[UPDATE: 9/14/2020]
Hi Everyone,
As we discussed late last week, we’re in final preparation for another critical update to our HomeGauge Companion app on iOS. The upcoming release will reintroduce multi-select functionality for comments and more under-the-hood improvements. We will make this update available within the next 48 hours during the early morning or late evening hours to avoid disrupting your work day. For those who have enabled automatic app updates on their iOS device, the update will be installed automatically behind the scenes.
If you would like to learn more about how apps update on your device or would like to manage those settings, please visit this Apple Support Page.
– The HomeGauge Product Team
[UPDATE: 9/10/2020]
Hello –
We’ve noticed some discussion in our support channels and other forums regarding recent updates to the iOS Companion app. I want to take a moment to address some of the questions and also provide some insight into our plans for the iOS Companion app.
Earlier this year, we made an internal commitment to improving the overall reliability, stability, and performance of our iOS Companion app. We also wanted to ensure we modernized the underlying app architecture so that our app wasn’t left behind as iOS, iPhones, and iPads evolved.
After talking to inspectors (many of you) and dedicated folks on our Support team), we also understood that some inspectors had switched from iOS to Android to get a better mobile experience.
If you switched to Android because you wanted to use an Android device – that’s great. But if you switched because you didn’t have confidence in the iOS app, that is something we want to change. We firmly believe you should always be able to use the mobile operating system and platform 1) you want to use and 2) you are most comfortable using.
That said, let me provide a summary of some of the changes we’ve made to the iOS app this year:
March 2020
- We have introduced several improvements to memory management and app hibernation to minimize the risk of data loss (particularly when the app is forced out of focus or interrupted by another app).
- We updated the auto-save functionality so that the background process to auto-save happened sequentially to reduce the risk of data loss.
- Investigated and addressed other less often reported issues that could result in an app crash (these were often one-off scenarios, and we appreciate your help in identifying these issues and communicating essential details to our Support team).
The March release put us in a position to address additional issues and further improve our app. Here are some of the post-March items I’d like to highlight:
June 2020
- Increased the number of cloud transfer slots from 5 to 10
- Increased the file size – per transfer slot – from 200MB to 300MB.
September 2020
- Significant overhaul of the underlying app architecture.
Why is this important?
When our app was first introduced, we had to rely on many third-party libraries to make certain features work. Over time, Apple has provided many of these functions natively, meaning they are less prone to error and perform much better.
Further, these ‘under the hood improvements’ also account for new device sizes, form factors (think iOS devices with a ‘notch’ for FaceID), and screen resolutions.
In sum, these updates also allow us to continue to release new updates through Apple’s App Store.
- We addressed issue where Styles and Materials auto-comment would not insert as intended.
- Resolved UI and layout issues resulting in text not appearing correctly within buttons, negatively impacting overall useability on various devices, including iPads.
- Added ‘Extra-Info’ (aka serial number within particular sections/templates) to Styles and Materials.
- Continued improvements to stability and performance.
The updates released in September continue to help improve reliability and performance. They also prepare our app for iOS 14 (which Apple intends to release this fall).
What’s Next?
Given the scope of the September release, we had to temporarily remove the “Find Next Unanswered” feature and the ability to select multiple comments at the same time so that they could be rewritten.
We plan to reintroduce the ability to select multiple comments with an update that should arrive in the App Store as early as next week.
Our plan is to follow up with another release – approximately 1 to 2 weeks after – which will reintroduce the “Find Next Unanswered” feature.
I hope this update helps provide additional context and sheds some light on the next two planned iOS updates. If you have any questions or other feedback, please email us at productfeedback@homegauge.com or contact a member of our Support team.
Sincerely,
The HomeGauge Product Team