GlobeJot 1.0.1 awaiting approval
Between five and ten percent of GlobeJot 1.0 users encountered crashes that wiped out trip data after they’d spent significant time inputting it. That sucks. That’s why GlobeJot isn’t on sale.
The reason this happened is simple and avoidable: A stray line of code mishandled some memory that belonged to a piece of the dashboard table. Sometimes, when memory ran low on the device, instructions were sent to that piece of memory to free itself. One too many instructions were sent, a condition in developer parlance known as “over-release.” This results in a crash. An annoying bug, but a simple one to fix.
The larger issue was a bone-headed decision to delay saving user data until the last possible second – when the application was told to quit. The gotcha, here, becomes obvious: if the application has crashed for some reason, there is no opportunity to save data. Which means if you spend some time putting in your entire trip, then encounter the crash bug before you quit GlobeJot, boom: your trip is gone.
A flawed implementation but, thankfully, one easy to remedy. First of all, GlobeJot 1.0.1 fixes the glaring crash bug in the dashboard. Some of you have never seen it, but for those who have, this will be welcome news. Next, GlobeJot saves its data much more frequently. Even in the event of some other, as yet undiscovered crash bug, your data will be safe. Finally, GlobeJot’s overall memory handling has been improved to reduce out of memory errors when your device’s RAM becomes constrained.
Eleven days ago, I submitted this new version to Apple. Unfortunately, even simple bug fix updates must pass their rigorous approval process. This is an important part of what makes the App Store so powerful: nothing destructive or unusable passes through this filter. There’s usually a nominal wait of about a week, but the release of iPhone OS 3.0 has a ton of app updates going through their pipeline. As a result, developers are seeing longer delays than usual. While the delay kills me, it’s part of how the game is played.
The good news is that nearly two weeks ago, GlobeJot’s major issues had been diagnosed and corrected. The bad news is that, until Apple gives the go-ahead, the fixed version is not available for your enjoyment.
I apologize once more for letting such a major combination of issues slip out the door with a shipping product. Nevertheless, I’m excited for the future of GlobeJot and I can’t wait for you to try out the new version. More news as I get it. Thank you again for your support and encouragement.