Author Archives: taylor

Our iPhone app update was just approved!

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Our iPhone app update (1.1) was just approved by Apple, and will be available on your phone within the next 24 hours. This is good news for a few reasons. First of all, it fixes a bug that was caused by the new iPhone OS that I mentioned in an earlier post. So, definitely get this app update as soon as possible so that your iPhone app continues to work well when iOS 4 is released by Apple on Monday.

Most importantly however, it adds a number of new features that I think you’ll really enjoy:

  • An unlock code to prevent anyone from accessing the app on your phone unless they know your code. (It’s optional if you don’t want it)
  • Streamlined syncing: The sync passcode stays the same between runs, and the next version of YNAB for desktop remembers your passcode between runs as well. This means that 95% of the time, nothing has to change, and you can just hit “Sync now”. The app also lays some groundwork to make it discoverable by a new version of YNAB so you don’t have to type the IP address. I have the prototype for that code running on my machine, but it will be a while before it’s released since it relies on AIR 2.0, and we still need to figure out our AIR 2 upgrade story.
  • Transfers – you can now create transfers on the iPhone
  • Flags – You can flag transactions as you enter them now

Enjoy!

UPDATED: Please DO NOT update your iPhone to iOS 4 yet

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UPDATE (Sat, Jun 19, 2010, 12:30pm CT): Our iPhone app update was just approved! This post is now out of date. The update will be available within the next 24 hours, so you can update to iOS 4 as whenever you want! :)

If you are using the YNAB iPhone app, please do not update your iPhone’s OS to the new OS: iOS 4. (It is available to early adopters now, and will be released officially by Apple on Monday, June 21, 2010.) This OS update breaks the YNAB iPhone app. We submitted a fixed version of the iPhone app to Apple earlier this week, but it won’t be available until Apple approves it, and that could take them a few more minutes or a few more days. (They are notoriously difficult to predict with things like this).

If you do update to iOS 4 before the app update is approved, all of your categories and transactions will be out of order. This means that some categories will be listed under the wrong master categories, making the data appear broken. (This happened because iOS 4 changes the way the phone returns sorted data to our app.)

We will post updates here, in the forums, on Taylor’s Twitter, and on Jesse’s Twitter. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to give you the good news that Apple has approved our app update! In the meantime, please resist updating your iPhone’s OS!

It's the little things

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The big things:

For the past few weeks, we’ve been working on YNAB Pro version 2.5. Our beta testers have been diligently hammering on it, and now we think we’re less than two weeks away from a public release.  I’m excited about this release for two reasons.  The first reason is that we’ve added some cool new features:

  • You can add notes to categories and budget cells on the budget screen.  Now when you need to remember why you had to budget an extra $50 this month in the gifts category, you can make a note that it was for your spouse’s birthday.
  • You can transfer money from one account to another really easily.
  • You can bulk-categorize transactions.  (This is especially helpful when you import transactions)
  • When you download a file to be imported from your bank’s website, YNAB Pro will automatically start and initiate the importation process.  (No more hunting around for the file)
  • And a few more…

The little things:

In addition to the features however, I’m probably more excited about the “little things” that we’ve changed.  When you think of a program or a web page that you really like to use – one that just seems to “get it,” – chances are that program acts the way you expect it to.  I don’t just mean that it has the features you expect.  I mean that when you click on something, or hit a key, or hover over a certain part of the screen, it does exactly what you expect.  In fact, it probably does so many things that you expect, you don’t even think about it.  To prove my point it might be easier to think about the last web page or software you used that you didn’t like.  Chances are it almost never did what you expected.  It doesn’t take many mouse clicks in software like this before you’re ready to give up and you might not even be sure why!  All you know is that you feel frustrated.

When we developed YNAB Pro originally, we tried to pay attention to a lot of “little” things because we know they add up!  Every time we asked the question, “What should the software do there?”, we tried to answer by saying, “Well, what would I want and expect it to do?”  I think we did a pretty good job with this, and consequently, I think YNAB Pro is pretty enjoyable to use.  That belief is reinforced by our fans, but after spending every workday with the software for the past few weeks, I started noticing some little things that we didn’t do right or that we missed:

  • “Wait, that took too many clicks.”
  • “Why is that taking so long?”
  • “Ugh – that feels sluggish!”
  • “Wait, that’s not what I expected”
  • And a few more…

Now that I’m full time, I’ve got time to really dig in and investigate when I see YNAB Pro do something I don’t expect, even if it seems like a “little thing”.  There are over 100 features, fixes, and changes in this next release, and a lot of them fall in the “little thing” category.  My guess is that you won’t even consciously notice most of them.  Hopefully you’ll just think, “Wow, I really like this new version,” even if you can’t say why.  But let me give you a hint:

  • It’s much faster and more responsive – Loading is faster, clicking around is faster, renaming categories is faster…you get the idea
  • There are fewer mouseclicks required to begin editing a cell in the register once the transaction is selected
  • You can reorder the account tabs just by dragging them around
  • Payee entry is not case-sensitive anymore (Typing “yn” and hitting tab will select “YNAB” instead of changing it to say “ynAB”)
  • All of the right-click menus just disable items that are invalid instead of hiding them.  This makes the menu much more predictable and discoverable
  • And trust me, the list does go on…

You can expect to get your hands on this release very soon, and we can’t wait to hear what your favorite “little” change is.  Many of these changes were a direct result of people telling us about them on our forums, so if we left something out, and YNAB Pro isn’t doing what you want or expect, let us know!

How a video game programmer started writing software that is _really_ fun (Howdy ya'll)

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I’m new to the blog, but not new to YNAB. I’m proud to be the lead programmer behind YNAB Pro.

But let me start at the beginning. A couple of years ago, I was looking for a better budget program, and when I found YNAB I knew I’d found a good thing. Jesse and I started talking, and in short order we discovered that we were both excited about the idea of YNAB evolving into more than a spreadsheet. A few months later we released YNAB Pro (to great acclaim).

Since then, we’ve always been trying to improve YNAB Pro, and I’m proud of how far it’s come. Our forums are probably the most helpful place on the internet! If you haven’t before, I encourage you to read through them. There’s nary a question unanswered, and that even includes the ones that leave Jesse and I scratching our heads! I honestly don’t think you can find a friendlier group of folks anywhere. In addition to helping each other, our customers really help us too. When they share their ideas (and yes, even their frustrations), it helps Jesse and I to know what to focus on for our next release. Up until now, there’s only been one problem: time.

What some people might not know is that YNAB Pro has been a side-project for me for the past couple of years – not a full time gig. (For my day job I was a programmer for a big video game publisher.) I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished in this time, but I have always wanted to accomplish things faster. When you know it will just take a few minutes to add a feature that will save thousands of people hours of time managing their money, you want it done yesterday!

I’m excited to announce that as of a few days ago, I began working on YNAB Pro full time. I get to work with Jesse on budget software all day long, which means more frequent releases of YNAB Pro, which makes for a happy lead programmer and even happier budgeters.

I’ve already begun working on the next release. I’m fixing lots of little annoyances, like allowing you to easily change the order of the account tabs so that people don’t have to do silly things anymore, and making it easier to import bank transactions. I’m also going to be adding official transfer functionality. I’m excited about it. Have something you’d like to see get added to YNAB Pro soon? Please let us know!

P.S. For those of you scratching your head at the title of this post, that’s how we say “Hi” down here in Austin, Texas.