We were asked to share our experience in creating user-friendly interface for iStudiez Pro (iPad version) by Computer Arts publishing company. Some of our thoughts and tips were put into the iPad – the creative pro’s guide printed magazine.

We’ve seen the content and we must say it is really professional work and can be really helpful for those who only start developing apps for iPad, but we cannot disclose any sneak pics here according to the agreement with the publisher. However, we can at least publish the magazine cover here.

Thanks for Computer Arts efforts and true interest in our small input.

Nice news and thanks to Fox Business team, we enjoyed the nice slideshow

We’ve taken a close look to the issue and it appeared that in iOS 4 the time zone support is not working the same way it used to in iOS 3.1.2. It is not what you call a nice surprise, but we can deal with it.

We assume doing this way will fix the issue.

Meanwhile we’are submiting a quick fix to the App Store.
ALSO, the fix will solve the problem for those who use iPhone 3G and experience crashes after the update. Crashes are caused by local push notifications option which eats more memory (but save your traffic actually).

iOS 4 compatibility:

• Retina display. This was quite an effort, we should say, especially taking into account that Michael had to re-draw ALL of the art of the app in order to make it look sexy with Retina display. So basically all icons, buttons, textures, everything you see was resized (we wonder whether we’ll survive when Retina display comes to iPad, but that’s another story…)
• Multitasking support comes with something that many of you asked for a long time, iStudiez Pro now opens where you left it, on the last viewed screen. Wasn’t that hard, really…
• Integration with Calendar app on iPhone (turned on by default, but can be turned off via internal settings in the app). From now on you will be able to manage (add, edit, delete etc) in iStudiez Pro all events that are entered in the Calendar app. As soon as Apple allows it now, we are happy to present this option to you in this update.
• And you no longer need to always stay connected to the Internet to be notified of your upcoming classes and pending assignments. Local push notifications are available in iStudiez Pro for those who use iOS 4.

We’ve also made some improvements which are universal for iPhone/iPod and iPad versions of the app. When you’ll be making a backup of your data, all the cancelled classes and notes will be saved, no more lost. ..oh yes, and exams will now show up during your holidays period

We also fixed grades calculation, updated some localizations (Dutch, Italian and Russian) and improved general stability and performance of iStudiez Pro.

P.S. To answer before you ask: yes, we are still working on desktop version

Must say, we are really pleased with being recommended by Apple, especially with the nice description that they’ve posted below the screenshot:
“The award-winning iStudiez Pro lets you manage every type of school schedule, keep track of all your assignments, and stay on course for the next big exam. And you’ll always make it to class on time with multiple alarms and push notifications that display on your iPhone no matter what app you’re using.”

That what makes you feel there’s always space to do more…
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” – remember?

We would like to share our joy with you guys, as the news gives us motivation to go further.

iPad sales started in Western Europe on the 28th of May and we are lucky with iStudiez Pro to be featured as app of the week in App Store in Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, UK, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Portugal (and hopefully in more countries, we couldn’t track all).

Such a nice surprise energized us this weekend and we would like to say that we are thankful to Apple for the support and promotion of our app.

P.S. Now working like mad on desktop and sync…

• Jailbreak contradicts EULA
• Jailbreak is dangerous in terms of viruses and worms (it affects jailbroken iPhones running the SSH app with the default password)
• Jailbreaking you device voids your warranty and you cannot expect any help from Apple if you start experiencing any hardware problems with your jailbroken device.

The above mentioned is not something that we as developers should be worried about as it is your decision and your responsibility. What’s most important is that jailbreak destabilizes your OS and leads to unpredictable performance problems.

Let us put it this way: we really messed it up with 1.3 and 1.3.1, but luckily 1.3.2 which got through approval very fast is stable and secure update. But despite it being stable and secure we still received hundreds of letters to our support with complaints about losing of data and crashes on launch of the app.

We were really surprised as we successfully managed to load on our devices the data backups that were sent to us with such complaints. And then it occurred to us that a jailbreak might not be something that we can just silently disapprove of (our devices are NOT jailbroken, you got it right).

You see, when we hear you lose your data, it makes us really worried about you as we understand how much you rely on iStudiez Pro and how much efforts you put into your studies.

Ok, so we found a buddy with a jailbroken iPod and tried loading one of the backups that we received. Yep, it crashed, all data deleted. Yep, a shock.

It took us a sleepless night to dig out the reason and when we turned the multitask app off, backups started to load normally.

So our solution to users who happen to have jailbroken devices and can’t load backup: restart your device in safe mode and load your data backup (it will load successfully).

That’s it guys. One simple app unapproved by Apple caused such problems for hundreds of people that we care about. Why don’t you just think it over taking into account that OS 4.0 will support native multitasking?

What upsets us the most is a number of negative reviews that were most likely written by users with jailbroken devices and may mislead the others and lower our motivation (which is not happening, but it might have and we are sure you don’t want that )…

Wow, finally we let it out, now getting back to finalizing sync feature….

IMPORTANT NOTE: Some of you may see a message stating that your database is upgrading each time you launch iStudiez Pro. In this case please make data backup and then restore your data after you updated to version 1.3.1. We are now submitting the update where we’ve fixed this minor issue.

Now it is in review and hopefully it will not take too long for Apple to approve it.

We would like to address you with apologies regarding the latest update of iStudiez Pro (version 1.3. with grades/GPA option). The matter is that the update has been approved, but immediately after approval we encountered a critical bug that made the app crash and all data disappear.

Some of you unfortunately have already updated by that time and felt this on their own back.

We stopped sales of the app temporarily not to let other users down as well.

By now, we have already located the problem in the app that caused your data disappear and/or crash. Please be informed that your data is not lost.

It is just not showing in this update.

So to all who have already updated to version 1.3. please DO NOT launch or reinstall iStudiez Pro until we release the update soon. Do not do anything in the app right now (as your newly entered data may not be saved). When you update next time all your data will remain untouched in the app.

We bear full responsibility for what happened and we are now doing everything possible to submit update with critical fix of this problem during this weekend. The only excuse is that we really wanted to give you grades as soon as possible.