New diving related (log book) iPhone App

[Dark Eternal]

This is a bug I know about that 5.0 introduced. I have a fix completed and you should hopefully see the update hit the app store sometime next week. Sorry it has taken this long, I have been out of town a ton the last month and have not had as much time as I should have allocated to get things working with a major OS upgrade.

On a side note, I have also been slowly working on 3.0 (I know I have said this before) and hope in the next few months to be able to have it out as well. It will feature a major UI overhaul that should not only improve the looks of the app but also greatly improve ease if usability.

 

[Silverback047]

Thanks, look forward to the fix.

 

[yupito]

There is another bug with the update: when the location's name has an apostrophe in the name (i.e. Capt. Arno's), the location will not save to the log returning a "(null)".

 

[Dark Eternal]

There is another bug with the update: when the location's name has an apostrophe in the name (i.e. Capt. Arno's), the location will not save to the log returning a "(null)".

Ironically, this was just pointed out to me a few days ago, and its been there since version 1.0! People are just now finding it. Simple fix, it will be taken care of in the next update. I am also adding in the ability to print and email log pages out of the app. I am about 50% done with that feature. My schedule is really hectic, but hopefully I can get it off to Apple within a few weeks.

Does the new build seem to be more stable for people now? I test as much as I can on my own devices and it has seemed pretty stable so far.

 

[NubaScoob]

Ok so I have done exactly what you asked. I purchased your app, played with it for a while, and here is my feedback and recommendations. Some of these may have been mentioned in previous posts but here goes.
I had the app crash on me twice. I was adding a dive, accidentally went into "stages" and could not cancel out without entering info. When I tried to the app crashed. happened twice.

Things I would add or change:

- Ability to "edit" certifications. Once you save them, if you need to make a change currently they must be deleted and recreated.

- When creating certs, the picture of the cert does not look right, I took the picture in landscape and it showed it in portrait and stretched it poorly. Either provide the option to rotate/crop the image or better yet offer a "choose existing picture" option.

- When adding a site give the option for adding a city. Reason being is that some cities have many sites. West Palm Beach is a good example of this. between drift dives, bridge dives, etc.

- When adding a location after the fact its is very hard to get the latitude and longitude for a site. I would recommend allowing us to enter a city as a starting point and then maybe zoom in on the map to the dive spot and drop the pin and from that pin pull the lat/long if possible.

- Ability to customize "site type" in locations. I think it would be good to be able to specify this out a little more. adding a "bridge dive" option here is a good example.

- When viewing the "map" screen, it would be a great feature that when you tap one of your pins that you could use the Google "get directions to" option for when you want to go back.

- Would be a great idea to be able to add medications being taken to the personal information screen

- A dive trip check list would be a good thing to look into adding.

- An equipment purchase log would also be a good idea. Something that we can use to log our purchase date, make/model, serial number, location of purchase, etc.

- As an additonal feature to equipment purchases it would be even better to add a feature to enter dates for maintenance on regulators. maybe even initiate a notification popup as you get closer to requiring service.

- Allow the entry of info regarding the dive charter used when a boat dive is selected. details on the charter as deep as cost of the boat trip as well as tank rentals would be nice.

- I used this app on my iPad as well to test it out and it dawned on me that to use it here I will need to re-enter EVERYTHING again. Would be nice to export/import so I can update the info across devices easily, better yet, maybe look into a way to get the info to autoupdate across all devices ala iCloud as an example. I know this will be a hard one..

I think thats all for now. I realize you are busy and some of these may be way harder than they seem but you can keep this as a wish list!

 

[Dark Eternal]

First of, thank you for the time to review it and post up everything here!

I had the app crash on me twice. I was adding a dive, accidentally went into "stages" and could not cancel out without entering info. When I tried to the app crashed. happened twice.

I know that you have to "delete last" before closing out, its a dumb design and will be fixed. I will be implementing a normal swipe to delete function in this screen, and if its empty it just doesn't save that cell. I will look into the crash as well, but this section will be basically re-written so it should be a non-issue once this gets done.

- Ability to "edit" certifications. Once you save them, if you need to make a change currently they must be deleted and recreated.

This is also on the list, just something that takes some time.

- When creating certs, the picture of the cert does not look right, I took the picture in landscape and it showed it in portrait and stretched it poorly. Either provide the option to rotate/crop the image or better yet offer a "choose existing picture" option.

Hmm, are you taking the picture straight down, sometimes when you do this the phone doesn't know what way its oriented and things can get screwed up. Try leaning your c card up against a vertical surface and taking the pic in landscape mode that way. I will add in a choose from existing as well.

- When adding a site give the option for adding a city. Reason being is that some cities have many sites. West Palm Beach is a good example of this. between drift dives, bridge dives, etc.

I will add a city field to the wish list in locations, it makes sense to me as well to have this as an optional field.

- When adding a location after the fact its is very hard to get the latitude and longitude for a site. I would recommend allowing us to enter a city as a starting point and then maybe zoom in on the map to the dive spot and drop the pin and from that pin pull the lat/long if possible.
[/QOUTE]
This would be quite a bit of work, I'll see what I can do in future versions though. I just goto google maps and get the lat/long that way currently.

- Ability to customize "site type" in locations. I think it would be good to be able to specify this out a little more. adding a "bridge dive" option here is a good example.

This is doable - it would be similar to adding a custom tank.

- When viewing the "map" screen, it would be a great feature that when you tap one of your pins that you could use the Google "get directions to" option for when you want to go back.

This is a pretty simple request, I'll make sure it makes it way in sooner than later.

- Would be a great idea to be able to add medications being taken to the personal information screen

Another good suggestion, when I work on the ability to edit certs ill add this in as well.

- A dive trip check list would be a good thing to look into adding.

You mean like a checklist of gear that is already in your database plus maybe a few standard items such as passport, iPhone charger...? I see how this could be a neat feature, I'll have to figure out how to make the UI nice on it.

- An equipment purchase log would also be a good idea. Something that we can use to log our purchase date, make/model, serial number, location of purchase, etc.

Its another table in the database and more UI, but certainly doable. Just takes some time, ill put it on the wish list!

- As an additonal feature to equipment purchases it would be even better to add a feature to enter dates for maintenance on regulators. maybe even initiate a notification popup as you get closer to requiring service.

Might as well do this with the purchase table - it would all go together. Local notifications are easy to implement.

- Allow the entry of info regarding the dive charter used when a boat dive is selected. details on the charter as deep as cost of the boat trip as well as tank rentals would be nice.

I have been thinking about a good way to implement something like this, so expect it to show up eventually.

- I used this app on my iPad as well to test it out and it dawned on me that to use it here I will need to re-enter EVERYTHING again. Would be nice to export/import so I can update the info across devices easily, better yet, maybe look into a way to get the info to autoupdate across all devices ala iCloud as an example. I know this will be a hard one..

This is something that is in the works and pretty high priority. For right now, the newest version has file access turned on through iTunes. You can select your device thats plugged in, and under the apps tab you will see a file sharing area. DBP should be selectable, and you can copy the DiveLog.db file to your hard drive. This is your actual database. You can then replace the database on your iPad with the one from your phone and vise versa. Its not pretty, but it is a way to transplant the database back and forth. You can see the cert pics in there as well, and do the same with them.

Once again, thanks for all of the feedback, its a constantly evolving app - I hope to make some real progress over the next few months!

 

[NubaScoob]

Hmm, are you taking the picture straight down, sometimes when you do this the phone doesn't know what way its oriented and things can get screwed up. Try leaning your c card up against a vertical surface and taking the pic in landscape mode that way. I will add in a choose from existing as well.

I was taking the pictures that way. it just doesnt like me lol. however I figured out how to be able to crop the photos. When you connect the phone to the computer, using your method of doing the DB backup in itunes, one you save the images of the pictures off you can edit/crop them and as long as you keep the filename the same you can add them back into intunes into the app and they now show up correctly. figured youd prolly like to know..

- When adding a location after the fact its is very hard to get the latitude and longitude for a site. I would recommend allowing us to enter a city as a starting point and then maybe zoom in on the map to the dive spot and drop the pin and from that pin pull the lat/long if possible.
[/QOUTE]
This would be quite a bit of work, I'll see what I can do in future versions though. I just goto google maps and get the lat/long that way currently.

Really? this is one of the few things I found to be hard to deal with as in order to get the coordinates I had to leave the app, search for the site, get the coordinates, back into the app, type in first set, back out to google, back into app, type second set. was a bit too much of a run around. there has to be some way to simplify it..

 

[grondar69]

Hi, this thread has been stagnant for a while but I've just paid for version 2.2.2 and so far I'm pretty impressed, it does everything I want it to do. however I am having a problem with the locations tab, I entered some lat/long coordinates incorrectily and now every time I try to open that location to edit it, the app crashes on me. To get around this I had to create a duplicate of that location but I also can't find a way to delete the old one. Also I noticed that you can't delete equipment, only rename it.

Will these things be fixed in 3.0? And when will 3.0 be coming out roughly?

A couple of things that would be handy to see in the next release is somewhere to enter in your nitrogen information after a dive (pressure groups and such) and the ability to export the data to something, even just an excel or text file.

 

[Dark Eternal]

Hi, this thread has been stagnant for a while but I've just paid for version 2.2.2 and so far I'm pretty impressed, it does everything I want it to do. however I am having a problem with the locations tab, I entered some lat/long coordinates incorrectily and now every time I try to open that location to edit it, the app crashes on me. To get around this I had to create a duplicate of that location but I also can't find a way to delete the old one. Also I noticed that you can't delete equipment, only rename it.

Will these things be fixed in 3.0? And when will 3.0 be coming out roughly?

A couple of things that would be handy to see in the next release is somewhere to enter in your nitrogen information after a dive (pressure groups and such) and the ability to export the data to something, even just an excel or text file.

This is a flaw in the design that will be fixed in 3.0. Basically, if there is bad data (or misformatted in your case) it will crash and not let you open the location to fix it. You cant delete locations, because it could leave dives without a location which breaks all sorts of stuff. If you want, shoot me a PM and I can give you instructions on how to send me your database and I can manually fix it for you.

3.0 is probably 75% done, I just have had zero time to work on it. I was hoping to have it out this summer but clearly, I didnt make that goal. Normally things slow down a bit in the fall so hopefully I will have a little time to get it wrapped up. It will have a lot of the big features people want such as printing of dives, exporting of dives and greater customization/stability.

 

[Girlindependent]

I already have a dive log app and am happy with it so will not pay for another. But here is what I like about my current app (Dive Log) if you want to know what the competition offers:

-will sync with my desktop Dive Log application so I enter my dives on my computer and download to my phone
-can enter site information including pictures, detailed descriptions plus GPS coordinates that if I click on it will take me to this location on Google Maps
-statistics on dives, and I can sort dives based on location, type of dive and buddy
-dives themselves show my computer profile, location, BT information, SAC rate based on air pressure (it works it out), weather, viz, type of water, entry, air temp, water temp, weight, dive suit, other equipment (check list from equipment I have entered on my desktop), dive type
-list of buddies that links up with my phone contact book
-personal information including cert cards (with photos if I put them on my desktop), all my equipment (including pictures, service date reminders, pricing, comments)

I use DiveLog and I echo the above comments. For me, it's a great app and i would recommend you look at it to see what the "best practice" would be.

For me, the main feature are simile to above.

- synchronise with a desktop version (macdive) and compatible with a mac
- the desktop version can synchronise with my suunto (and others) and gives me a lovely depth graph on my iPhone and iPad
- the iPad and iPhone versions sync so I have one log on both.
- I can use the iPhone and iPad gps functionality to log the location of the dive, then sync when I get home with my suunto. This then aggregates up to a nice world map of all of my dives on both the mobile and desktop versions. I can use manual gps coordinates as well to log a dive site at a later date.
-buddies links up with my address book
- stats are really useful. I can see that I've spend 5 days exactly underwater (!) and my average dive time is 43.7 minutes. I've dived 64 times in Egypt and 31 in the UK. I've dived the Thistlegorm 9 times (wow, didn't realise it was that many!). All really cool stuff to know.

I really love my dive log- I've ditched a paper log because of it.

Hope yours is successful too. I notice it's not available in the UK iTunes store, so I couldn't test it out for you anyway