endloop blog

How compelling would it be if iTV could run all the apps in the current iPad/iPhone software library?

Imagine just sync’ing your iPad/iPhone/iPod to your iTV and be able to run your current library of apps on the big screen, using your device as a remote.

It shouldn’t be that hard to pass all the touch and accelerometer input from the remote iOS device to the iTV.

The only tricky thing is that there is no ‘cursor’ display so it might be difficult to tell where your touch may affect the display on your TV.

If anyone can figure this out, it would be Apple. And why wouldn’t they want a $99 instant home console pushing all the existing iTunes content, including the apps and games?

Who needs a Wii-mote when you have a remote iOS device w/ an accelerometer, gyroscope and camera?

*** UPDATE (Aug 18th, 2010) ***

iMockups 1.1 has been approved and is available
on the App Store now: iTunes Link

***

Hi everyone,

Check out our Features video for a sneak preview of iMockups v1.1 new skin and export to Balsamiq. Enjoy!

Read more…

Inspirations and aspirations

First off, I want to thank the fine folks at TapTapTap for publishing their numbers on their blog for all to see. A hearty congrats to them on their continued success!

It’s always great for us developers to see how other apps perform, not just from a comparison standpoint but for educational and aspirational purposes as well.

Their blog post is what inspired me to write this one as we just hit a $100K milestone in App Store revenue for our wireframing app, iMockups for iPad.

Read more…

It’s here - the update you’ve been waiting for! With iMockups v1.0.9, you can now backup, transfer and share your iMockups project files via email and iTunes.

Get the latest version and full update notes here: iMockups App Store Link

If you have a spare moment, please support us by giving us a rating and/or review on the App Store since the ratings/reviews are specific to each update. Thanks again for your support!

Here’s the video showcasing the new project import/export :

Hi everyone,

Check out our new iMockups v1.0.9 Features video. You can now share your iMockup projects with fellow iMockup users with a new project import/export feature plus 100 new icons. Enjoy!!

iMockups v1.0.9 was just submitted. Lets hope that all goes well and you will have the update in less than a week.

Thank you for all your support and feedback! We appreciate your contribution in helping us make iMockups better. You can also help iMockups by leaving a rating or review on the iTunes store. Much appreciated!!

New Feature & Changes:

- Export Projects via Email as iMockups Files - You can now email iMockups projects as .iMockups files. Backup, transfer and share your iMockups projects quickly and easily via email!
- iMockups now recognizes .iMockups files so you can import project files from other iPad apps like Mail, DropBox, Box.net, etc.
- Project File Management - You can now manage, backup and sync your iMockups Project files via iTunes.
- New Clone Project button is now available from the Projects View. This will allow you to quickly create copies of existing projects (or template projects) as new projects.
- 116 new Icon Images: You can now change the default Icon image to one of 116 new pre-rendered icons. More to come in future updates - requests welcome!
- New UI Control: Picker for iOS mockups
- Popover Control now has an option to change the direction of the arrow pointer
- iPhone and iPad Tab Bars now have a switch to hide the default icons displayed
- Back button now has an option to reverse the arrow to a Forward button

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where iMockups would crash on launch
- Fixed a bug where the Page scroller would get stuck when launching in Landscape mode

Hey folks,

I’m happy to report that iMockups for iPad v1.08 is now available.

Get the full update notes here: iMockups App Store Link

If you have a spare moment, please support us by giving us a rating and/or review on the App Store since the ratings/reviews are specific to each update. Thanks again for your support!

Here’s the video showcasing the new grouping and cross-project copy/pasting features:

It’s been quite a while since we’ve updated this blog with anything NON-iMockups related so I thought I’d take the time to give an update on what we’ve been up to and what is in store for the future of Endloop.

First off, WOW. We’ve been on this rocket ship since iMockups (and the iPad) have launched and we’ve had our heads down, pounding the keyboards trying to get updates out. We just submitted v1.0.8 yesterday so that’s 8 versions/updates in about 3.5 months. Pretty crazy!

We’ve also grown our team - two new amazing people, Dirk (@dirkheikoop) and Linda (@lindatran30) have joined the Endloop ranks and will be helping us continue to make awesome apps. We knew that in order to keep this going, we couldn’t do it just by ourselves any longer. We’re super excited to have them on board!

So what’s next for us?

iMockups
Well, we’re already working on iMockups 1.1, which for us, will be the biggest update since launch! While iMockups 1.0.8 brings us much closer to the product we envisioned from the beginning, iMockups 1.1 will deliver on what we believe to be the COMPLETE version of iMockups - incorporating almost ALL the features we could think of and requested by you, our users, since we first started.

Have no doubt, we are dedicated to keeping iMockups as THE premier wireframing app for the iPad.

Our Next App
Development has also begun on our next app and while we can’t let the cat out of the bag yet, we’re really stoked about it and can’t wait to show you all! What I can say though is that it’s another productivity app, one that doesn’t really exist yet and something we’ve been wishing DID exist for a long time.

What about games?
And finally, don’t worry, we haven’t abandoned the game scene for productivity apps - we’ve just been in love with our iPads and see so much potential for great apps there that we can’t help ourselves. But we also have something HUGE for our return to the Indie game scene. We’ve got the concept ironed out and we’ll be starting development very soon.

In fact, we’re going to start dedicating Fridays PURELY for our upcoming game. So if you see #TCFridays in our Twitter stream, you’ll know what we’re talking about (Yes, the working title of our game is TC, an acronym for the top secret title we’re working on).

Anyway, that’s about it - as you can see, lots of work ahead for us but it’s amazingly exciting. Thanks for all your support and, as always, we’d love to hear from you, good or bad.

Hey folks,

Here’s our iMockups v1.08 Features video, showing off some HUGE features like grouping, cross project copy/paste and our new set of markup controls:

iMockups v1.08 was just submitted so we should see it in the App Store in less than a week if all goes well.

Thanks for all your support and please keep the iTunes Ratings and Reviews coming! We need your ratings and/or reviews for each update we release. Thanks!

Here is a more detailed list of features and bugfixes in the upcoming v1.08 update:

New Feature & Changes:
- Grouping is now possible from the Quick menu. Grouped controls will stay grouped until “ungrouped”, which can also be done from the same Quick Menu.
- 8 New Markup Elements and Controls: Sticky Note, Scratch Out, Red X, Arrows, Lines, Geometric Shapes, Scroll Bar, Brackets
- Copy, Cut, Paste commands now work across Projects. You can use the new Select All, then Copy / Paste to move entire pages into different projects.
- UI Controls are now organized into 4 categories, All, Web, iPhone/iPad and Markup. Click on the category headers to view the controls for that category.
- New Select All and Paste commands on a Quick menu that appears when you press and hold down a finger onto a blank area of the canvas.
- Imported Images has been improved. Images with transparencies are now supported. To ensure optimal image quality, size the Image Control before importing your custom image. iMockups scales and optimizes your images based on the size of the selected Image Control at the time of importing.
- Added vertical orientation to Slider Controls. You can now set Slider Controls to be vertical or horizontal from the Properties Panel.
- There is now a limit of 12 pages per project. This is a temporary measure to ensure that performance across projects is consistent. We will be lifting this limit as soon as we’re satisfied we’ve optimized Page handling sufficiently.

Bug Fixes:
- Increased stability and fixed crashing and memory issue when frequently switching between too many projects
- Fixed Export Project where all pages were numbered 1, 2, 3
- Fixed missing font slider for Link Bar Control
- Fixed the position label staying displayed on the canvas even after a control was unselected
- Fixed the position label which was not updating while nudging
- Fixed missing status bars in the iPad frame
- Fixed status bars in landscape mode for iPhone and iPad frames
- Fixed iPhone and iPad Keyboard Controls not restoring modified sizes after relaunching iMockups
- Fixed Image Controls from older mockups not displaying properly after v1.0.7
- Fixed Pages mysteriously flying away into the void and never coming back
- Fixed Undo/Redo not remembering Switch On/Off action
- Fixed crashing on first load and while watching Tutorial videos

Hey folks, iMockups version 1.07 is released! Here’s a quick video showing how our new image import feature works:

Here are the full release notes:

New Feature & Changes:

• Image Import: You can now import images from your own Photo Library to use in your mockups. Simply add an Image Control and click on it’s Info panel and then tap the Import Image button to select a custom image.
  **PLEASE NOTE: be careful importing very large photos or images as they take up a lot of memory. Make sure to size your Image object to the desired size BEFORE you do the import, it will correctly scale the imported image to that size in order to save memory.***

• Added a new Clone button to the Quick Menu for controls. This is a time saving feature that combines a Copy and Paste into a single click.
• Vastly improved touch detection algorithm. Resizing and moving UI Controls is now MUCH more intuitive and responsive. Resizer markers no longer scale with canvas.
• Increased the snappy-ness of the Alignment Lines.
• Sliders have been added for changing font sizes on all UI Controls.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue with closing the Tutorials View while a video was still playing.
• Fixed a bug where Locking/Unlocking weren’t being captured in the Undo history.
• Fixed a bug where Paste wasn’t being captured in the Undo history.
• Fixed issues with Alignment lines scaling with the canvas and disappearing altogether.
• Fixed a bug where Undo of a Cut would bring the controls back into the rear layer.
• Fixed resizing behaviours of Checkbox, Radio Button controls, iPhone Tab Bar, and iPad Tab Bar, iPhone Frame, iPad Frame, iPhone Keyboard, iPad Keyboard.
• Fixed a bug where Alignment lines were not appearing when nudging.

We’re now working hard on a HUGE v1.1 update, you’re going to love it, more details soon!

Thanks,
iMockups Team

*UPDATE: here’s a the video guide for v1.07 of iMockups*

Hey folks,

I just wanted to let you know that we’re pushing out update v1.07 very shortly.

Due to high demand, the latest feature in v1.07 is Import Image.

• To use this feature, just drag an Image object onto your mockup and open the info panel.
• Resize the image object to your desired size first, then open the info panel for that object
  You’ll see an Import Image button.
• Tap that and you will be able to choose an image from your Photo Gallery

Please note that importing images can be very memory intensive and we’re going to do some compression of the image upon import otherwise the iPad will run out of memory quickly. Be careful not to import too many large images into your mockup.

Ok on to stuff that we’re working on for future updates:

• Grouping: you will be able to group a selection of objects and also resize them as a group
• Colours: you will be able to pick a colour for the background and the border/outline for any UI object
• More UI objects and updated features for current objects
• Balsamiq export
• Import/Export using iTunes shared file system

We want to continue updating iMockups far into the future and make this the best wireframe app possible. Please remember to rate and/or review new versions of iMockups on your iTunes as we need your support.

Thanks!
Ken Seto
CEO, Endloop Studios