The feature-set for the first release of Smoove V1.0 is almost complete. Lot of time went into usability-details, like the cursor-navigation or convenient ways of drawing. The UI as well as the navigation-structure of the app was completely re-worked. The current version has the lightness and easy-of-use that was intended, when starting this piece of software. App-Store submission will be end of this week. I am not sure, how long it will take at the Apple review process, but we really hope to get this thing out in March. Yay – get exited!

The work on this then won’t be over. There is a growing list of cool new feature, that will went in future updates. Also making the binary universal, to work also on the iPad is coming!

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A little more progress on the Smoove Pixeleditor for iPod Touch and iPhone. Massively tweaked the usability-aspects (that you for sure can’t see on a screenshot) and cleaned up the UI. There is still something to do – adding some tools like fill, better color handling, tweaking the look and feel – that sort of things. But this version finally feels like nearing a first release.

Months passed with new features and constant improvement. At the end of this week, I want to submit a first version to the public. I proposed this to Friday, but do not know, how much time the review-process of the App-Store will take into account. The feature set is basic, but with the “Send .png per e-mail”-function, it is possible to integrate works made with Smoove to any workflow, just by having a valid e-mail adress.

The release will be V0.4 and the initial price is 2.99 Dollar / 2,39 Euro. Future updates are free, and there will be a lot. In an incremental fashion.

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Once again did not meet the release-deadline. This made me to switching the development mode. Still I want to stay lean and agile, but at the same time also tight deadlines should be no problem at all. There is a solution to this: Kanban. The goal is to “limit work in progress“. To achieve this goal, workpackages get smaller and faster done. I made the switch some days ago, and it’s really useful! By the way: my original deadline was far away from being realistic at all, just wanted to get into the groove of ultra-ultra-tight deadlines.

With Kanban now I have one internal release every Friday. The first feedback from my own Kanban is, that I totally underestimated the task of “figuring out things” at the iPhone SDK. This SDK is huge and I spend lot of time with stuff like “how to do this” or experiences I get by try-and-error. For example: UITabBarItems are unable to show colored pictures -> UISegmentControl does this, TabBar-Items just love greyscale!

More cool resources on lean, agile and Kanban I found at agile.soup.io.

Stay lean, stay happy!

Oh boy, I am entering the most difficult phase of production: the initial version is about to be completed. Most of the time in the development I spend with other things than designing the app. It was mostly about developing tasks like reading files, writing files, flipping views.. All that dull tasks, that had to be done anyway. And it really seems, that only last days of the schedule (now) is there to actually “design” interaction and that kind of things I have in my mind for weeks. Things, that keep stressing me, is the balance of the first release: are there enough features in the editor to not bug the first buyers and testers? Or will it make sense to improve and add features, at the price of delaying the release again? At least updates will be for free (unless there is some really major changes going on). The more incremental kind of developing would not to delay, but to release. I will beforehand grab some testers anyway…

My design 
A contribution from mo.

I refreshed the Smoove Logo a little bit. After years, sometimes a little bit of polishing is fun. I am still thinking about replacing the rabbit by another animal, but still not sure about that. There is still a lot of work on this project, to get the first release done – but the wait will be worth it! Wait and see for your progress upon that.

Slowly, slowly, slowly I get really satisfied with the small details on the Nodepond-logo. Here I share the latest result.

By the way… The lettering is based upon the VAL-Freefont from the brilliant Fontfabric from Bulgaria. But I did also made changes on the typo itself to fit it my needs and make it a little more redable at smaller sizes…

So, now. Will anyone how help me clean up this design of the website a little bit?