Version 1.4.0 Released！

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We are very pleased to announce that the version 1.4.0 of iOS app TapToCount-3W is released at iOSApp Store. This release is going to introduce an existing new feature: Copy/Move!

There are many occasions when you want to copy or move items such as tap entities, tap items or taps from one place to another place. In this release, the copy/move feature makes it possible. We have made great effort to add this feature as in this major release. Here is the description of the release.

A new enhancement of copy/move items is added to TapToCount-3W app. For example, copy/move tap entities, tap items and/or taps from one place to another or a new place. Here are the steps of how to make a copy or move.


Preparation

In the edit tab of the main screen, first choose an item which can be added to the internal cache, for example, select a tap entity(same for the case of a tap item or a tap). The following are steps.

• ust swipe a row in table view, and tap on the action option of "Copy/Move". The item can also be removed from the cache by swipe on its row, and an option of "Clear Copy/Move" is available if it is in the cache.
• After one or more items(repeat above step) are added to the internal cache, a button with an icon(plus sign and an arrow to the right), indicating copy/move, will be displayed.
• Drag this button over rows in the table view. The row by hovered icon will be marked as a selection if the row could be as a destination for copy/move.

Copy/Move

• Tap on the copy/move button, a popup view will be displayed. In the view, There is an option you can choose: copy or move.
• The popup view also explains where the copy/move can be done, for example, to an existing place (selected row) or to a new place.
• Notice that, when copying or moving items, only unique items can be copied or moved. For example, a tap item can not be copied or moved if a same tap item name exists in the cache or in the destination. For taps, they cannot be copied or moved to a place where the same tap dates exist, or more than one taps in the cache have the same dates.
• When tap entity or tap item is copied, any child content such tap entity's tap items, tap item' taps are also copied. The same applies to a move. As explained above, only unique items are copied or moved. A warning message may be displayed to explain that any duplication exists, and you have a choice to copy or move other unique items.

Here is an example.

Swipe on tap entity "My Life" in tap entity view, an action option is available for choose.

Choose Copy/Move action option and then the item is added to the internal cache. A button with plus icon will be displayed on screen to indicate that items in the cache are available for copy or move.

Drag this button over rows to find a destination for copying or moving.





Tap on the button, a popup view is displayed.





Now, you can choose to copy or move.  There are two buttons in the view. One is "Clear Copy/Move", which will clear the cache. The button of Copy or Move will copy or move items. Here is example of copy action:




After the copy is completed, a new tap entity "Copied", in this case, is created and all the tap items and taps for this tap entity are copied to the new tap entity.





This is just a simple example of copy. More than one tap entities, tap items can be added to the internal cache.

Depending on the location where you are, the copy/move action will be different. The content in the cache will be copied or moved to existing(or specified) place or a new place. Here are the general rules to make a copy/move:

• If you are in the view of tap entities, all the unique tap items are copied or moved to an existing tap entity or a new tap entity.
• If you are in the view of tap items, all the unique tap items in the cache are copied or moved to the current view (i.e, the current tap entity) if no selection in the view; or all the unique taps in the cache are copied or moved to the selected tap item or a new tap item. 
• If you are in a view of taps, all the unique taps in the cache will be copied or moved there.

Notice that when a copy/move is made, all the information of the cached content are copied or moved over, such as names, notes, date times, and locations. For the content of a note, a copy/move description, explaining where they are originally coming from, is also appended to the note. This will make it easy to identity where they were coming from.

Internally, after a copy or move is made, the data source of taps are marked as copied or moved. Those marks are not visible from the app user interface. They will be included in the export.

With this new feature, it makes the management of taps much easier. It also makes it possible to have the same taps in many different places. We believe this feature will enrich your own tap entities and tap items for future reviews.

As you will find out, this feature is very easy to use. Still, we strongly recommend you to create some test tap entities and tap items to try it out before you make actual copy or move of your content, just to make sure that you get what you expected, don't lose any valuable information you have already collected.

Privacy Policy

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It is a requirement to provide Privacy Policy in order to have iOS app listed on Apple Store. Here is the Privacy Policy by DEL Access Services Ltd.

This legal document is updated on the date of Nov 20, 2018.


Your privacy is important to DEL Access Services Ltd so we’ve developed a Privacy Policy that covers how we collect, use, disclose, transfer, and store your personal information. It is important to understand that, some mechanisms to collect personal information, such as location, is based on iOS framework. Therefore,  you are advised to read Apple's Privacy Policy before granting our products collecting personal information.

Collection and Use of Personal Information

Personal information is data that can be used to identify or contact a single person.

You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with DEL Access Services Ltd.  You are not required to provide the personal information that we have requested, but, if you chose not to do so, in many cases we will not be able to provide you with our products or services or respond to any queries you may have.

For the time being, our products do not require you to provide your personal information. Still, We should clearly state here that we do not provide any your personal information to any other third party companies or services.

Collection and Use of Location Data

Our products provide some services what may require you to enable iOS location services on your device.

iOS' standard location service is the only way our products to use for location data, and our products will save your location data within the products for your personal use. You may choose not enable location services on your device or for our products. If you choose so, our products will not able to provide location-related services to you. We do not have any other way to collect your location data. We do not collect or own your personal data, including location data. We do not send or share your personal data such as location data to or with any third party companies or services.

DEL Access Services Ltd may update its Privacy Policy from time to time. When we change the policy in a material way, a notice will be posted on our website along with the updated Privacy Policy.

DEL Access Services Ltd
Calgary, AB  Canada T3G 3R9

References

• Apple Privacy Policy
• App 2.0. Additional Information on Privacy

Version 1.3.7 Released!

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Version 1.3.7 has been released, and the new version is available at Apple App Store. Here is the description of the update:

• Added tap information about time and location for all taps. This feature is similar as the previous tap information between the current time and last tap. This feature applies to all taps in the tap list view. This feature is available for tap list view in the tap action tab.
• Added sort feature to all table list views. User have choice to sort list by optional choices such as name, tap count or last tap item. The choices varies depending on list views of tap entities, tap items and taps. Prior to this update, the sort order is set by app. Now users have choice to list sort order. This feature is available by pulling the top item in a list view.
• Improved the map view for taps. Different colours are used to indicate altitude changes. Red colour for ascending, green colour for descending and cyan colour for almost the same. Significant change is based on the rule of: distance of two taps larger than 30 metres, and altitude change larger than 1%.
• Add dynamic height feature to tap list view. This feature will make some iOS devices easy to read tap date and time information in case they are truncated in narrow views. Due to potential large amount of tap’s note, it’s dynamic content in table list view can be displayed up to only 2 lines.
• Fixed some bugs.

We greatly appreciate you using TapToCount-3W app. We will constantly update the app with further enhancements and new features, as well as fixing bugs when detected. If you have any suggestions or find any issues, please report to us in our web site.

We took some screenshots about the update. Here are some of them:

New info button is available for each tap in the tap list view (only in the tap action tab from the main view):




A popup view will show the information of duration and distance between the current time and the tap's time.




The sort order feature is added to all table views. A sort button is displayed when you pull the first row down.




Here are the sort options for the table view of Tap Entities.




The sort options for the table view of Tap Items.




And the sort options for the table view of Taps.




Here is an example of enhanced map view of taps. Red colour indicates ascending, green for descending and cyan for not much change in altitude between two consecutive taps.



Last, the table view of Taps is enhanced by adding a dynamic height button. By tapping on this button it will toggle the height of each tap so that the tap date and time information can be viewed in full or be truncated if the iOS device screen is too narrow. Notice that the tap's note will be displayed to the maximum of 2 lines(tap note may contain large amount of text).




Great improvements and enhancements in this update. Cheers!

Version 1.3.6 New Features (3)

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In this article, we'll conclude the remaining features of version 1.3.6. Those features are some enhancements related to search. In the previous release, search feature was added to the app. This is a very important feature for the app.

Search Feature

TapToCount-3w app provides a very unique and convenient way to record and manage personal data. Over a period of time, users may add a wide range of interest areas by means of tap entities and tap items, as well as accumulate a lots of taps in those areas. With the amount of data becoming very large, it would be difficult to find information and hard to manage data.

That's why the search feature was introduced in the previous release. Here is a summary of search feature, by taking the following screenshot as an example:



Under the search bar, there are four categories for search. Those categories can be summarized in two groups.

• The first two, "Name" and "Note", refer to the properties of name and note for items(either tap entity or tap item) in the current view. The search result will be the items with their name or note containing a searched string. For example, if you type a string string of "Apple"(or "apple", case-insensitive) in Name category, the searched result, as in the example, will be the only item which name contains "Apple". In the same minor, "Note" category is for the matched items which subtitle or note contains the searched string.
• The last two, "Tap note" and "Tap date", are for items' children properties: tap note and tap date.  Taking "Tap note" as example, if an item has one or more taps, and at least one tap's note contains the searched string, then all those matched items will be the searched result in the current view.

It is very easy to figure it out by just trying some searches.

Search Carried out into Detail Views

In this release, the search is further enhanced for the last two search categories. The first enhancement is that the search condition for tap's note or taps' date will be carried out into the subsequent detail views.

For example, in the tab of tap action view, if you type a search string "New york" for "Tap note" category, not only the tap entities in the current view will be narrowed down to the ones where at least one of taps' note contains "New york" string,



but also will the next detail view be only the tap items with at least one of their taps' note contains "New york". In this example, the only tap item of "New york" is displayed.



Furthermore, in the next detail tap view, only 2 taps out of 116, which match the search condition(tap's note contains "New york"), are displayed.



This enhancement is actually very logical when you drill down the detail views, and make it easy to find out items of your interest.

For the Report view, if you set search condition, only the matched items will be exported. This is very handy if you only want to export interested data.

Search Dates

Prior to this release, the date picker for "Tap date" category is just a standard date picker, which list all the calendar dates. This may list many dates where no taps were made, and hence, it makes the search very difficult. For example, if you set data as equal-to-a-date, you may get empty taps when no taps occurred on that date.

The second enhancement in this release is that the dates for Tap date category are only limit to the actual tapped dates. This makes searching for tapped dates much easier.



This also provides a way to peek at what actual tapped dates are.

References

• Version 1.3.3 Released!

Version 1.3.6 New Features (2)

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Let's continue to discuss another new feature of version 1.3.6 in detail(feature #6). This new feature provides a way to reveal the information about the current time and geolocation since the last tap.

In many cases, before you make a tap, you may want to know the duration between the current time and the last tap. If the location is enabled, it would be very helpful if you can see the distance between the current location and the last tap, the current altitude and the change to the last altitude.

With this update, it is possible to get all those information before you make a tap action. In the tapping action view, a new button is available on the left side of each tap item. Tapping on this button, an information view will be popped up to show the current information of time and location since the last tap.

Here is an example of tap item "3-Get up & bedtime". A new info button is available for each tap item:



Information view is showing up when the info button is tapped:



We keep the information very concise in terms of units. For example, if the duration is over days, the unit of seconds is not so significant and is not in the show, as the information in the following for "Running" tap item.



If the location feature is not enabled for a tap entity or group, the geolocation will be marked as "Not available" for its tap items.

IMPORTANT NOTES

The distance is calculated based on geolocation information, i.e., coordinates of latitude and longitude, between the current location and lat tap location, and not taking any account of any altitude changes between two coordinates. The calculation is based on assumption of two coordinates in terms of flat and spherical surface. It does not take account of any actual direction changes or curve paths between two coordinates. Therefore this distance value is appropriate in nature, not the actual distance a user travels.

In this information view, we provide Pace value. This value is based on the calculation results of the distance and the time duration between the current location and the last tap location. As explained above, this value may be far away from the actual pace or speed, just as an appropriate value as user reference.

Users should be aware of limitations of GPS information on mobile devices. First, the GPS information obtained from mobile device is not very accurate(some times we had cases that GPS location was too far away from the actual locations). Secondly, if too many direction changes have been made between the current location and the last tap location, the calculated results of distance and pace would be way off the actual distance and pace.

A TIP

By introducing this information view, we notice that in some cases, the GPS information(distance, and altitude) may change during the initial period of the display, if you are in still position. This may be caused by the app design strategy. The request for GPS information is only enabled at the time when tap action view is in display, and disabled when not in display. This strategy is to keep energy consumption in minimum. As a result, the GPS information may not be stable in the initial display period (several to more than 10 seconds).

As a tip, you may this information view as an indication of stability of GPS data. You may tap on the icon on the top left corner to make a tap action when the distance and altitude values are stable.

In Summary

We believe that this feature may be a great enhancement feature for our app users.

Since the GPS information obtained from iOS device is approximate, and sometimes they may be far away from the actual or the accurate geolocation values, users should not solely rely on the information and calculation results. The information of the app does not provide any accuracy guaranty; therefore, users should use the information with caution.

References

• Version 1.3.6 Released!
• Wikipedia: Geographical distance

Version 1.3.6 New Features (1)

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Let's explain some new features of version 1.3.6. In this blog, we will explore features 1-2.

Sort Order by Tapping Date

In tapping view, by default, all the tap items are sorted by item names. In the case of making a tap action, people would like to see most recent tap items first, and to continue tapping on one of the most recent tapped items. In this update, we changed the sort order of tap items, in the tapping view, by their dates, so that the most recent tapped items appear on the top.

For example, I went to mountain hiking last weekend. I added a tap item "Mt. Kidd" in my tap entity group "Outdoor". Initially, "Mt. Kidd" had 0 taps. In the tapping view, this item is listed on the bottom.



because there is not tapping date for this tap item.

When I arrived at the parking lot to start our hiking. I tapped on this tap item, as the first mark of my hiking activity. The next time when I brought this view up again. The "Mr. Kidd" tap item is listed on the top, as it is the most recent tap item. This makes my subsequent taps much more convenient during my hiking activity.




This update will also make it easy to see what are the most recent tapping items.

Top/Down Button for Long Tap List

Some users complained about scrolling up and down for tap list. This is specially a painful scrolling process if the tap list is too long. For example, if an activity(tap item) is frequently tapped on daily base. Accumulated over a long period of time, this activity may have hundreds or more taps in its tap view. Scrolling up to the top or down to the bottom needs a lot of swipes.

In this update, if there are more than 30 taps in a tap list view, a button to the top or to the bottom will appear in the tap list view. If you want to jump to the top to get search bar, or to go to the last tap item, you can tap on the button to quickly get you there.



The above shows a button to the top, and the below is a button to the bottom. This is the case of running activities over a year.



With these updates, we believe it will make it much easy and convenient to use TapToCount-3W app.

References

• Version 1.3.6 Released!

Version 1.3.6 Released!

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Based on introducing the search feature in version 1.3.4, this update is a major update with further enhancements and updates.

Here is the description of this update:

1. In tap view: All tap items are sorted by date as default. In other words, the most taped items are displayed at the top. This makes most tapped items easy to access.

2. Tap list view: When taps exceed 30, a move-up or move-down button will be displayed. This makes jumping to the top or the bottom much easier (instead of scrolling).

3. Searching for tap notes and dates will be carried into detail views. For example, if a search for tap date is set in top view, the view content, when drill down to detail views, will be limited to the searching date. This makes the search and navigation more logical.

4. The search content will be kept as in the previous set. For example, if you are searching for a specific tap entity name, containing text "test", the next time you bring up the search bar, the scope will be for tap entity name and the search text "test" will show as the initial search. If you set search for a date, that date will show up as the initial date in the next search.

5. Search date will be limited to the dates of all available taps for the current view content. The search date picker is in three columns: year, month, and date with the option of weekdays. This change makes searching for dates much easier.

6. In tap action view: There is an info button available for each tap item. The info button provides information and status since the last tap for this tap item: duration, distance, pace, and altitude. With this information, you have a peek view of its current status before making a tap.

7. In report view: There is an option to report only content met search conditions. This way, the report can be narrowed to down to only contents of interest.

8. Fixed some bugs.

We greatly appreciate you using TapToCount-3W app, as well as your support and patience. If you have any suggestions or find any issues, please report to us in our web site. We will constantly update the app with further enhancements and new features, as well as fixing bugs when detected.

All above enhancements and features will be explained in detail in following blogs. Stay tuned!

Case Study: NYC Trip

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Here is a case study of TapToCount - 3W app usage. In October, 2017, we had a trip to New York City. I used TapToCount - 3W app to record our complete trip with most events and activities.

Preparation

First, a tap entity has to be created. For all my travels, I created one tap entity called "My Travels". I'll tap all my travel events and activities within this group.



I enabled location feature for this tap entity so that all the tap items within this group will have location information recorded.



For our NYC trip, I need a specific tap item, then added a tap item: New York. This would be the place I tap to record my New York trip events and activities.

Tap, Tap, Tap...

With above preparation ready, I was ready to record my trip simply by tapping! Here is the view where I could tap my events and activities. After I finished my trip, I realize that I have tapped 116 times to record various events and activities with date & time and location information.

In order for me to remember for those taps, at the time when I tapped, I entered a brief note as a hint, and then I edit the note with detail description when I had time.



Here is the map view of all taps, from our home in Calgary, Canada to NYC, USA.



To get better view of my trip, I use the search feature to narrow my trip activities down to date.



I tapped 18 times from leaving home at Calgary early in the morning at 6:52am on Oct 21, at 10:37am when the plan took off, to the time we arrived at New York at 3:12 pm.



Then from the airport to NYC by taking Airtrain, to the time we arrived at our AirBnB destination house. Then we had our meal at a Chinese takeout restaurant, near by a local market mall, and the first night walking at Hamilton park to watch evening sight of NYC high-rise buildings.






For each tap, I entered a brief description about what happened. Here is the note about taking Airtrain leaving airport area and transferring to Terminal Station in NYC.



Here is the map view of our first day at NYC!



the second day in NYC:



and remaining dates:

Bring Back Memories

Now I sit in my couch, continue to view my taps on the second day, third day..., and review my NYC trip taps in my iPhone TapToCount - 3W app. All the detailed memoirs are coming back, the places, the time, as well as duration and distance between taps.

Do you remember detail information about your last trip? What happened on each day on your vacation? Where did you visit local historical, culture or scenery site, when, how long and how did you get there? Do you remember where had your exotic and delicious meal? How could you recommend and share the information to your family members or friends?

Based on the information I have in my TapToCount - 3W app, I flip the photos we took in iPhone/Mac photo albums. All those great memories and stories are playing just like a refreshing movie!

Here are just a few photos out off hundreds I took during NYC trip:

AirBnB house we stayed, very nice and comfortable!







and great moments we stayed and enjoyed in NYC.
















What valuable memoirs I now can recall from my simply taps! We love TapToCount -3W app.

Version 1.3.4 Released!

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There was a critical bug found right after the release of 1.3.3. We immediately worked on the issue and sent an update to App Store last weekend.

Fortunately, the App Store approved the new release and made it was available in one day. Now the new and stable version is available on App Store.

Cheers!

Version 1.3.3 Released!

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This is a major release with fundamentally rebuild of the app. From the usage of view, the main change is to add search feature so that it will be very easy to find out information when you have a lots of taps. To support this new feature, the framework of the app have been changed.

To get this search feature, just scroll to the top of the view, and drag the view down. A search bar will appear under the title.



Tap on the search bar, a list of search scopes is displayed. Normally, there are four scopes: name, note, tap note, and tap date. The first three are text based search,



and the last one is date search.



Note: the search function is available only there are a lots of data in a view. If there are less than three rows of data in the view, obviously, the search bar would not available.

For date search, when you first time select the date scope, the app will find out all the dates available in taps and set the first date in the date picker. This will make it easy for user to start search. The next time when you do the date search again, it will remember the previous dates selected.

During the time we added this new feature, we realized that some framework blocks for laying-out this app had to be changed/updated. Basically, almost the whole app has been rewritten. We think this change is worthwhile because a better framework has been created and some potential bugs has been resolved.

With this new feature, it will be much easy to find out information in your taps. Let's quote the final paragraph of the app description:

With constant improvements and update releases, we work hard to keep this app recent, relevant, and bug-free. We hope that this app will be a valuable and productive tool for you, helping you record and remember important and meaningful moments in your lifestyle and work.