iPhone App - Looking for feedback

[FrequenC]

Great idea! Looks great and lines up perfectly on my Touch!
Will you be making this into an actual app or will you be keeping it web based?

This is freakin' awesome & I'm damned impressed. I've got an iTouch at home, can't wait to upload this. As for feedback, I'm kinda a tech idiot.

-What other data elements should I include in the info screen? (I'm not trying to recreate MRN on the iPhone, but I'm sure there are several more things that I should be including.) I like it how it is!

-Does the terminology on the pages make sense? Yep
for items 1 and 2, how should the data elements be different for NC's?

-Suggestions on any design elements would be welcome as well. I'm trying to make this very 'iPhone-friendly' in terms of simplicity, speed, etc., but I'm no designer. So, suggestions are welcome.
coulda fooled me! as far as I'm concerned, you're a genius

-Does the site work ok on your browser/iphone/iPod? If not, please provide specifics so I can try to correct things. works on my browser - pc

-If I add a page to enter/edit the NC information live, would some of you crazy bastages help load it up with data on the more common NC's? i'll try my best!

Lastly, what kind of functionality would you want in something like this? (Personal Inventory, reviews, connectivity to other info, etc.) all of the above

[KenS]

Originally Posted by FrequenC

Great idea! Looks great and lines up perfectly on my Touch!
Will you be making this into an actual app or will you be keeping it web based?

At some point, I'd love to make it a native app, but there's a big learning curve for me to do that. It's been years since I wrote code other than for the web, so I figure I can do all the design and prototyping as a web app first. Once I have the design and functionality completed, I'll take a look at coding it as a native app.

In the meantime, there is the side benefit of having it accessable via any web browser (although clearly it functions best in Safari, and is optimized for the iPhone/Touch. I'll be opening it up for add/edit functionality shortly, so maybe some inmates will help populate the database.

Lastly, as you probably know, on the iPhone or Touch, you can create the bookmark to the web app as a button on the main screen of the device, just like a native app.

Appreciate all the feedback

[dunng]

Web version works pretty good on my BB... any chance of adding MSRP? That way it's a handy tool when you are at a B&M. Thanks!

[KenS]

For those who don't have an iPhone or Touch, here are some screen shots that show approximately what it looks like, in the order that you'd likely navigate the screens. Note that where you see a scroll bar, there really isn't one on the iPhone/Touch because it's not needed there with a touch screen...



The last pic is of the edit screen, which I'm working on completing now.

[doctorcue]

Just checked this out... pretty damn cool. Nothing like this out there. Appreciate all your effort. Obviously if it is a native app; we'll be able to edit the 'My Inventory' info. Hope you have time to build this out. I'll be waiting patiently.

[Jason]

looks like the beginnings of something beautiful!

1. looks mostly covered (personal tasting notes tied to each!)

2. yes

3. there can be a third element for NCs yea? I'm not sure how to handle that. Some bunch of terms to consider, marca, size, vitola, line; lines between some of those get fuzzy with NCs

4. I know nothing about iPhone-specific design but I like your approach, esp if web-based, that is, text! The markup could be made cleaner/compliant here and there but I do like your light approach. You'd do better to implement scalable font-sizes (and structural elements for that matter) by using EMs instead of PXs (unless you're going iPhone only app and know what you're doing there, I don't!)

5. it looks pretty good in IE on Windows Mobile 6, doesn't display the "webkit" specific stuff of course (corner radius etc, does this work in Google's Chrome I wonder since it's based on webkit)

6. define "more common"

7. personal inventory and tasting notes. If tasting notes could be broke down into multiple date based entries, even better. While entering a new tasting note/review of a cigar it would be very cool if you were prompted with the option to remove one from inventory when submitting (since it's likely you just smoked one)

I think as a web app specifically for mobiles (that would work on any browser of course) this would be fantastic!

It would be good to be able to keep a master database of cigar data that gets updated by an authoritative source and could be output as XML/SQL/whatever to update/augment individual user account's backends. This would be especially nice if it's going to be a mobile only app since adding all that information by hand, on a mobile device, sucks at best; therefor 99% of folks wouldn't bother I'd think.

PM me if I can help with anything, I can hack around php and MySQL but am very good with hand coding xhtml/css and graphic-ing up the frontend

[Silound]

The ability to add some words to each cigar...even a few hundred just so you can make your own notes, opinions, buy/no buy, gifted when/where/liked/didn't like information would be invaluable. As it stands now, there's lots of valuable technical data, but very little personal data such as what I think of the cigar if I'm reviewing it. That could be extremely helpful when I'm browsing a shop or online site and wondering if I've ever tried something before.


Also, the ability to add a small picture or two (different angles, the band, etc) would be very nice. Helps identification. All that and the personal notes can be stored on the iPhone's internal memory in a data structure. The basic framework of the app obviously isn on it's own.

[sikk50]

Looks better than the taster app I paid $5 for last week.

My biggest beef with the one I have and I hope yours won't lack it, is that it doesn't have an inventory. I want to keep track if what cigars I have, when I bought them, and once I smoke the a spot to enter place/date smoked. I think you have a form base down. Also the abuility to add a picture library. So you can tag pics of the cigar to it, and not have to keep them in your camera role.

[KenS]

Originally Posted by sikk50

Looks better than the taster app I paid $5 for last week.

My biggest beef with the one I have and I hope yours won't lack it, is that it doesn't have an inventory. I want to keep track if what cigars I have, when I bought them, and once I smoke the a spot to enter place/date smoked. I think you have a form base down. Also the abuility to add a picture library. So you can tag pics of the cigar to it, and not have to keep them in your camera role.

Yes, the inventory feature is key, but really has to wait for a native app, so that I can store that data locally on your device. I don't imagine that people want to store their inventory in my database on my server (of course I wouldn't mind knowing who has all the best smokes ). Also the camera access is not available to a web app, so that's also a "native app" feature.

I continue to prototype this as a web app, but I have started the native app as well. In the meantime, please keep the feedback coming!

Thanks