Fountainhead : I wrote to IGG and their answer was: Available wrldwide, but only in english for the moment.

  • Budgets is a key feature for me as well, actually its the main reason why I want a mobile version on my iphone, I will not be adding transactions on the go except for maybe the odd one that involves splits. I still plan on buying the app when it comes out though but will definitely push for a budget feature on one of the next updates!

  • Anxious as well. Keep checking the Application Store search and the same two results (sound familiar). I’ve been using the current iPhone/Touch solution and it works alright but it sure would be nice to have something a little more powerful.

  • I’m sorry to be a negative nancy, but I really wish you guys would focus on long-standing bugs/quirks that have been in iBank for a good year now. For instance, when starting a new transaction, if I change my mind and hit cancel, it leaves a dead transaction sitting there that I have to manually delete. Come on, guys. That can’t be too hard to fix, right?

    And I keep asking for an option in preferences to let us specify how many days a downloaded transaction’s date can differ from the date of the transaction you’ve entered before it matches the two up. Sometimes it takes 7 days for a charge to post, and iBank won’t match them up. We should be able to specify this date tolerance ourselves.

  • great app! looking forward to the iphone app. will you email registered users of ibank when it’s approved and available? i am ready to buy!

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