HanDBase Related News Update!

[ddhsoftwareadmin]

Hi!

As many of you have noticed, the updates for HanDBase have been non-existent for some time now. It's hard for me to believe it's been a year and a half since I last released an update for HanDBase. And not something I'm very proud of. I wanted to give you an update on what has been going on over that time and my plans for the months to come.

If you follow the tech news, I'm sure you've read enough articles recently that devs for apps in the app store have been struggling over the last few years- it seems the 'gold rush' days are over and most users are satisfied with the apps that they have installed, and those that need new apps are content with free offerings. That is true for HanDBase as well and was the reason that about 2 years ago I began taking on more contract work to supplement my income. My goal was to split time between HanDBase dev work and contract work and that worked reasonably well for a time, but eventually I decided to take on a full time dev job, where I could get benefits and a stable income. I started working full time at Wahoo Fitness in October of 2014 and have been there since. There I work on fitness apps for running and cardio exercise and have enjoyed success with some of my apps reaching the top of the fitness charts.

During that time I was able to continue supporting the contracts I had over nights and weekends, and HanDBase to a very limited degree (emails, web site maintenance, etc). When my contracts finally wound down at the end of 2015 I began to have some time to work on HanDBase and started building in some new features to Android and iOS versions of HanDBase. At the beginning of this year I decided to make a new years resolution and learn something entirely new and started working nights and weekend on learning game programming in Unity. I put in way too many hours doing this- often 20 hours each week while still maintaining a full time job- much to my wife's displeasure! But at last I am happy to report my first game release: Over The Bars - Road Bike Racing. This is a 3d arcade racing game that runs on iOS and tvOS (and potentially other platforms) and can be controlled by a real bike running on a KICKR (a popular smart indoor trainer that the company I work for makes). So you can pedal and steer your bike to control your player in the game. It's a lot of fun and I hope you'll check it out: http://www.overthebarsracing.com

But now - some actual HanDBase news! Since launching Over The Bars a few weekends ago, I have been back working on HanDBase iOS and am preparing an update with the following changes:

- Support for force touch- launch directly into one of the last two databases you had open by force pressing the icon.
- Improved support for hi-res screens like the 6+ and 6s+ - instead of just scaling up elements on the screen, you now have more room to see more data. Also smaller 6+ keyboard used/shown.
Bug Fixes:
- finally duplicated and fixed the cause of a crash when editing popups!
- fixed an issue where using an external keyboard would mess up the screen on iOS9+

I am just releasing a beta of this to testers today and hopefully will be able to submit in next weekend. An Android update is planned for after this one hits the store, where I will be addressing some bugs and improving font sizing on some of the higher res devices.

I'm very sorry I haven't been more responsive with these small updates and hope to do better in the near future. I am honestly not sure what the future holds- there just aren't that many new paying customers for HanDBase or any paid productivity apps but at the same time there is a dedicated, loyal and awesome group of users like yourself that continue to use HanDBase and want the development to continue. And then there's me- I don't feel done with HanDBase by any means- there is still so much I want to do!

I am watching with great interest the current move to subscriptions to provide an income stream to developers so that they can continue improving their apps rather than move on to greener pastures (pun intended!). I have so much more up my sleeve for HanDBase if there was only a way to make it profitable, I would love to work on new features like cloud syncing, full featured mac version, and some never done or even requested features in a database app that would give you some new superpowers with your data!

I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions and hope that there are enough of you still using HanDBase to make this all worthwhile. Thanks for sticking with me and HanDBase. All my best!

[DorothyD]

Thank you for the update, and for the news of your other activities. I completely understand why you needed to put HanDBase aside. I'm a long-time user, since my first Palm, and would be happy to pay a subscription fee to support HanDBase.

[curtterp]

Dave,

First of all, thanks for the update on what is going on. I am sure that there are a lot of people that are glad to hear from you.

Glad to see that you got a stable dev job with a company that you seem to be happy with. While it leaves you with less time for working on HanDBase, having a stable income takes some worry away and lets you work more efficiently without worrying about the income.

Also glad to see the roadmap for what is happening now, and what might be happening in the future.

All in all, a nice update from you

[edwin2011]

Thanks for honest explanation.
Would be nice if I could have two databases openen at the same time (one for the installed base and one for time tracking) Now I need to switch end reopen every time.

[ddhsoftwareadmin]

Thanks for honest explanation.
Would be nice if I could have two databases openen at the same time (one for the installed base and one for time tracking) Now I need to switch end reopen every time.

Hey Edwin,

You may appreciate a seldom used feature in HanDBase views- there is a view option to switch to another database. I use that on occasion to toggle between two databases that I need- just select the view and bam- the other one is opened up. Then you can have a view there to switch back!

[edwin2011]

Found it. Will experiment with it. Never guessed there would be a option like this. Thanks

[exmpro]

So pleased to be able to read your update, Dave. I fully understand your position as outlined, and am relieved to learn that you are continuing to develop HB. For me HB is an essential app, and I would be lost without it. As I have said in previous posts, I think it is underpriced: maybe this works against you. Higher price = higher expectations, which HB fulfils.

[Erich]

Hi Dave,

I think the subscriptions are the right way. People (users) who appreciate your software (like me) would be willing to have a paid subscription (cloud sync would be extraordinaire indeed).
The rest is just interested in getting something free and, thus, do not contribute towards or support the development.

Have a nice day everyone,
Erich

[Veritas]

Hi!

As many of you have noticed, the updates for HanDBase have been non-existent for some time now. It's hard for me to believe it's been a year and a half since I last released an update for HanDBase. And not something I'm very proud of. I wanted to give you an update on what has been going on over that time and my plans for the months to come.

If you follow the tech news, I'm sure you've read enough articles recently that devs for apps in the app store have been struggling over the last few years- it seems the 'gold rush' days are over and most users are satisfied with the apps that they have installed, and those that need new apps are content with free offerings. That is true for HanDBase as well and was the reason that about 2 years ago I began taking on more contract work to supplement my income. My goal was to split time between HanDBase dev work and contract work and that worked reasonably well for a time, but eventually I decided to take on a full time dev job, where I could get benefits and a stable income. I started working full time at Wahoo Fitness in October of 2014 and have been there since. There I work on fitness apps for running and cardio exercise and have enjoyed success with some of my apps reaching the top of the fitness charts.

During that time I was able to continue supporting the contracts I had over nights and weekends, and HanDBase to a very limited degree (emails, web site maintenance, etc). When my contracts finally wound down at the end of 2015 I began to have some time to work on HanDBase and started building in some new features to Android and iOS versions of HanDBase. At the beginning of this year I decided to make a new years resolution and learn something entirely new and started working nights and weekend on learning game programming in Unity. I put in way too many hours doing this- often 20 hours each week while still maintaining a full time job- much to my wife's displeasure! But at last I am happy to report my first game release: Over The Bars - Road Bike Racing. This is a 3d arcade racing game that runs on iOS and tvOS (and potentially other platforms) and can be controlled by a real bike running on a KICKR (a popular smart indoor trainer that the company I work for makes). So you can pedal and steer your bike to control your player in the game. It's a lot of fun and I hope you'll check it out: http://www.overthebarsracing.com

But now - some actual HanDBase news! Since launching Over The Bars a few weekends ago, I have been back working on HanDBase iOS and am preparing an update with the following changes:

- Support for force touch- launch directly into one of the last two databases you had open by force pressing the icon.
- Improved support for hi-res screens like the 6+ and 6s+ - instead of just scaling up elements on the screen, you now have more room to see more data. Also smaller 6+ keyboard used/shown.
Bug Fixes:
- finally duplicated and fixed the cause of a crash when editing popups!
- fixed an issue where using an external keyboard would mess up the screen on iOS9+

I am just releasing a beta of this to testers today and hopefully will be able to submit in next weekend. An Android update is planned for after this one hits the store, where I will be addressing some bugs and improving font sizing on some of the higher res devices.

I'm very sorry I haven't been more responsive with these small updates and hope to do better in the near future. I am honestly not sure what the future holds- there just aren't that many new paying customers for HanDBase or any paid productivity apps but at the same time there is a dedicated, loyal and awesome group of users like yourself that continue to use HanDBase and want the development to continue. And then there's me- I don't feel done with HanDBase by any means- there is still so much I want to do!

I am watching with great interest the current move to subscriptions to provide an income stream to developers so that they can continue improving their apps rather than move on to greener pastures (pun intended!). I have so much more up my sleeve for HanDBase if there was only a way to make it profitable, I would love to work on new features like cloud syncing, full featured mac version, and some never done or even requested features in a database app that would give you some new superpowers with your data!

I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions and hope that there are enough of you still using HanDBase to make this all worthwhile. Thanks for sticking with me and HanDBase. All my best!

A great update. I have been waiting for this one for a while (support for hi-resolution screens), however I can't see any additional fonts


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[conwarjwalters]

Hello, long time user from the Palm IIIe days (as I imagine many of us were introduced). I would absolutely purchase a subscription for additional features (sync across many devices being one of them), as well as bug fixes. This software is critical to both of my professions and I hope to keep using it in the future. Thanks for keeping this alive for the past 15 years Dave and Brian!