Moving to blogspot domain to archive

 Underscore AB was orderly shut down a few years ago because I moved to the US in 2003. All IP was transferred to my US company Underscore Research LLC. Keeping this part of the underscore.se site around for archival purposes.

Underscore Notify 4.0.2 is available now in the AppStore

The most recent bug fix release that fixes several update issues and one bad data corruption issue is now available in the AppStore.

Reason prevailed Notify 4.0.1 is now available in the AppStore

After politely asking Apple to reconsider their rejection of Notify in the AppStore yesterday they today relented and made the most recent upgrade available without the 17+ age restriction.

NEW FEATURES

• ability to export directly to another application

IMPROVEMENTS

• added option to bring back old auto advance in docked mode (check settings)
• you can now more easily exit a sub menu on iPhone

BUG FIXES

• fixed crash when needing to move focus while editing text
• fixed several issues when using Kanji keyboard
• fixed issue where you couldn't change font size or type
• fixed issue when you forgot to add protocol to WebDAV url
• fixed several minor issues with retina display usage

The Notify 4.0.1 release just got rejected by Apple

Here is the reason

Since your application contains a web browser and allows unfiltered access to the internet, where content with mature or suggestive themes can be accessed, it should be rated 17+. Applications must be rated accordingly for the highest level of content that the user is able to access.

I'm upset and confused about this decision. First of all if I go along with it, it means that the application will become unavailable in several markets (For instance Korea and Suadi Arabia).

Secondly I don't understand why they chose a critical bug fix as the timing for a rejection of this reason. Especially for a feature that has been in the application since it's inception 2 years ago.

Underscore Notify 4.0 is available now in the AppStore

The new version is now available in the AppStore! See previous post for information about changes.

Underscore Notify 4.0 submitted to Apple

After almost a year of work the new major version of Notify is finally submitted to Apple and contains tons of new features and improvements.

NEW FEATURES

• completely rewritten rendering pipeline that is faster, uses much less memory, is more responsive and higher quality
• all remote services have been revamped so that now all services support syncing and you can specify what format
• support for FTP, WebDAV and iDisk
• exporting as text
• select pages to include when exporting to PDF
• upgraded to latest version of WritePad engine
• new user feedback website accessible from inside the application
• smarter algorithm for converting photos to drawing layer
• indicator of current zoom level
• much better support of Retina display devices
• audio recordings can now span several pages
• application launch password
• new music paper background

IMPROVEMENTS

• smarter auto advance for docked magnified mode
• better support for external keyboard
• merged pen & fill format popover to one popover on iPad
• don't use separate format per mode by default
• use manual wrist guard inside magnified view
• faster restart from background
• better security for entered passwords
• much smaller memory foot print which should lead to less spurious crashes
• added manual degree entry for rotate image
• swapped place of toolbars on iPhone
• reset zoom now zooms to selection
• OmniFocus export now goes to specific page
• deleting one object of a PDF now deletes all pages of it
• allow viewing URL of web clipping
• upgraded OCR engine to latest version

BUG FIXES

• crash when moving document to last place in document list
• crash when going out of tutorials or map view quickly
• crash when entering non ASCII7 character in web search box
• crash when making magnified window fill entire screen
• crash when deleting audio element while recording
• crash when inserting photo and resizing
• memory leak during undo
• fixed lost Evernote auth token
• layout bugs in notebook list after showing keyboard
• layout bug for popovers on iPhone when status bar hidden
• calculate text now works

Underscore Notify 3.2.2 is available now in the AppStore

Apple finally approved this new version which fixes several iOS 5 issues and also enables WritePad for owners of the stand alone application plus several other minor fixes.

Finally some news to report

Things have been very slow for a while here at Underscore, but they are finally picking up and I have some news to report.

• I have created a new site Underscore ideas for users to submit and vote on future enhancements on products. I have not yet populated this with all items in my back log, but they will be added over the next few days.
• I have finally managed to wrestle control over the community site from spammers (I hope). In the process I removed somewhere between 30000 to 50000 spam messages and around 2000 registered users. If you had registered on the community site and not yet made a post I am sorry but your account would also have been deleted. If you need to just register again. I am working my way through the back log of messages sent to answer them but from now on the forum should work a lot smoother.
• A minor update of Notify that fixes several issues with iOS 5 and also enabled WritePad based on if the stand alone app is installed has been submitted to Apple about a week ago.
• A much bigger update of Notify is almost ready to be submitted to Apple which contains major new features and performance improvements. I estimate that this will be submitted to Apple within 2-3 weeks. I have also started using proper project tracking software to guide me in my estimates so this should more accurate than my previous estimates.

New website design

As you can see the Underscore website has gone through a big redesign where it focuses more on each individual app. There will also probably be some further tweaks over the following days.

Care has been made so that old links should hopefully still function and lead to the correct places even after the redesign. Please let me know if you find anything wrong with the new pages.

Underscore Notify 3.2 is finally out in the AppStore

NEW FEATURES

+ fully customizable quick entry text bar (enter user-selected characters, words and phrases)
+ southpaw support (rotates the manual wrist guard to protect the left-hand side)
+ option to downsize high-resolution images during import
+ automatic scrolling on reaching the edge of the display (when moving or resizing)
+ button switching between pen and eraser in magnify mode
+ short pause in magnify mode before it auto-repositions
+ bookmarklet support (send the current url direct from your browser to a notebook)
+ text cursor keys (iPad)
+ hide toolbars and statusbar (four-finger tap)
+ full-screen text mode now also supports iPad
+ cork and wood backgrounds
+ iOS 4.2 ready

IMPROVEMENTS

• better handwriting responsiveness
• page zooming down to 8x magnification
• custom magnify mode zoom
• additional visual feedback when playing embedded audio
• play embedded audio even if the device is muted
• copying-and-pasting text to another App now supports both image and text formats
• OCR now works on everything in a frame (not just on the drawing layer)
• unassigned tags remain listed (until Notify is closed)
• faster startup when Notify is launched from within other Apps
• page counter on insert bar
• redesigned page control icon (now shows current and total pages)
• quicker and more stable undo function
• better background image for the Notify Web Server

BUG FIXES

- resolved conflict of docked magnify tool not changing during page zoom
- magnify mode no longer gets over-enlarged when page zooming
- resolved problem with autoscroll in magnify mode
- Notify Web Server is now stopped when you exit Notify
- network accessing indicator no longer continues to spin after completion of a download
- resolved crash when editing auto-correction in WritePad™
- WritePad™ settings are now saved on an iPhone
- resolved a bug which resulted in intermittent undo failures
- magnify mode now shows the correct help tip
- text format toolbar now only appears when editing text fields
- editing text no longer leaves the display occasionally unresponsive
- high-resolution images now update and rotate correctly
- maps now export correctly
- resolved occasional notebook list crash
- dismiss keyboard now working in formatting dialogs
- resolved problem where more pages than requested were being added
- minor fixes to pointer mode and snap-to-grid
- minor fixes to both manual and automatic wrist guard functions
- request for user to review the App has been updated

COMING SOON

+ iDisk and support for many more remote services
+ better whiteboard to drawing support
+ word and character counts
+ page bookmarks and in notebook searching

Wishlist for the second generation iPad

Not that Apple would in any way care what Underscore thinks. But here is what I would like to see in the next generation of the iPad.

• More internal memory. Currently most apparent crashes in Notify are because it is running out of memory. Adding more internal memory would help a lot of these issues (At least as much as the iPhone 4 has would be great).
• Dual core CPU. Notify is intensely multi-threaded already in it's design so adding another core would translate immediately in faster and smoother operation of Notify.
• Camera. I would almost promise to eat my own shoes if at least this one doesn't come true. As anybody who has used Notify on the iPhone knows the camera is already supported.
• Retina display. Again, since Notify works on the iPhone 4 it already supports this feature and it would work great with the magnified view.

Again, this isn't in any way based on fact or even rumors. It is simply what would be great from my point of view if it showed up.

Underscore Notify is now FREE in the AppStore

A few minutes before midnight, as promised Underscore Notify is now free for the day in the AppStore. Grab it while it's hot!.

Underscore Notify will be available for free October 31st 2010

Underscore Notify will be available free from the iTunes AppStore worldwide for 24 hours commencing the 31st of October from 12am (GMT).

Here is a social media release detailing the promotion.

Updated the web site to reflect the imminent release of Notify 3.0

Updated the web site with new links to social media connection.

Also updated the web site to reflect new features coming in Notify 3.0. This application is currently in review by Apple which usually means that it should be released within a day or two.

Joining in on the social media craze

Follow Underscore for updates on Twitter or for Notify specific stuff you can also check out its Facebook page.

During the next couple of days there will be easily accessed links placed on the appropriate places on the site.

Notify 3.1 will have printing support

Now that 3.0 is submitted to Apple I am busy at work with the next version and I am pleased to announce that the next release of Notify will have support for Printing if running on a version of iOS 4.2 or later.

Even better is that Notify is able to provide printing while still maintaining compatibility with iOS devices running as old versions as 3.1 through a single binary.

Printing works like a charm on the latest iOS 4.2 beta 2 release, although other iOS bugs in this release renders the application very crippled so I am not recommending anybody to run Notify on this OS build.

Notify 3.0 submitted to Apple

Notify version 3.0 has been submitted to Apple which usually means that it will take about 1 to 2 weeks until it will become available.

This new version contains several major pieces of new functionality and also many tweaks and improvements of existing functionality.

• Notify 3.0 will has a built in web server for sharing notes and also supports Google Docs including syncing functionality same as Evernote.
• Built in handwriting recognition powered by WritePad™ from PhatWare.
• Hugely improved responsiveness when drawing.
• Completely revised notebook list with tags, sorting customizable display and more.
• New lasso pointer mode for free form selections.
• Copy & Paste.

And many more minor improvements and fixes.

Underscore Notify 1.2 update

Update 1.2 of Notify got rejected by Apple for a minor violation of the Google Maps API terms of service. The issue has been fixed, but because version 2.0 was already ready to roll at this time this was submitted instead which adds major functionality, and performance enhancements.

Look for the update in the AppStore hopefully by the end of August.

Underscore Notify available now in the AppStore

Our first application geared towards iPad called Underscore Notify is now available in the AppStore.

If you want to easily take notes using your iPad or iPhone look no further. Regardless of if you just want to quickly scribble a note or want to read a large document (Imported from PDF or a web page) while scribbling notes on it this application is for you!

Notify has an intuitive interface for working with many kinds of data to keep simple things fast and easy while more complex tasks are still possible.

Price Check gets a fix for iOS 4.0

It appears that Underscore Price Check did not correctly handle the iOS 4.0 changes to the camera API but fortunately the latest update approved today addresses this issue and it should now work on any version from iOS 3.1 all the way up to 4.0.1.