Our Summertime is a handy little tool that shows you when the next DST switch is in your local time zone. The newest version brings these improvements:
- Fixed: Cannot search for timezones that have a space.
- Fixed: Some missing Time Zone localizations
- Fixed: Text alignment issues with longer count down durations or Time Zone names
- Fixed: Time Zone names not getting updated if system language was changed
- Fixed: Broken Reminder function
- Changed: first page is now always the local time zone
- Improved: Scrolling Performance in Timezone selector
There were some other “crufty” things that we addressed behind the scenes. The project was converted to ARC and the import process for localized timezone names was parallel-ized to achieve the much improved scrolling performance.
With the major UI redesign in version 1.1 we implemented a similar UX as the built-in weather app. In more recent iOS versions Apple removed the switch for the local weather and gave this the prominent position on the first page. Time zones have the advantage of being available regardless of the users permission settings for location information. Also it is highly likely that users would want to always get the daylight savings information for their current time zone.
This triggered the decision to do it like Apple. The first page is now always the local one. The user can still pick and sort any other world-wide time zones on the other pages.
When implementing all these updates we found that Apple had added new time zones that where unknown to us in iOS 4. Apparently as some regions “opt out” of Daylight Savings Time the international community establishes a time zone just for them. With some delay those regions then also end up on iOS.
Those new time zones for which we needed localization were:
- Africa/Juba
- America/Creston
- America/Kralendijk
- America/Lower_Princes
- America/Metlakatla
- America/North_Dakota/Beulah
- America/Sitka
- Asia/Hebron
I find it interesting that Apple is keeping on top of these developments (even when it takes them some time). This validates the strategy of this app to not use its own database but to get the DST information straight from the OS.
There was an other VERY embarrassing bug I also fixed in this release. For testing purposes I had the local notification always fire 10 seconds into the future. This is of course utter nonsense to have in a production app. This had only been reported by a single user in the past year, so there might not be very many people trying to use this. However now it is working as it should.
The update has been sent to Apple and we will report when it has been approved.
PS: When updating the screen shots for version 1.2 I found that I had forgotten about changing the screen shots for version 1.1. for other languages than English. This teaches us to always diligently update all screenshots for all languages you have on iTunes.
Updated September 12th: Update now approved and available on the app store.
Categories: Updates
