Users who opened Things after last Friday were in for a surprise. Instead of seeing their tasks, they were greeted with this expiration notice:
If you were unlucky enough to open Things too early on Friday (depending on your time zone of course) downloading the new version from our web site didn’t even help. It stubbornly kept displaying this dialog. What were we thinking??? It is with shame that we must admit: there was not much thinking involved…
Here’s the scoop: all of this happened completely unintentional. The dialog was displayed by mistake, due to a wrong date that has been left unaltered in the application code. Later on Friday, we fixed this and downloading the new version resolved the issue.
Why do we have an expiration date in the first place? Some time ago when we began to release public development versions of Things, we figured that we didn’t want those development versions still be in use after stable release versions would have become available. And we did what every developer does with public development versions: we put an expiration date into the application. We used a very distant future date to make sure the release version would be available long enough to allow users to switch to the release version. Or so we thought… The reason why Things will be released later than we initially thought deserves a blog post on its own ‚Äì iPhone anyone?
The dialog above is kind of OK. It tells you what happened and what you can do about it. It even offers to take you straight to our web site. But to tell the truth, we didn’t expect many people to see this dialog at all, which might explain why we didn’t take as much time and effort as we did for other dialogs. If we did, we would have made sure that a manual download wasn’t necessary. After all, we do have an automatic update mechanism, don’t we? Another shortcoming is the fact that it is not clearly stated that the user’s data is not affected at all. It wasn’t made clear that applying the update wouldn’t change the user’s data in any way, let alone delete it! This has certainly led to confusion among some of our users. Which brings us to an important topic.
Even though the whole thing was a mistake, there were quite a few users that were locked out of their data for several hours. From our point of view, this is one of the worst things that can happen. While Oliver Starr from GTD Times wrote a rather harsh article (and another one), speculating whether we are “insensitive” to our users need to have a “trusted system”, the exact opposite is true. We thought about this very aspect a great deal during the design phase of Things: How will users be able to access their data? What if they wanted to stop working with Things? How will they be able to export their data? And so forth.
All of this really boils down to one question: Who owns the data? There is only one correct answer to this question and it is obvious: only the user owns the data. Taken seriously, this answer implied that we as developers had to choose an approach as open as possible to store the user’s data. And indeed, this was a key priority for us from the beginning. We stated it on Things’ primary landing page even before this blog, the wiki, and the forums came into being.
To state this again very clearly, the release version of Things will save its data in an open, easy to understand and well documented, plain-text XML format. We chose XML because it is the most widely accepted file format for exchanging data between all sorts of software components. But at the same time, using modern style-sheet technology, ordinary users without any programming skills will be able to view these files nicely formatted in any web browser. It will be super easy for third parties to interoperate with the Things library by simply reading or writing small snippets of plain text files from and to the hard disk. Contrary to other solutions, like Apple Script for example, Things doesn’t even need to be running for this to work.
The development version currently available does not make use of the final file format yet. It does use a plain-text XML format, but a generic one (derived from Apple’s CoreData technology) which is easy to adapt for new Things features, but very difficult to use for third parties. The only reason it exists, is because it serves us well during the phase where Things’ data model is not yet fully complete. Of course, we have been working on our own easy to use file format all along and will roll it into future development versions as soon it makes sense.
Pinging is currently not allowed.
Don’t worry, we still love you guys!
yep all fine and dandy.
when’s the print feature updated?
I’ve seen very few developers give as much care and concern to the details of the user experience and functionality of a product. Keep up the good work… and thanks!
i concur w/ the folks here - great job, and the support, email responses have been superb. thanks guys
If it’s a preview release, I can’t be too surprised with the occasional hiccup. I’m just grateful to have had such a solid preview release for the past several months. You are doing great work.
Great job guys… I think it is great that so many people stood behind you and disagreed with Oliver’s needless blog posts. I won’ t be surprised if this is one of the fastest selling Mac programs ever when you actually release it. Can’t wait… keep up the good work!
I have my VISA ready for when you guys do the final release. I’m hooked to Things.
Dont worry bout the trolls, guys!
Critics are the people who “knows” how to do it but doesnt have the skill to do it. Dont bother… As I see it you’ve won more then lost because of the “bad” publicity…
Keep up the excellent work!
WTF you guys should be ashamed of yourselves… only kidding… the only reason I was in the pub at all tonight was due to things organising my working week!
iphone you say, mmmmmh iphone
I was a bit surprised when I was locked out. It would have been nice to have a link to web page when the notice is displayed, that way you could change that landing page, and communicate about the problem a little easier.
You guys are doing a great job.
I can’t wait for the iCal integration, and am really excited about the iPhone version. Faster! Faster! :-)
I’ve had this happen with other beta software before. When I saw the message I went about my day relying on my memory to get tasks done. Just as I would have if my computer had a technical issue, or the power was out. Complete reliance in a system, even a system as great as Things, can backfire if you can’t cope without it for a short while.
Not only you guys get what the Mac is all about, but you have a true sense of “less is more” when it comes to the simplicity of the user interface all the way to the design of your website, graphics, blog and forum.
What was amazing to me about this expiration date situation is the speed with which you had a fix available. And your approach to the ownership of the data and allowing users to access the data even if they do not want to use Things, makes me trust this software and its future even more.
Thank you!
You guys are totally allowed to make money off this software and you should never have to apologize for that. I have been waiting to use Things for month and just need the iCal syncing….. So close I can’t wait.
And the iPhone app!!!! I can not wait!
My money is ready for you as soon as you are ready to take it.
I didn’t even notice the problem, as Things is always running on my Mac. ;-)
I got information from NewsFire (I subscribed to the Twitter feed), so I just tried to upgrade Things, and version 0.9.1.2 was available.
My credit card is ready as well, as I told to CC guys back in january. ;-) A beta-related hiccup won’t make me desist for sure.
My only complaint is: I’d like to be able to test new features more often! A sort of hard-core beta test team should be enforced.
Thank you for such a clear and straight forward explanation which reads just like the program looks and feels. It was a surprise at the time but it is a beta product. Things is a delight to use
Hi, this blog entry made me like Things more than I liked it before…! You know why? Feedback! As you guys liked it, we consumers also like it, makes me feel that you really care about us! Great job!!!
PLEASE - We need more new versions to try!!!! In my GTD list I have the entry: look for Things new version.
Ridiculous waste of time on nothing. There was a mistake in beta software - shocking. This program is the best of the GTD bunch and not deserving of all this negative nonsense.
Now - about the iPhone feature - I would’ve much rather NOT heard about it. Now it’s all I’m going to obssess about until it is finally released!
Even among the generally-cool bunch of Mac indie software developers, it’s rare to find such an open and communicative bunch of folks. You are awesome, your software is awesome. The VAST MAJORITY of us appreciate all the thought, effort and work you’ve put into THINGS so far. You’re doing an excellent job. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pay you back someday. With money, even!
No worries guys‚ÄîThings is an amazing piece of software, and for me, the only reason the expiration notice came as a surprise was because I’d completely forgotten it was even still in Beta, so great is its quality.
Can’t wait for the actual release so you can be rewarded for all your hard and high-quality work!
I’m sure plenty of people will appreciate the iPhone support, but plenty of others (myself included) don’t care about it at all. Is that really all that’s holding 1.0’s release back?
“there were quite a few users that were locked out of their data for several hours.”
Really? When I saw the expiration notice, I just saved my existing Database.xml file, downloaded the new version, and moved my file. No biggie. Then I read all this and figured out what was going on. This app kicks ass, and I’m ready to pay for it. Nice work.
I love this app. You are doing a great job.
Thanks!
I almost crapped because all my class assignments are in Things… Downloaded the latest version to get me back up soon enough, but boy did it make my heart skip!
Just noticed some posts regarding the iPhone support. I know many people would have no concern about it, but the fact that Things will support iCal sync and the iPhone are the only reasons I’m using Things now. If it wasn’t for that, as much as I enjoy using Things, I’d have to look for something else… so keep up the good work! 8)