Tag: macOS

Introducing uTime 5

~ Matthew Jagiela

After over a year of hard work and dedication I am so happy I can finally introduce the next major update to uTime: uTime 5. Starting a year ago the entire backend structure has been redone, iOS 14 specific features, SwiftUI, CloudKit, and more make up just part of this massive update. While I will post the changelog below I want to highlight some of the more major features of this release.

A New Backend

uTime’s original back end was made when I was a freshman starting college and has stuck around ever since (well until now). It was very sloppy but migrating it was not really possible in the way I wanted to do it until iOS 13 allowed for CoreData (saved data) to syncronize into iCloud without a lot of extra work. This means the data you put into uTime automatically gets saved and transfered to iCloud (or if you don’t have iCloud it will stay on device). By moving uTime’s data to a database instead of my own system of functions (what a mess), I can push updates even faster that has to do with timers and most importantly – less bugs. The downside to this is anything before iOS 13 (and macOS Catalina) does not work with this structure so uTime 5 has to be on iOS 13 (and 14 now) to run. Another downside is all previous versions will not sync data after transfering. If you choose not to upgrade to uTime 5 syncing will still work as expected. Version 5 needs other app versions to be on 5 to sync your data.

First Time Setup

Something new that has not been done before is first time setup. First time setup will open when you first open uTime 5 and in the background migrate your old data to the new dataset that uTime will use from now on. While this is happening you can also scroll through and see some new features of the app. After the first setup you will not see these screens again.

A New Modification Screen

uTime 5’s Modiciation Screen

The new modification screen is simply incredible. It allows you to select the date from a calendar instead of scrolling through. The time is right below so you can set it to the exact time of your event.

iOS 14 Widget

uTime 5 iOS 14 Widget

With iOS 14 Apple has started allowing widgets to be on the homescreen of the iPhone. I am so happy to say uTime 5 has a widget for iOS 14 ready to be on the homescreen of your iPhone (or sidebar of your iPad). The iOS 14 widget updates every 5 minutes (or when you open the app, this is Apple’s limit not mine) and will show you the time to the closest timer that has time left. For iOS 13 friends the Today widget still exists and can be used to cycle through.

Feedback Submission

Feedback Tools

One of the big new features within uTime 5 is feedback submission in app. Using your iCloud account within any screen in app, you can now shake your device (or hit command+F on macOS) to bring up a feedback form. From here you can submit a bug or just general feedback in the app. What is important to know: I cannot see any personal data even though you need to be signed into iCloud (because Apple does not allow me to write to CloudKit without authentication). The only information I can see is what you provide to me.

Those are just some of the major features coming with uTime 5. Others include the Info screen being completely redone, theme improvements, and much more. uTime 5 is the biggest release I have ever done as a developer and I am so excited for you all to use it. To see the entire changelog you can open the info section of the app or find it below.

Changelog:

  • A New Data Set: uTime 5 uses an entirely new data set. This new set lives in iCloud just like the last but allows for more features to be developed much much quicker. If you do not use iCloud then the data will live on your device just like before. With this change it is important to note that uTime 4 cannot sync with this set so if you want to have continuity between devices both will need uTime 5 to sync. This also means uTime 3 on desktop will not be able to sync with uTime 5 for macOS or iOS.
  • iOS 14 Widget – You can now have uTime on the home-screen of your device! Just add the widget by activating jiggle mode. The iOS 14 widget will show the aproximate time you have left to your closest expiring timer!
  • Modify Timer Screen – The modify timer screen has been COMPLETELY redone. You will now be able to choose dates with a calendar and then the time with a date picker for a much better experience than just one scroller. (Not available on iPhone SE Gen 1 running iOS 13)
  • Feedback Screen – You can now submit feedback right through the app: Simply shake your iPhone or iPad to submit either a bug report or generic feedback in the app! Mac users can use the menu option to access on home screen! Please make sure you are signed into iCloud to use!
  • Info Screen – Info screen has been completely re-written in SwiftUI. This makes for a more consistent experience throughout all devices along with being able to add and change things quicker for future updates.
  • Theme improvements: The operating system will now fully take care of dark/light theme. This also allows it when you switch themes in control center the app will fully change without the need to restart.
  • First time setup: Upon entry you will be welcomed with a new set of screens while we transfer your data. This will explain new features!
  • – New Icon: A new version means a new icon! This update is a little pinkish!
  • – Added support for iOS 14.
  • – iOS 13 Dependent: uTime 5 is only available for iOS 13 and onwards.
  • – Changed checkmark image for selecting timers on iPhone.
  • – Fixed an issue on iPad where the color would not return to normal after deselecting a timer.
  • – Fixed an issue where the launch screen would present an oversized logo image.
  • – Fixed an issue where the launch screen would present no image at all…
  • Fixed an issue on iPhone SE (Gen 1) where the image on modify timer wouldn’t completely fill the view. 

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uTime 4.4.1 (Spring Cleaning Update) Now Available

~ Matthew Jagiela

uTime 4.4.1:

A new round of uTime 4.4.1 is now out. Called the spring cleaning update this includes:

  • Added a cancel button to the iPad/Mac modify Window. This will allow you to discard any changes made to a timer while using iPadOS or macOS.
  • Timer Table For iPhone: The table on iOS 13 will now show a gray color + checkmark to let you know it has been selected. For iOS 12 and earlier it will just be a gray color. This is a fix for checkmarks dissapearing in a long list.
  • Timer Table for iPad/Mac: When in edit mode and selecting a timer, the color will change to gray to let you know that it has been selected. This fixes disapearing checkmarks and text being cutoff by the mark for a cleaner approach.
  • Made it so the app now dynamically knows what version it’s running. This means there is less confusion on what version you actually have installed.
  • Fixed a bug where checkmarks would disappear if a large list is present and the user scrolls.
  • Cleaned up various parts of the app to make file size slightly smaller and also allow for a better running experience
  • Slight interface changes

Download uTime on the iOS App Store | Download uTime from Mac App Store

uTime 4.1 Is Here!

~ Matthew Jagiela

uTime 4.1 is now available… For all platforms!

With the power of macOS Catalina and Catalyst framework uTime comes to the mac with all the same functionality as the iOS version! This also means whenever there is an update to uTime for iOS there will be the same update with the same (and more) features for macOS.

However, making a Catalyst app is a problem because it will only work with macOS Catalina which drops 32 bit support which is used with many legacy applications…

The way I decided to counter this is to leave uTime for macOS (Version 3) on the app store for legacy software users. However, there will not be feature updates for uTime macOS Version 3.

So why the change? A lot of reasons but the main one is continuity: being able to develop features once and then have it work accross all Apple platforms means more feature updates come quicker which is a big win.

More information on the transition can be found here: https://uappsios.com/utime-4-macos-migration-info/

uTime 4 for macOS is now called uTime Universal to match the iOS version and that it is universal throughout platforms. uTime 4 runs better on macOS than uTime 3 does and I highly recommend using it.

uTime 4 is still free and can be downloaded here

For the 4.1 update here is what is new:

  • macOS:
  •     Thanks to macOS Catalina uTime for iOS and macOS can live as one App! That means every feature that comes to iOS will come to macOS at the same time!
  •     All of the new features of uTime 4 iOS is now integrated into macOS. This includes the circular timer!
  •     The UI For iPad has been tweaked with constraints better to use macOS resizing. This is a good thing because it will also work better on a variety of screen sizes for iPad as well!
  •     Theme will change with the system theme automatically. If you have auto enabled when macOS changes theme uTime will too!
  •     uTime for Mac will still have it’s own unique icon!
  •     For those not running macOS Catalina version 3 will still remain on the Mac App Store for better compatibility but will not be updated unless crucial bug fixes are needed.
  • iOS:
  •     Made it so switching the theme system wide will change the theme on uTime (iOS 13)
  •     Fixed bug on iPad when selecting the sort by date option would flick light mode on.
  •     Fixed issue where some timers that are expired might fire notifications on launch.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy a better uTime for Mac!

uTime iOS 3.1/ macOS 3.0.5 Now Available

~ Matthew Jagiela

uTime 3 No Text

Happy July! To start of Summer right( at least where I am) I have updated both iOS and macOS versions of uTime! uTime for iOS is now on version 3.1 while uTime for macOS is now on versions 3.0.5! Take a look at the changes below:

uTime 3.1 for iOS:

  •  Made it so dark mode for the iPad now is on the home screen timer list
  •  Enabling dark mode will have the dark keyboard appear when changing the timer name
  •  The return of date sorting: You can now sort timers by date on both macOS and iOS
  •  Made it so you can slide to delete timers on iPad
  •  Redesigned the launch screen
  •  Fixed an issue with memory leaking on iPad
  •  Fixed an issue on auto layout sometimes not working on the info section of the iPad

uTime 3.0.5 for macOS:

  • Sorting by date has returned to both macOS and iOS versions of uTime
  • Adjusted a timer on the back end so the app should not have issues with timer selections anymore.

Download uTime for iOS | Download uTime for macOS (BOTH FREE)

uTime 2.3 Now Available

~ Matthew Jagiela

utime-icon-launch

There is no slowing down the update train! Nearly a week after launching uTime 2.2.1 for macOS, uTime for both iOS and macOS has a brand new update!

For Mac this brings more of the functionality seen on iOS into the application (the big one being multiple timer deletion!).

For iOS a more simplified interface when dealing with the timer view!

The change-log for macOS:

What’s New:
2.3(Current):
-Made It So You Can Delete Multiple Timers!
-Hold Command and Select Timers (Leave One Remaining Though) Then Delete!
-Slight Changes To Notification Appearance (In App Notifications)
-Changed The Color Of TouchBar Labels

For iOS:

2.3(Current):
Happy New Year!
-Combined the edit and delete button in the timer view to one button
-Selecting all timers will change the button to done (There has to be one timer in the list)
-Changed the icon back to normal (Snow will remain falling for a little while though)!
-Small UI Changes

So the change-log might not be massive but there was a lot of work into getting both the iOS version and macOS version to do these things properly (otherwise multiple timer deletion for Mac would have happened at 2.0). However, I am always improving and there will be more updates to show that. Until then thank you for downloading.

Download uTime for iOS | Download uTime for macOS

uTime macOS 2.2.1 Now Available

~ Matthew Jagiela

utime-icon-launch

Happy New Year 2017!

Happy (late) new year from uApps! To start of our 2017 we start with something small but needed. I decided to update uTime for macOS first this year (as some may have noticed as the update has been out earlier than this post). uTime 2.2.1 brings some slight improvements and removes our holiday icon. Snow however, will be staying for a few more months because it’s still cold and I like the snow falling.

The official changelog for uTime macOS 2.2.1:

Happy New Year 2017:

  • When adding a timer the change timer view will automatically appear
  • Added touch bar delete timer notification
  • Fixed the problem where the delete timer notification view would not appear…
  • Fixed issue when adding a new timer it would not directly go to it.
  • Removed Holiday Icon (Snow Remains!)

Also a quick note for those running OS X 10.10: I have decided not to release this version for that specific OS as the snow caused some problems with the layout and I cannot fully figure out why/test it in my current state. I will try and bring back support sometime soon but I recommend updating to at least OS X 10.11.

That’s it for this update I hope you enjoy and I am already working on improvements and new features for uTime both on macOS and iOS. Enjoy

Download uTime macOS | Download uTime iOS

uTime 2.1 Now Available (Mac and iOS)

~ Matthew Jagiela

utime-icon-launch

There are no breaks! Just 4 days after releasing uTime 2  for macOS uTime 2.1 is out for not only Mac but for iOS as well! The official changelog for both platforms below.

2.1 macOS:

2.1 (Current):
– Got rid of the (s) in the countdown text
– uTime macOS now supports fullscreen!
– You can now make the window infinitely bigger. Enjoy!
– The Info screen is also resizable! Make it as big (or small) as you want!
– Added today button to Change Time View to quickly update the picker to the current time.
– Font changes for Change Time View.
-Added support back for OS X 10.10(Yosemite)

2.1 iOS:

2.1(Current):
– Change to the countdown time (No more (S))!
-(S) is also gone from our countdown widget!
-Added “Today” button for changeTime to get to the current time.
– Redid notifications… 2.0 butchered them for some reason.
– Made “Name Changer” change with dark mode.
– Made “Date Picker” change with dark mode.
-Made changer blur change with dark mode.
-When adding a new timer the default seconds will now be :00 (Can only be changed with uTime macOS)
-Slight UI Changes to iPad.

Also, because uTime 2 for macOS came out 4 days ago here is a link to that (or just look to the post below this)

I hope you enjoy the update and I look forward to bringing more enhancements to the future (maybe Touch Bar support?!).

uTime 2 for macOS Now Available

~ Matthew Jagiela

utime-icon-launch

You didn’t think I forgot about the Mac did you? Of course not! I am happy to announce that after a ton of development and testing uTime 2 for macOS is now available to download!

The biggest change to uTime for macOS is that I redesigned the User Interface.

screen-shot-2016-10-14-at-2-26-54-pm

As shown above our timer view is now permanantly on the side bar of our homepage! This allows quick and easy access to all of your countdown timers. To delete a timer simply select it and hit the delete key on your keyboard! Along with this for smaller screened Macs the view can be resized to better fit your screen!

Also just as a small thing I incorporated Apple’s San Fransisco font which looks very nice throughout the entire application.

Along with this a bunch of mechanics have changed including how timers are changed (a small popover instead of just appearing) along with some color changes to our info screen.

Along with this are a lot of behind the scene changes that will make uTime macOS even better!

This update took so long because I did not want to update it without iCloud syncing working on Sierra.

The full changelog for uTime 2 for macOS:

2.0:
-New Icon to match the iOS Version – Much cleaner
-Redesigned UI:
-Home screen has a new font to make it look cleaner.
-Home screen has the list of timers always visible for easy selection
-Timers are now deleted by hitting the delete key.
-The window’s width can now be resized for smaller screens.
-Change Time/Name is now it’s own view that pops up instead of just appearing.
-Support is now bigger in order to show more information and has the same black blurr as other elements.
-Adding a timer will have the name “New macOS Timer” to reflect rebranding of OSX
-Along with the new font there are multiple changes with the way text is formatted (list and home)
-Download uTime for iOS button works now.
-Changed the order of the buttons for support as closed in the middle was a little weird.
-Fixed issue where notifications would not show up when the timer was synced with iCloud.
-Support for macOS Sierra (10.12)

And here is the updated screenshot gallery for uTime macOS!

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A Note on uTime for Mac and macOS Sierra

~ Matthew Jagiela

uTime App Icon

Back when uTime for OS X (now refered to as macOS) first came out I wrote about how iCloud syncing did not work with macOS Sierra. Shortly after this discovery I filed a bug report with Apple and now that the official release of Sierra is upon us and the feature is still broken I thought it was time for an update on the situation.

The problem is how uTime syncs arrays between devices. Without going into complex details the feature was noted by Apple as being broken and was being looked into. They did not fix it with the release of macOS Sierra which is very disappointing as it renders uTime useless if not being used alongside an iOS device.

However, with the second beta of macOS Sierra 10.12.1 the issue is fixed and iCloud syncs between devices yet again. What this means is that Apple has figured out the problem and the next update to macOS should solve the problem.

I appreciate the patience and I know this is a big problem but it is out of my control unless I want to change both the way the iOS app and macOS app work. If this problem wasn’t fixed with 10.12.1 then I would have probably start to have done.

Thank you for the patience and keep your eye out for macOS updates.

Download uTime for macOS

 

Introducing uTime for OS X

~ Matthew Jagiela

uTime App Icon

After being in development for as it’s counterpart for iOS, uTime for OS X is now available on the Mac App Store. uTime for OS X brings the simplicity of uTime to the Mac. uTime for OS X supports OS X 10.10 and above!

From the official uTime for OS X App Store Page:

Welcome to uTime for OS X!
Just like the iOS Counterpart uTime for OS X allows you to have a countdown timer to a certain date.
Below you will find labels with information related to uApps and the current version of uTime for OS X. uTime refers to the iOS version while uTime for OS X version refers to this application.
All app updates are served through the Mac App Store.
Auto updates are recommended as they will keep uTime for OS X up to date with but fixes and new features.
uTime for OS X keeps in sync with your iOS devices so the timers on your iPhone or iPad are the same on your mac and vice versa.
uTime for OS X does not need an iOS device to function whatsoever!
uTime for OS X support can be found by hitting the web support button below.

This marks uApps first App for the Mac and I am very excited. Updates for both the iOS version and the OS X version will be regular.

Also there has been added pages specific to our OS X version. uTime OS X/uTime OS X Support.

Please note for iCloud syncing between iOS and OS X you must have uTime 1.2 for iOS.

uTime for OS X does not need iOS to be fully operational, they just work better together!

I am still very new to Mac Development which means there will be numerous updates to the application to change the UI and features. Remember to keep auto-updates on to keep uTime up to date. You can also see version information by hitting info.

A Note on uTime and macOS Beta: In the beta of macOS 10.12 I have found changes made from the Mac will not stay up to date with iCloud. This is not apparant in 10.10 or 10.11. This issue will be adressed when macOS 10.12 is coming closer to deployment. 

Download uTime for OS X