Act I: It is done
When we first launched iBank for iPad we were pretty excited. Some of us had been working on it for nearly two years. We used the product ourselves and thought Direct Access, the app’s exclusive new service for automated downloads, was great – especially since it supported WAY more banks than our older OFX system. We loved the app – our new baby – and on the day it went live we were all at the edge of our seats. It soon became clear that something was not right…

Act II: Uh, what?
The app met some enthusiasm out of the box, but reviews like “Nice, but buggy,” “Unusable in current form” and “Crash” also began to appear. We quickly fixed a few issues and this became 1.0.1. Now for this whole time the app was working great for us, so what was going on? We had just one crash report from iTunes (and fixed the issue in 1.0.1). But based on the feedback we should have had a lot more. It was frustrating and disheartening to know that there was a problem only we could fix… and not to know where it was. Slowly a picture started to emerge. People who were having problems were all running iOS 6 beta and/or were syncing from iBank for Mac. We found and fixed the iOS 6 beta issues. But not everyone who was syncing was having the same problem. After much searching we figured out the data files used in our test cases were just too simple, and the data that people had in the real world was driving the app in ways that we did not expect. Almost all of the issues were memory- and threading-related.

Act III: It is done. Again
We went back to the drawing board for some parts of the app to improve the throughput (although we decreased the concurrency) and reduce the peak memory usage. This has been an incredible amount of work and work that we already thought we had done. It was just for a very different usage pattern. Everyone has been hammering away to find and fix performance bottlenecks and memory spikes. In addition, we have all been running on the iPad 1 which performs about half as well as the iPad 2. Now we think that the app is in much better shape and we are ready give it another go. iBank 1.1 is going through testing and will be submitted to the App Store soon. I can’t wait to see what happens – and hopefully it’s all for the better this time around.

Thanks,
James

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27 comments on “Launching an App In Three Acts

  • James – Thanks for the update. I sincerely hope it works this time. My only request is comple through testing before release.

  • James – Thanks for the update. I sincerely hope it works this time. My only request is complete thorough testing before release.

  • I hope I can use the Mac and iPad versions interchangeably. To date, the two versions seem to want to fight each other.

  • Ah, people who run betas who aren’t developers and expect just released software to work on an unreleased OS and then complain in the app store really bother me. Please people, if you aren’t a developer, don’t run a beta.

  • I have not had any problems at all with the iPad app. It syncs with the Mac version with ease. Just wanted you to know that you have at least one very satisfied customer who has been tooting the iBank horn whenever she can, even to Apple Geniuses when they ask. Keep up the great work. I’m sure the next version will be even better.

    I’m sorry to hear others have not had as good of luck as I have. Of course, if they are using a beta OS, they should know better than to publicly slam another developer’s app.

  • Thanks for the update. I look forward to giving the iPad app another try once 1.1 is available. I’m one of those that had numerous problems and reported them, but I had faith that eventually we’d get something worthwhile. I had guessed that the first release had not really done much sync testing between “real world” usage. One big tipoff to me was that the basic categories for transactions (deposit, check, etc.) was such a limited subset of either the Mac or IPhone versions. Hopefully this new version will be at least as support the same basic functionality as the iPhone and let me enter transactions that I can sync to the other devices. For my needs, all the stand alone features can wait.

    And anyone who is running iOS 6 betas should be blocked from submitting app reviews. Ugh!

  • James – iBank for iPad is a great product. Looking forward to the next release with improvements and bug fixes. Customers giving reviews via iTunes on how it’s runs on ANY developer OS release is simply ridiculous.

  • Thanks for the update James, but can you or someone clarify something – I thought this app didn’t run on an iPad 1? That’s what I have and have put off buying iBank for iPad because I thought it was for iPad 2 and 3…

    Mike

    PS And yes people, betas are betas for a reason, and why there’s pilots and test pilots…

  • Hi

    I used this app on the new ipad with ios 5. Did not use sync feature at all as i dont have mac and the app was still slow as hell.
    So a little correction there…..the bugs apply to people not syncing as well and ios 5 as well.
    Downloaded it with great anticipation only to use it for a day and leaving it with utter disappointment.

    Exremely slow (chokes at second transaction entry), abnormal crashes and unexpected refresh behaviour are a few words to describe it.
    I am still willing to give it another go though after the update as this ideais amazing.

    Regards,
    Arslan

  • Yeah, I have to agree with Arslan. No iOS 6 here. Same for me. Also, I noticed scheduled transactions would show up for budgeting purposes but not in the actual register of the account they were for.

  • Count me as one of the folks using iOS 5 for whom the 1.01 update fixed the super-crashiness bug. I haven’t had crashing problems since. I’m all for better performance, but the things I’m concerned about have nothing to do with memory limitations or overall speed. I’m concerned about certain features:

    Better ability to manage categories, including the ability to delete unwanted categories.
    Loans that automatically calculate the portion of each payment that is going to interest vs. principal (as in the desktop version)

    PLEASE consider including a demo set of financial books with the next release to illustrate how you anticipate folks setting up a basic set of accounts and handling real-world situations. This should include:
    -a checking account, with scheduled paycheck deposits, complete with splits for taxes, 401k contributions, etc.
    -a 401k or similar investment account
    -a loan account (mortgage or student loan) again with schedule payments being drawn from the checking account
    -a budget showing how all of this is meant to work together.

    This would be incredibly helpful (much more than the in-app pop-ups mentioned in a prior post). It would also be helpful if there were an in-app way to report institutions that do not work properly with direct access.

    Thanks, and keep up the good work.

  • Good post, good to admit you got something a little wrong. What’s frustrating is that this same issue (using simplistic test cases) probably applies to iBank for Mac too. 6 months after I finally gave up on iBank for constant issues, I still come back here every 3 or 4 weeks to see if you’ve sorted them out. I want you guys to succeed but for 3 or 4 years you’ve had an advantage of being the ‘best of the rest’ after Quicken. With MoneyWiz and a few others appearing, and Mint becoming almost usable, the window is getting narrower.

    Good luck, and if iBank 4.6 finally fixes the reporting bugs, welcome me back.

  • James,

    Thank you for the update. I am glad to see that work on iBank for iPad is progressing. Let me add my comments, hoping they will influence your work.

    There were some issues with iBank for iPad where it was not working as intended – crashes, slow update times. While unfortunate these are understandable and I expect they are high on your priority list.

    My issues with iBank for iPad are with your design decisions, where iBank for iPad is working as intended but not working as I expected. For example, your paradigm is that all share prices can be downloaded via Yahoo. Mine can’t, and therefore iBank for iPad gives incorrect account values with no way for me to manually input the correct prices. I have budgets and scheduled transactions in iBank for Mac. iBank for iPad supports budgets and scheduled transactions. I expected them to synchronize, but they do not.

    Finally, for some of my investment accounts, the number of shares does not synchronize accurately. With over a decade of transactions in the accounts, I did not take the time to analyze the differences. If this had been the only discrepancy, I would have done so but given the other issues noted above, I simply set the app aside.

    Some of the other comments assume that all issues are driven by the beta version of iOS. I am not in that camp. I use Mountain Lion and the most recent version of iBank for Mac and iOS 5.1.1 on the iPad.

    I have been pleased with the steady progress on iBank for Mac so in total you may put me in the happy camper group. Right now though it seems that level of satisfaction with iBank for iPad is a long ways off.

    Randall

    PS – One odd behavior I noted on iBank for iPad back when I was trying to reconcile. When I ran the Mac app, opened the iPad app, and started the sync, I would see the spinning wheels on the iPad app indicating sync was in progress. When the spinning wheels stopped, I would begin reconciling. I would see that balances didn’t match and dig into transactions. After a few minutes, the balances in the iPad app would change. Apparently the spinning wheels stopping are not a guarantee that synced data has been processed and is incorporated into the account balances. Very confusing.

  • Looking forward to this release.

    Couple of suggestions:

    1. Definitely there can be a better way to enter transaction date. The current method is not very intuitive.

    2. There seems some problem with the formatting of Reminders window (defaults to courier font and the currency is not shown correctly)

    3. There should be an option to choose whether we want Data Sync when we open the book. I have a wifi model and many times i end up waiting for sync completion with no data connection available.

    Thanks.

  • I agree totally with Senthil. Syncing takes time – and I need to decide as a user when I have that time. As your files grow over time this will become a bigger and bigger problem.

    For the same reason I consider Direct Access as a source of the wheel of death. I think QFX is a must. It seems to me that this would best be addressed by a user preference. I would expect that Direct Access’s auto-syncing on startup could present a security issue if you are using a public network. With QFX I control when to sync – both on the basis of when I have the time and whether I am on a secure network.

  • I used ios5 and it was slow and unusable. Version 1-1.01

    Under the beta operating system referenced it is completely unusable as the entry keypad for numbers and categories is absent. Hopefully that wll be fixed by the time ios 6 is released.

    I think the mistake was that IGG used an overly simplistic data file for testing and didn’t test with more complicated ones before release.. Most people have years of financial data with many or at least several accounts.

    I hope I get to finally use it when 1.1 is released.

  • I have crashes nearly every time I sync at present, and often when closing the book thing. Will be nice not to have that. Seems very slow currently, was that picked up in testing and considered normal? Confused. I still love the product but would be nice together rid of the crashes. Also would love to exclude accounts from budgets so transfers can be included as an expense

  • I guess the test data used by development team had not more than 5 records.
    I have literally less than 10 accounts setup with max 2 transaction per account all setup manually and now the app is dead slow.
    Something has gone terribly wrong which causes simplest of action to choke ipad memory. The team should check if long names of accounts has anything to do among other defects.

  • I waited to purchase the app until v 1.1 was released. I have used iBank Mobile previously. Glad the synch works well in 1.1. I have only used the app for a few days. So far, the biggest disappointments are the awkward input method for transactions and the apparent lack of split transaction input.

  • Hi guys

    Loving the iBank money software. Only been using it a few days but it seems great so far. I am planning to complete trial period and if I purchase, will then look at the ipad and iphone apps. Thanks for these updates, it makes it clear that you are serious about the product I am just about to invest my hard earned Aussie Dollars in to. Well done and thanks.

  • As Joseph, I waited until 1.1 was released to buy the iPad version, only to find that it’s very awkward to use.

    Different from iBank Mobile (and almost every touch based app), iBank for iPad uses a double-click paradigm to “edit” any entry, or, actually, give you options to manipulate that entry, being that editing, removing or whatever. I’ve started using the app and couldn’t edit any account or transaction, since there’s no obvious indication int the UI of what does what, and, by randomly tapping, I discovered that a double-tap would let me edit the transactions. It was getting on my nerves. Ok, so let’s try deleting by sliding the thinger over it… Just slides the page. And when editing ANY field, it always pre-selects all the text. I don’t always want to substitute all the text in the field. Actually, most of the time I just want to correct a little mistake, or add some info. So it takes two taps to do this: one to deselect everything and another to place the cursor at the desired position. “That’s just dumb, you’d already have to tap and hold to place the cursor where you want”, you may say. But with only one tap it activates the iOS copy/paste menu. You know, the way things works now is not exactly what users would be expecting from using all the other apps.

    But what really frustrates me is that iBank for iPad doesn’t offer auto-completion on Payees, which, when synced back to the Mac version causes it’s payee drop-down be populated whit all your errouneous entries; and doesn’t associates previous used Payees with previous transactions categories, adding another step of action that could be automated (and is in the other versions). Not to say that it doesn’t sync scheduled transactions and so on… Reports, anyone?

    IBank for iPad looks like it was not made to live in the same ecosystem of his brothers. You should first, like someone said above, focus on letting it on pair, having the same capabilities, to then latter add it unique ones.

  • James, I appreciate the transparency on the app development. I am in the process of evaluating iBank and I really like the Mac app however I am unable to setup a budget on the iPad (really need the budget to synch from the Mac) b/c it crashes every time I click “Done with this Expense”. I am on iPad 2, iOS 6 and have tried rebooting. I really want this to work so I can continue using iBank but need the iPad app to share with the family. Thanks

  • After reading through all of these reviews, it is not clear which iPad people were using before they wrote their critique (iPad 1, 2 or 3). Are the people with the problems running the iBank app on iPad 1 or 2? Is there a pattern here? Does having an iPad 3 make the app work better? Which iPad (1, 2 or 3) are you using to develop this software? I have an iPad 3 and am considering purchasing this iBank4 software for a new Mac & for my iPad 3…..so if I have an iPad 3 will I have less issues than other people? This is what is bouncing around in my head after reading all of this.

  • Well it’s been almost 3 months since the last “update” here. The more things change the more they remain the same. I recall IGG telling us there would be more frequent posts here. Perhaps I misunderstood.

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