Well the first full update to iDoodle2 in quite some time has been cleared by Apple and is available in the app store. The release has been a great lesson in limiting the scope of my ambition in order to get an app released. I can be thinking of the most awesome features imaginable, but if those changes never get into the hands of my users it’s all for naught.
I think the usability improvements to iDoodle2 make a strong app that much stronger. One of the first things was to implement a multi-touch zoom and pan system. This allows the user to zoom in up to ten times to work on allow a quality of work and detail that wasn’t possible with the previous release. The other great improvement to usability (which I believe was suggested in this blog ) is a smart offset tool. You can customize the distance the pen is from your finger so you’ll have a much better view of what you are drawing. The “smart” comes from the offset’s ability to adjust for the orientation of your phone. The final new feature to come from a custom suggestion is the inclusion of a “kid mode”. One father e-mailed me saying that his 2 year old enjoyed playing with iDoodle2, but would hit the other controls and pop up menus. To activate kid mode touch the screen with 3 fingers and a simple palette appears at the bottom of the screen. Tap with three fingers again to exit this mode.
The other improvements fix a few annoyances from previous versions. All tool settings now save when you exit a session so your perfect tool setup isn’t lost. The text tool has been improved with new fonts, text shadows, and the ability to handle non standard characters. Finally you can rotate and adjust the background image in your doodles.
Anyway those are the basics. Any feedback on the new version would be much appreciated as would the chance to see some of what you’re creating. A new version of iDoodle2 lite should be out in the next few weeks and I have a few other projects waiting in the wings.
Tags: draw, idoodle2, iphone, new version