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Wired picks State Plate for App Guide

A few months back Wired included State Plate in their App Guide of essential tools.

Anyone who has road-tripped with kids (or road-tipped as a kid) understands the importance of the license plate gamefind ones from the most states and you win. State Plates’s handsome scoreboard keeps track of everyone’s spotted plates, while the cursory info on each statehistory, state birdsleads to a lot of accidental learning.

We’re grateful to be listed along side so many great apps. If you’re interested in Wired’s App Guide you can find a copy at your local bookstore or download a copy for your iPad.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of State Plate you can download it in the App Store today.

Tictoc 2: the simple task timer reimagined

After what has been way too long of a wait we are proud to announce the first major update to Tictoc since we first released it earlier this year. We’ve had a lot of feedback on what would make Tictoc even better and we’re happy to say that with this update we’ve really pulled out all the stops. That doesn’t mean we’ve bloated it though. We love the simplicity of Tictoc and we hear constantly from our users that they do too, so even though we’ve added a lot of new features, Tictoc is even simpler than before.

We’ve refined the user interface to be cleaner and clearer. It’s now easy to see that Tictoc is running properly. With our original decision to display the elapsed time as hour:minute format we had a lot of feedback from people questioning whether Tictoc has started timing since there was no incrementing seconds value that people have seen in other apps. We’ve done a few things to make this even better. We’ve switched to a more explicity #h #m format for displaying the hours and minutes. In addition to that, we’ve added an animated clock icon and other visual clues to each task that is being timed. This should be a big help to users new to Tictoc.

Another big request we’ve had centered arounding adding and editing timing sessions. We’ve completly redesigned this and have an all new view for adding new sessions as well as editing existing sessions. Along with that, each session can now have a note associated with it to make it easier to reference what the session was for later on.

For those users that would rather user the keyboard than the mouse we’ve greatly expanded the keyboard and shortcut support. It’s now possible to navigate between tasks using the up/down arrow keys, start and stop tasks using the spacebar, drill down into a task or session using CMD-] and navigating back using CMD-[. It’s also easier than ever to go directly to a task in the tasks view simply by typing the name of the task and it will auto-select it.

Those are just a few of the many new features we’ve put into Tictoc but that’s not all we’ve done.

• Run multiple timers at once
• New preferences for minimizing the amount of space the menubar icon takes up
• Can now specify unique idle times for each task or turn of the idle support entirely
• AppleScript support for starting/stopping tasks as well as exporting task and session data
• Daily and Weekly summary footer across all tasks as well as individual tasks
• Can now resize the task list height
• Tictoc now defaults to open in all Desktops without having to manually set that option in the Dock
• Fixed issue where the Tictoc window would stop being displayed if the screen resolution changed
• Fixed issue with date formats when using particular date regions

We’ve working really hard on making this the best version of Tictoc yet. We hope that you love it as much as we do. Available on the Mac App Store today.

Work : Avinger

Since the beginning of this year we’ve engaged in several client-based projects. Taking on client work does a few things: it helps us meet our revenue goals and it forces us to solve problems we might not encounter on our own.

We’ve recently completed work for Avinger, a life-scinece company out of Redwood City, California. Avinger came to us looking to advance their sales process by using the iPad. We worked with them to create two new apps, Soapbox and Checkbox.

Soapbox: the presenter.

Soapbox is a straight-forward presentation app that allows Avinger to quickly distribute sales presentations to their sales team across the US. Content is distributed using a Dropbox backend, interfacing directly with Soapbox. Files are updated and users are notified within the app, ensuring the most up-to-date data on Avinger’s products. Great care was put into how the information is presented, instead of displaying PDFs as pages, Soapbox presents them as slides, complete with interactions that correspond to that style of presentation. Key to Soapbox’s success is a distribution system that allows sales members to pick items to share with medical professionals. Once selected items are gathered into an HTML-rich email and sent out as linked documents.

Checkbox: delightful forms.

Checkbox is the counter-part to Soapbox. It allows Avinger’s sales team to collect meaningful data from the field in order to be more effective in communicating their message. Checkbox was built by leveraging the Wufoo form API, allowing Avinger to quickly and effectively add and edit forms without having to reissue a new build of the app. Checkbox also submits data instantly back to Wufoo, allowing Avinger to run reports at-will. Our goal with Checkbox was to bring delight in completing forms, a task that is normally begrudged by most.

Avinger: a rare breed of company.

Avinger is a rare breed of company. They placed key stakeholders on the project, effective personnel as project leads and had confidence in us to providing the best solution. This allowed us to collectively start and execute the project in a very small window of time—all while enjoying working together. Avinger has set a high bar for the type of client relationships that we’ll look for going forward.

If you have an interesting project and would like to talk about it we’d love to hear from you.

Tictoc 1.1 Released

• Edit Time Entries
• Revert back idle time
• Pauses timer when computer goes to sleep
• Custom keyboard shortcut to toggle timer on and off
• Drag/Drop rearrange Tasks
• Option to disable blinking timer

You can download it from the Mac App Store now.

Tictoc: the simple task timer

Today we’re proud to announce our first app into the Mac Store, Tictoc. If you’re like us, the last thing you want to think about when you’re working is tracking the time for that task. We built Tictoc for you, it’s the simple–out of your way–task timer. It lives in your menu bar and only pops it’s head up when you need it. You can start and stop it from the menubar with a single click and you can export all of your data into your favorite accounting or project management app.

Why we built Tictoc

Since going full-time with Overcommitted last month it was clear that we were going to need to start tracking time more often. There are many benefits to knowing exactly how much time you spend on each task–we’ll save that for another post. The Mac has plenty of timers available for it, but we have a particular taste when it comes to this sort of thing. We didn’t want some gaudy thing sitting on our desktop showing us every second we’ve clocked. We also didn’t want to have to take several actions to start and stop our timer. These, plus a few other features started us down the path of creating our own elegant solution.

What’s next for Tictoc

We’ve already received great feedback from people using and loving Tictoc. In the near future we plan to roll out additional features, these include: editing your timestamps, adding quick keyboard shortcuts and additional export options.

We hope you love Tictoc as much as we do. You can download it from the Mac Store here.

Harold Jonathan

Happy New Year

As we look forward to this new year and the hope of what it may bring it’s helpful to look back on last year to see how far we’ve come.

We started out the year with three shipping apps, Ember (which we sold to 37signals and was renamed to Campfire), Tripmix and Skitzy. For the first time we also decided to take on some client work and partnered with 37signals to ship Highrise and Draft. In addition to miscellaneous updates to Ember and Tripmix we also added a new app to our line up, State Plate. At 5:30pm December 31st, we also submitted our first Mac App to Apple and hope to see that go live on launch day of the new Mac App Store January 6th.

It’s been a busy year for us and we’re excited and grateful for what we’ve been able to accomplish in the limited amount of time we’ve had to work on projects. With going full time we can only imagine how great this year will be.

Happy New Year -

Harold Jonathan

A New Beginning.

It was nearly two years ago that we became Overcommitted. We’ve been doing it in our free-time between typical 9 to 5 jobs, side projects, spouses, kids, etc. This week that all changes. We’re extremely excited to announce that we’re going full-time. No, we haven’t made it rich in the App Store, but we have been given incredible opportunities for working on some really great client projects that will allow us to go full-time. In addition to working on client projects, we’ll now also have more time to work on more of our own apps and boy do we have some great ones lined up. If you have a great project of your own in mind, we’d love to hear more.

It’s been quite a journey getting to this point. We can’t wait to see where this step takes us next.

JonathanHarold

Introducing State Plate

Soon after the iPad was announced, my 6 and 9 year old pitched their idea for an app. They’ve made it a pretty regular practice to come up with ideas for iOS apps for some time now. Sometimes their concepts are off the wall and other times they’re solid. In this case it was the latter. The idea was based on a game that they have been playing on long road trips for awhile… hunting all the license plates in the U.S. After a series of brainstorming and sketching, they settled on the basic idea around the game and decided that it would also include an educational component. I was interested, but Jon and I were in the middle of wrapping up Highrise and getting ready to launch into development on Draft. So, reluctantly, I set the idea to the side. Once we completed Highrise and Draft we began working on a new app, like State Plate, it had been mulling around in our heads for awhile. It was complex and had all sorts of interesting problems to solve. A few weeks ago we reached a burn-out wall and needed to take a break. We picked up the license plate idea and started to build. Working a few hours a day we completed the app in about 10 days. The kids were thrilled to finally see their idea come to life.

State Plate is a pretty simple travel game. By design it’s not an immersive app experience, instead it forces you to interact with the people and world around you. We hope that families can turn to an app like State Plate and enjoy hunting for license plates and learning a bit about our country along the way. The kids did all the research behind each state, finding things like population, capital, state bird, etc. They also decided to include a colorful fact, which I think added a nice touch. From an aesthetic point of view we decided early on to go with a hand crafted approach to the design. We wanted the app to “feel” solid in your hands, like a vintage board game. The kids worked with me in choosing a color pallet, textures and even the sounds you would hear as the plates flip over.

We had a great time making this State Plate, we hope that you’ll have just as much fun playing it. It’s available in the App Store today for $1.99.

Harold

Ember becomes Campfire for the iPhone

37signals has purchased Ember making it their official Campfire client for the iPhone. We are thrilled with Ember’s new home and are excited to see it exposed to a broader audience.

A little background on why.

Over the last eight months we’ve had the privilege of working with the 37signals team on two iOS projects. During that time both teams have gotten to know each other pretty well. Awhile ago 37signals expressed interest in purchasing Ember. After giving it some thought, we decided this would be a good fit.

We initially built Ember for ourselves. We use use Campfire every day and love it. A lot of thought early on went into making the experience on Ember similar to the native Campfire experience on the web. As people transitioned from the browser to being on the phone with Ember we didn’t want users to have to go into this new mode of thinking.

Working with 37signals on their official version of Highrise we realized there are parts of the experience that only the service providers themselves can offer in the app. With Ember becoming Campfire it’s our hope that we will see a similar effect with its experience.

Thanks.

We also want to take a few minutes to say thanks to our users. Many of you use Ember every day and have let us know how much you enjoy it. We think you’ll continue to enjoy it in the hands of 37signals. You can download the latest version of Campfire in the AppStore.

We’re excited to see where things go from here for Ember Campfire.

Harold

Tripmix 1.1 Released

We’ve released an update to Tripmix.

• Improves performance for large libraries
• Adds sound effects
• Adds option to continue playing when the app quits
• Allows choosing the number of songs to play by an artist

Get it now in the App Store.

Jonathan

Highrise for the iPhone

Today we’re excited to announce a project we’ve been working on for our friends at 37signals, Highrise for the iPhone. With the iPhone platform we were able to focus on some specific features like voice notes. We’re excited to see how people use the iPhone client. You can read additional details about the application and its launch at Signal vs. Noise.

Harold

Haiti

Like most, we are in shock as we read and see the devastation that has taken in place Haiti this week. We’ve decided as a team to donate 100% of our profits from today until the end of January to help those that have suffered in this time of crisis. We aren’t alone, many have joined in donating to this cause. If you haven’t already please consider donating in some way to help the people of Haiti.

Other ways you can help:
American Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Partners In Health

JonathanHarold

Introducing Tripmix

We’re happy to announce the release of our third application, Tripmix, to the iPhone App Store.

Tripmix is a fun little app that came out of Jonathan’s long road trips from Idaho to California and back. Jonathan and his wife could never agree on what music they’d like to listen to. She always wanted to suggest Hall & Oats and he would suggest Nightwish. So they come up with a sort of routine or game they would use to figure out what to listen to. She’ll pick an artist and then listen to 3 songs by that artist and then he’d pick an artist and listen to 3 songs from that artist and so on and so forth. Only problem with that though is often times they still have no idea what artist they’d like to listen to.

It came to them on their last trip that it’d be great if there was an iPhone app that’d do all this work for them. The idea for Tripmix was born. It’d randomly choose an artist and then play 3 songs from that artist. Then it’d randomly choose another artist and play 3 songs, so on and so forth. If they didn’t feel like listening to the artist that started playing they could shake the phone to pick a new artist. Together they brainstormed what features it’d have. She sketched out UI concepts while he tried to keep his eyes on the road. Passing all the interstate signs even gave them the inspiration for the icon. Harold’s taken the UI concept sketches and ideas and turned them into something truly gorgeous.

After playing with Tripmix for awhile now, it turns out we’re having a lot of fun using it anytime we’re in the car and not just long road trips. We’ll be working on an update to make this use case better. In the meantime, if you have any travel plans this Holiday season, why not take Tripmix along for the ride?

Jonathan

Introducing Skitzy

Today we’re proud to announce the release of the second Overcommitted application, Skitzy. The easiest way to describe Skitzy is a photo mix and match application for your iPhone. Grab a few friends, take everyone’s photo and start mixing. You’ll be shocked with the results!

We created Skitzy because we think you shouldn’t take life too seriously. Skitzy gives you a great excuse to blow off some steam for a few minutes and have some fun with family, friends or co-workers.

Here are a few first impressions:

“Skitzy turned my cute little girls into wretched monsters!”
- Brian Cooke, Rocket

“Skitzy is a fun and easy way to play with photos of your family and friends. An iPhone camera, a couple of friends and you’re good to go!”
- Mike Rohde, Rohdesign

“A fun application that has almost no user interface. Touch faces directly, play with them. A genius approach.”
- Vitor Lourenço, Twitter Inc.

We have enjoyed making Skitzy and look forward to seeing how you use it.
Visit skitzyapp.com for more information or download it in the App Store.

Harold

Ember featured as a top 10 iPhone app for marketers

Tendo Communications featured Ember as one of their top 10 killer iPhone apps for marketers:

Contribute to your company’s Campfire network with this helpful application. This application (and Campfire) is a great way to save and archive corporate communications from anywhere in the world–a solution that’s far more elegant than your typical instant or text messaging conversation. Keep your team on the same page without having to scroll through endless email replies in your already overflowing inbox.