Photo Speed Dial

Over the past few days we’ve had reports from a couple of users about crashes occurring during startup. Thanks to the help of several users we have tracked this issue down. As far as we can tell it is affecting only a very small number of users (less than 1%) and is caused by a problem in the analytics library we are using.

If you are one of those users then we apologize for any inconvenience and want you to know this is our top priority.

So what’s an analytics library?

To help us decide which areas of Photo Speed Dial to focus on we analyze anonymous usage statistics. For example we know the average loading time is in the region of three seconds, that the “Favorites” view is used 3x as much as the contacts view, and that people use phone/email speed-dials more than SMS. This anonymous information is vital in letting us see how our application is used, and how it can be improved.

Unfortunately it seems the third-party package we use has been experiencing issues over the past few days. We’re working with the company to discover why this has started occurring, and what can be done to fix it. If we cannot come to a resolution in the next day or two we will release an update that does not have the analytics code.

Again, apologies for any inconvenience.

On Sunday evening we submitted version 1.1.1 of Photo Speed Dial to Apple. If our previous update is any indication it should be available by this Saturday. This new release includes bug fixes, usability tweaks, and loading improvements.

Because loading times are one of our most important areas we thought we’d elaborate on this area a little.

We’ve discovered that loading images from the address book can take an unexpectedly long time for some users. For example for one user the loading time dropped from seven to three seconds when using images from the photo-gallery images for his favorites instead of the address book image.

Since there’s nothing we can do to speed up the address book we’ve had to be a little creative. In 1.1 and earlier we would wait until the first page of contacts had loaded before displaying them. In 1.1.1 we now display the page and update images as they become available. Until an image is available we display the a placeholder image with the correct name and icon. You can even start dialing before the image has loaded.

Long-term our aim is to keep our own copy of this data that can be loaded super-fast so we don’t go through the address book, but to do that we need to have an efficient way of detecting any changes that may have occurred since PSD was last run. That’s what we’re currently working on

Hurrah! 1.1 has been approved and is now available on iTunes

We’re not resting though and work on the next update is already underway. According to our stats the average loading times for users is around three seconds and we’re going to try and reduce this by a third. The 2.1 OS update appears to have introduced an occasional jiggle while scrolling and this will also be fixed.

As well as these changes we’ll be introducing at least one major new feature that I’m really excited about. It’s something very cool that will give you a whole new way of quickly connecting with the contacts you’re interested in.

We plan to submit to Apple sometime in the next 2-3 weeks, so anticipate the new version will be available mid-October. We can’t wait

Yesterday morning we submitted the 1.1 update to Apple. Our previous experience is that it takes around five working days for Apple to test and approve an application, then another 4-6 hours for it to filter through to the iTunes Store. We have no idea if this time is less or more for updates. With luck it will be out before the weekend.

As soon as the 1.1 update is available Photo Speed Dial will be available again for current users to upgrade, and for new users to purchase.

A few people have reported a bug where additions/edits to favorites are not saved once the user has several pages of favorites. We realize this must be frustrating and apologize.

Since the experience of our users is our number one goal we have decided to remove Photo Speed Dialer from sale until the fixed version has been approved by Apple.

We have also added an entry to the FAQ regarding requests for improved startup times.