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.