We receive great amount of feedback from MobileNoter users. There are many suggestions that allow us to drive MobileNoter development in the right direction. We are very thankful to all of you who share your opinion with us.
Many users are also asking about our plans on future versions. Although we are answering this in email to everyone, we decided to publish our roadmap here, on the blog, too. This blog post provides some information on what we are currently working on and what we plan to do in the next few months.
Version 1.3
Currently, there are two applications in App Store, "MobileNoter" and "MobileNoter (Wi-Fi)". This was easier for us to start with two separate applications and we was not sure if there will be many customers wanting to use two editions simultaneously. We were mainly focused on delivering two editions and thought that there are two separate groups of users who understand what edition they need.
In reality:
- There are users who want to use both editions. They want to be able to sync large notebooks via Wi-Fi while they are in office and then occasionally sync some notes via 3g.
- Stats show that majority of new users download both iPhone applications. It seems that it is not so easy to choose a right edition for most of new users as we thought. At least, presence of two iPhone applications makes the chose more complicated.
The next update we are currently working on will contain improvements that make it easier to use both editions. The main improvements that will be part of 1.3 version:
- Two iPhone applications will be merged into one. The same iPhone application will support both editions.
- We are changing payment model a bit. Users who subscribed to the Cloud Edition will be able to use Wi-Fi edition for free during their subscription period. This will be in effect when the new 2-in-1 iPhone application is released to App Store.
- Limitation on maximum page size (5Mb) will be removed in this version
We anticipate v1.3 be available in App Store in the end of March.
Version 2.0 Beta
The main feature of version 2.0 is editing capability for existing OneNote notebooks. It will be possible to edit fragments of text with the same formatting, move, resize and delete images and outlines. The first release (2.0) will not contain all possible editing features you can find in OneNote, and will be rather simple. We plan to improve this in later 2.x versions. Priority of features to implement will be based on users feedback.
To be able to add editing functionality, we had to rework the entire way we get data from OneNote. In 1.x versions data is received by using OneNote built-in export functionality, in 2.x versions we receive data in less prepared form using api calls and construct pages ourselves. This allows us to implement editing and other features we was not able to with previous format. Downside is that fidelity of OneNote pages display can suffer. This is not something we are unable to improve, but it can take some time to tune the rendering of pages. This is why we decided to release 2.0 version as a public beta first. It will be available as an option to all new and existing customers. Tentative availability date is the end of March.
Version 2.0
Final 2.0 version will contain everything 2.0 beta has (but without most of bugs:-)), plus we hope to be able to implement some new features in it. New features include tags summary, attachments support and links in notebooks.
Release date of this version depends on how beta testing goes. We anticipate this release happen in April-May.
iPad Support
We definitely will support upcoming Apple iPad device. The plan is to optimize MobileNoter for bigger screen size (without adding new features) by the date iPad is available. Then, after we see the real device in action, there probably will be special version of the application with new features like inking and better use of larger screen.
What is next
Tentative list on what else we plan working this year:
- Implementing more features, like audio/video recording support and improving existing.
- Full support of OneNote 2010
- Versions for other platforms, starting from Android.
- Working with OneNote file format (one files). This is what will be called MobileNoter 3.0. It will make sync of large notebooks much faster it is now and will allow MobileNoter to sync with cloud storages like SkyDrive.
Thanks for reading such a long post. As always, we eagerly waiting for any feedback you may have. Please do not hesitate telling us what you think (you can leave comments here or use support form). Thanks.
