Water-Powered Ideas

Observation and Observation Lite are out. The big thing this fixes is a nasty bug in CSV export formatting that didn’t properly escape fields with commas that I believe was introduced a couple versions ago. There are some minor bug fixes to Conditions as well.

As always, Observation is available exclusively on the App Store in the US and Canada for $4.99 USD. Observation Lite is available exclusively on the App Store worldwide for $1.99 USD.

Infusion 1.1 is out! If your device has a sleep timer set to more than one minute and thirty seconds more than the amount of time a running timer has remaining, that timer will be unreliable. This update fixes the problem by adding the option of preventing device sleep while a timer is running.

As always, you can find it on the App Store.

Water-Powered Ideas is pleased to announce the release of Infusion for iPhone and iPod Touch. Infusion is a tea timer for the iPhone and iPod touch. Infusion was specifically designed so that tea lovers can begin brewing their favorite tea with two touches: one to launch Infusion, and the other to select a favorite tea.

Features

• Single-touch to start a favorite tea timer after launch.
• Customize favorites: when selected, a favorite can start a timer, show a timer, or show the tea’s information.
• Large catalog of over 100 teas from around the world.
• Add your own teas, blends, or any other timed beverage.
• Specify tea type and location of origin, as well as brewing temperature and leaf quantity in addition to time.
• Works as a generic timer, just set a time and start it.
• Customizable launch behavior: change the tab opened when Infusion launches.
• Temperatures can be converted between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

Device Requirements

• iPhone or iPod Touch OS 3.0 or later

Pricing and Availability

Infusion is available for 1.99 USD world-wide exclusively on the App Store in the Utilities category. Promo codes are available for qualified reviewers.

Water-Powered Ideas is pleased to announce the 1.3 release of Observation and Observation Lite for iPhone and iPod Touch. This is a performance and stability release that fixes some known bugs.

Changes in 1.4

• Fixed bugs related location services that could cause crashes.
• Specifically fixed a crash when location services are disabled on iPod Touch.

Observation is available in the United States and Canada for $4.99 USD/CAD exclusively on the App Store. in the Utilities category. Observation Lite is available worldwide for $1.99 USD exclusively on the App Store. in the Utilities category. Promo codes are available for qualified reviewers.

You can now find Observation on Facebook: Observation on Facebook

And don’t forget, you can always follow Water-Powered Ideas on Twitter!

Now that Observation Lite is out, the core functionality of Observation is available for international users. Because the data source for Conditions in the full version is only for North America I was unable to sell it anywhere else.

Observation Lite might be missing the Conditions information, a large chunk of the full version’s functionality, but it’s by no means a “limited” edition of Observation. It is otherwise fully-functional. Log entries won’t have seeing and transparency automatically filled in, but in feedback I have received since Observation was released, this seems to be a fair trade-off. Observation is the only app on the iPhone/iPod Touch dedicated to recording astronomy log entries, and this lets international users in on the party.

The only down-side is that the only localization available is english. I will be working the bring more translations in the future.

I’m still looking for alternative data sources to bring the full version to users outside of North America, but I do hope this proves useful in the meantime.

Water-Powered Ideas is pleased to announce the release of Observation Lite for iPhone and iPod Touch. Observation Lite is a lightweight, more utilitarian version of Observation, a tool to help amateur astronomers record observation logs in the field by providing the NGC 2000.0 and Hipparcos catalogs of stars and objects and much more.

Observation Lite lets amateur astronomers enter observation logs on their iPhone or iPod Touch with automatic sky conditions and GPS coordinates, access to the entire NGC 2000.0 and partial Hipparcos catalog of objects, and custom lists of equipment. Custom objects can be created on the fly during observation, and the observed RA, declination, and magnitude of existing objects can be recorded.

Features Include:

• Automatic GPS & Conditions in log entries
• Stars and objects from the NGC 2000.0 and partial Hipparcos catalogs.
• Creation of new, custom objects on the fly.
• Custom Equipment entry for selection in log entries.
• Observed RA, declination, and magnitude entry in log entries.
• Log entries exported in CSV format.
• Ability to tint the entire app red for use when dark-adapted.

Device Requirements

• iPhone or iPod Touch with iPhone OS 3.0 or later

Pricing and Availability

Observation Lite is available for $1.99 USD exclusively on the App Store in the Utilities category.  Promo codes are available for qualified reviewers.

Water-Powered Ideas is pleased to announce the 1.3 release of Observationfor iPhone and iPod Touch.

Changes in Version 1.3:

Log Entry Fields: Fields Observation automatically fills in can now be changed from their automatic defaults. This includes the date, longitude & latitude, seeing, and transparency fields.

• Fixed a crash on launch when location services are enabled.
• Fixed a bug related to log entry notes and scrolling.

Why so soon after 1.2: This release comes hot on the heels of 1.2, but that’s not entirely on purpose. For reasons entirely unknown to me, 1.2 was stuck in review with Apple for almost 2 weeks. In that time, the work on 1.3 was completed and it was submitted. It was approved within 2 days. So, in case you missed it, here’s what changed in 1.2.

Observation is available in the United States and Canada for $4.99 USD/CAD exclusively on the App Store in the Utilities category.  Promo codes are available for qualified reviewers.

As I mentioned in the Observation 1.2 announcement, I’ve received a lot of great feedback on Observation. I wanted to share a little bit about where I want to take Observation going forward, without promising anything specific for the next few releases.

• Equipment & Star Parties: This is something I can’t believe I overlooked, but I want to include some pre-defined equipment and perhaps special features specifically for star parties. Having to manually add equipment that isn’t yours and you’ll probably only use once isn’t much fun.
• Moon Phases in the Conditions Tab: Another thing I simply overlooked, but the moon really should reflect its current phase, rather than the static waxing gibbous it shows now.
• Editable Log Entry Fields: All those awesome automatic log entry fields you get with Observation aren’t useful if you’re entering historical logs, or if Observation is totally wrong about something. I’m going to add the ability to change the automatic value.
• Wider Availability: This is a biggie because I’d love for Observation to be available outside of North America. I’m trying to find other reliable sources of astronomy forecast data (specifically the seeing/transparency information) that cover other parts of the world.
• Custom URL Scheme for Developers: I’d like for Observation to play well with the rest of the iPhone’s rich ecosystem of astronomy apps. To do that, I’m going to work on creating a custom URL scheme that would allow other apps to link into Observation. This would create the potential for linking from another app or a webpage viewed through Safari on the iPhone directly to a new log entry in Observation, for example.

And of course I haven’t forgotten that the iPad is coming.  Stay tuned on that one.

I’m pleased with where Observation is going, and I hope everyone using it is too. The positive feedback I’ve received so far has been excellent. Keep it coming!

Water-Powered Ideas is pleased to announce the 1.2 release of Observation for iPhone and iPod Touch. This is a maintenance release that improves performance and stability.

Changes in Version 1.2:

• Substantial changes to Conditions data processing and location information handling.  This should fix some crashes related to the Conditions tab and should improve performance of the Conditions tab.
• Integrated PLCrashReporter.  If the app crashes, you’ll now see an alert the next time you run it asking if you wish to submit crash data back to Water-Powered Ideas anonymously.  We highly recommend you do so.
• Fixed issues with custom location coordinate parsing and added support for colon-separated values (DD:MM:SS.)

I’ve gotten a lot of positive and helpful feedback–look for future versions incorporating as much of it as we can!

Observation is available in the United States and Canada for $4.99 USD/CAD exclusively on the App Store in the Utilities category.  Promo codes are available for qualified reviewers.