Tell Brad at Beersmith we want a mobile version!!!!

[Revvy]

I just got the latest installment of the Beersmith email Newsletter, and it said this;

Your Thoughts on BeerSmith?

You've been receiving these emails for several months now, and now its your chance to provide me with feedback - your ideas really help me make my products, articles and services better.

Let me know what you would like to see next from BeerSmith - even if its just a line or two. Just hit reply to this message and give me your thoughts on articles you would like to see, products you would like or improvements to my existing business.

It is unlikely I will be able to reply to every message (the list has thousands of subscribers now), but I will read what you write, and use it to decide what to do next.

Thank you again for your continued support!
Brad Smith

For years we've been begging him for a version that will work on Android and I-phone platforms, but it's seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. On his forum whenever he was asked he said he'd consider it after version II came out, and then after it came out, he said, he'd consider it after the Mac version came out.

Now those are both done, and he's looking for insight into what to do next.

I figure if we flood his email maybe he'll finally put it together before he looses us all to the mobile apps already out there. This is our opportunity to get his attention.

Here's what I sent him-

Brad,

What THOUSANDS of us on the forums, not just yours and Homebrewtalk.com, but Northern brewer's and just about every forum I've looked are begging you for Brad is a mobile version of BS, both for Androids and Iphones. I just switched from android to the iphone, and all I need to make my life and my brewing complete is a mobile app that allows us to work with out recipes on our phones, and to have them communicate back and forth with the versions on our computers. I want to be able to both create recipes on my phone and computer, and be able to share them back and forth between platforms.

I also want to be able to use all the other great features on your program, for example the dillution calculator and bottling calculators.

There are so many mobile recipe creation apps out there, both free and paid versions, but I don't want to invest my time and money with them, when I've been using yours for years.

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE Make Beersmith even more excellent, by making it work on our mobile tools like smartphones and tablets.

So if you want one, then now's the time to request it, send Brad Smith and email at [email protected]

 

[Psych]

Good call, that would fantastic!

Can't count how many times I've ran upstairs mid-boil to tweak hops or use the dilution calculator!

 

[Revvy]

Good call, that would fantastic!

Can't count how many times I've ran upstairs mid-boil to tweak hops or use the dilution calculator!

I figure we have a chance to flood his email with this. I only wish I had mentioned how it seems a lot of folks ARE migrating away from it to use Ibrewmaster and other mobile apps.

I can really see myself rarely sitting at a computer more and more, if I can easily do it on my iphone...If it weren't for all my recipes already in beersmith I could migrate away...But I do like it a lot, I've been using it for 5 years now. So I don't really want to switch.

 

[passedpawn]

I did my part. I'm sure it's coming. Thanks revvy for stirring the coals.

 

[Reelale]

At first blush, it sounds like a great idea. But I'm wondering if a mobile app would (could) contain the entire suite of options contained in the pc version. It seems like stripping it down to "fit" on an app would result in little more than an electronic version of a brew sheet. I know there are some pretty content-rich apps out there, but they all give up something.

That being said, my netbook with Beersmith loaded in Dropbox is a fundamental brewday tool.

 

[pickles]

I just did my part.

 

[sudsmcgee]

I can't imagine typing in an entire recipe on a phone. I'd rather do it on a PC and then synch it with my phone, so sync must be an option.

 

[passedpawn]

I can't imagine typing in an entire recipe on a phone. I'd rather do it on a PC and then synch it with my phone, so sync must be an option.

I agree (for me; there are those that use their phones exclusively).

As a registered user, I'd just like to carry my recipes with me. That's all.

 

[pickles]

I totally agree, it needs to supplement the computer edition. I let Brad know that I'd like to use it in addition to the current version. I also told him that I regretfully use competitive apps during my brewday.

 

[Revvy]

Then Tell him what you want. Or don't want.

This isn't really meant to be a discussion with him, he's not gonna see this thread. This is just an information thread to say we have an ear to Brad right now.

There are already apps for mobile devices where you type entire recipes on your phone, or device, Like Ibrewmaster, and the ones I had on my droid. It's not groundbreaking. And if it's done right, it's not that difficult to do. I've even done it on my old droid in beercalculus on the web.

It takes getting used to like doing anything on a small device but it's not all that more difficult than surfing hbt and answering posts.

 

[Revvy]

Someone posted Ibrewmaster screenshots on another thread. Looks like they use the rooller feature a lot for making selections. You just would roll through the selections til you got the grain or hops or yeast you wanted.

I have apps on my phone for other things that do similar to make choices and stuff, if it can be done for a banking app, or Ibrewmaster, then Beersmith can do it too.

 

[sudsmcgee]

E-mail has been sent!

 

[FSR402]

I see on his facebook almost a month ago he said he was working on one.

 

[FermentedTed]

Email sent!

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

...a mobile version of BS.

Isn't that every post you make from your phone?

 

[passedpawn]

Isn't that every post you make from your phone?

Heh.

I just noticed your BS gauge is very quickly approaching the Jedi.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I just noticed your BS gauge is very quickly approaching the Jedi.

Yes. I too felt a disturbance in the farce.

 

[weirdboy]

I can't imagine typing in an entire recipe on a phone. I'd rather do it on a PC and then synch it with my phone, so sync must be an option.

You should try BrewPal. It is pretty straightforward and easy to design a recipe using that. In fact in terms of usability, I would say BrewPal wins hands down.



What I would rather see out of Beersmith is a reworking of the user interface to make it more intuitive and easier to use. Even after having used Beersmith 1 & 2 for many years, there are plenty of cases where I have to sit there and scratch my head trying to remember how to do something because it is buried in a weird place. There are also many cases of having 2-3 (and possibly more) ways to accomplish the same task that could easily be streamlined to simplify the interface and make it less clunky.

 

[sudsmcgee]

Brewpal is not available for Android.

 

[FermentedTed]

I received a response to my email from Brad. Figured I'd post it here to share:

Thanks,
I've just started doing some iPhone programming in preparation for this.

At the moment I'm trying to finish a recipe cloud server first since you need to
be able to access recipes from mobile as well as fixed platforms.


Cheers!

Brad Smith

 

[sudsmcgee]

I got the same response. Sadly, I own an andriod phone......

 

[Homercidal]

Brewzor is a decent app for Android. I think it needs a few improvements to be complete, but it has a few nice calculators and I use it pretty much every time I brew.

Frankly, when I'm working on a recipe I could never see myself fumbling around with my touchscreen. I prefer a mouse and keyboard.

 

[FSR402]

Brewzor is a decent app for Android. I think it needs a few improvements to be complete, but it has a few nice calculators and I use it pretty much every time I brew.

Frankly, when I'm working on a recipe I could never see myself fumbling around with my touchscreen. I prefer a mouse and keyboard.

I tried to make a recipe last night on my tablet in the Brewzor program. It was a pain and wont do it again. I do agree the calculators it has sure are handy.

 

[Revvy]

Frankly, when I'm working on a recipe I could never see myself fumbling around with my touchscreen. I prefer a mouse and keyboard.

On Iphones a lot of apps use rollers to make selections rather than typing anything it.

I'm assuming in Ibrewmaster all their grains and hops and yeasts are on rollers as are the measurements shown above. You choose a grain, then the roller with weights pops up and you roll til you get to the weight you want.

It's pretty quick and easy.

 

[sudsmcgee]

So what we've learned here is that Iphones have decent brew apps as far as data entry does, but android doesn't.

 

[Revvy]

So what we've learned here is that Iphones have decent brew apps as far as data entry does, but android doesn't.

I can't say how decent the brewing apps are since I'm holding out on buying one til we see what brad is going to do. But I will say having owned both a droid and an iphone, that Ipones have much easier data entry options than my android ever did. I really find those little spinny wheely things to be very simple to use.

 

[gunner65]

I can't say how decent the brewing apps are since I'm holding out on buying one til we see what brad is going to do. But I will say having owned both a droid and an iphone, that Ipones have much easier data entry options than my android ever did. I really find those little spinny wheely things to be very simple to use.

There is no reason why an android app couldnt utilize the spinning wheel selector. That is what erks me about android apps they have one for every iphone app available but usually are not as "polished" as their competitor. I think that as people are starting to migrate further and further away from PCs and more into the mobile smartphones as a do it all device we will and in some cases already are seeing that change for the better.

 

[passedpawn]

I got an email (might have been a cut/paste response) from Brad today indicating he is working on the backend functionality to make smart phone stuff work. He wants easy synchronization between phone and PC app, so cloud stuff is getting done now.

So I guess it's "in the works". Stay tuned. BTW, he mentioned Android / iPhone / iPad

 

[weirdboy]

For everyone complaining about iphone only Beersmith, I sent Brad a link to an API that should allow him to do cross-platform development for both iOS and Android.

 

[pickles]

I got a response as well, basically he said he's working on the cloud for recipe transfer and the app would get next priority. I guess well wait and see.