iAdd For iPhone / iPad Syncs With Dropbox

Here we are folks, with the second update to iAdd, our productivity tool of choice. Let’s see what we added in the 1.2 version.

Yes, We Run On iPad Too

Noticed how I silently added the iPad suffix too? Well, that’s because iAdd is now natively working on the iPad too. The good news is that you don’t have to pay extra bucks for it. iAdd is a Universal app. You pay only once (and you pay 3.99 USD, for a limited period of time) and you get 2 apps. If we take into account the iPod users, well, you get 3 apps in only one.

That’s one of the most important features of the latest version of iAdd. It’s not an app running in compatibility mode, it’s specifically designed for iPad. You will notice that all the main interface elements have been designed specifically for iPad, and the data enter workflow has been completely rewritten (click to see full size).

Look, I’m A Landscape!

Another new feature of the version 1.2 will be autorotation. Any data input app should have this, especially on smaller devices like the iPhone. It’s much more comfortable to type, or even to read your tasks while your device is on landscape. As many of you noticed this was an important oversight of the first version of iAdd. Well, it’s fixed now.

Send Anything By Email

Another common suggestion from iAdd customer was a way to make the data accessible in many ways. Everybody agreed that the app is easy to use, but not having a way to share your data outside the device was perceived like an important limitation. Well, starting with version 1.2 you can send any information via email. You can send tasks, you can send events, you can send even projects or ideas and all the contained tasks / details within the projects or ideas will be automatically added. All you have to do is to add an email address and hit send.

Cloud Syncing Is The New Black

As useful as it may be, email is kinda obsolete. I mean it’s a very good back-up solution, but the nicest thing of all is to have cloud syncing. Well, you asked for it, you got it. iAdd version 1.2 sync your data completely with Dropbox via Edge, #g or WiFi. You can now have access to all your tasks, projects or ideas from anywhere. Dropbox released an API for interacting with its widely popular cloud storage service only a few weeks ago but when I saw the press release, I knew I had to work with it.

The API is really fresh, so there might be some inconsistencies. I took all the measures I could think of to ensure a proper backup and syncing of your data, but as always, bad things may happen. Please use the support page listed in iTunes to give me a very thorough description of what wen bad. I’ll fix it.

The most common use case for syncing is when you have 2 devices: an iPhone that goes with you everywhere and an iPad which is more static. You can also have any combination of iPod, iPhone and iPad, of course. That’s one of the main reasons we have an iPad version too. You can use iAdd on any device, with its local database and once you hit sync, your information will be updated. As in most common syncing algorithms, I used the “most recent wins” approach. There are many ways in which you can sync your data, but for a sequential use case (not a concurrent access) this one seemed the most appropriate.

Workflow Improvements And Bug Fixes

There are also tons of bugfixes in this release and I won’t stop to mention each and every one of them. Maybe the most important one is the date selection mechanism which has been drastically improved. There are also a lot of new workflow enhancements and here is just a short list of what are the most important ones:

• a new context based view in the Decide realm
• now you can send a task back to Decide even before you finished it
• a task can be detached from a project, becoming a single task
• a task can be assigned to another idea
• a single task can be promoted to a project

You can see a full list of what’s new in the iTunes listing page.

It’s All Part Of The Framework

But the biggest competitive advantage of all would be of course the fact that iAdd implements the Assess-Decide-Do framework in a very handy and easy to use application. If you don’t know that yet, there’s an ebook documenting not only the framework, but also the entire iAdd functionality, from adding tasks to use cases. So iAdd is not just an app, it’s part of a bigger productivity framework, one that could allegedly be used not only for life management, but also for simpler and more mundane tasks like blogging or shopping. That’s right, you can use iAdd to plan your next blog post, or your next shopping session. There are even 2 sample chapters in the ebook which are talking specifically about that: how to use iAdd for blogging and for shopping.

So, if you like iAdd, I strongly recommend getting the ebook “Assess – Decide – Do: Natural Productivity” it’s only 27 USD and it would be THE companion for your iAdd app.