Talkin’ TeeShot

TeeShot 1.7.1 is on coming soon. I just uploaded it to the iTunes store which usually means it will be available in the next couple of days.  

What’s new?  Well it isn’t a huge release but there are some nice improvements in version 1.7.1.

• Upload rounds to oobgolf.com - Users have been asking for this for a while and I am really happy to announce it is here.  Thanks too the oobgolf folks for adding some new APIs to make this work.
• Users with GPS enabled iPhones can now see the distance to the green for any courses that have beeb GPS tagged.  While this was possible in earlier versions for shot by shot tracking, it is now also available in the group scoring page and the hole scoring page.  When the course has the coordinates for the green, you will see a new option at the bottom.  Tap the little target button and it will give you the distance.
• Lots of stability improvements. Some people were getting crashes in shot by shot scoring and I think those are all fixed now.  The group scoring page would sometimes have a problem where it would show a score from a previous hole.  That is fixed now too, but you need to dismiss the keyboard with the Done button before going to the next hole
• Slope, rating and units are now editable for rounds.  Just go into edit mode to be able to change them.  You need to go to edit mode to change units on courses now too.
• Screen rotation is disabled.  I meant to turn it off before 1.7 and forgot… oops! While it was interesting, it wasn’t terribly useful so I am going back to portrait only for now.

As always, your feedback is welcome so let us know what you think!

While it is getting a bit cold to play much right now, I still hope to see ya on the first tee!

-Chris

Nov 13, 2008 UPDATE: 1.7.1 has been marked Ready for Sale so it should start showing up in iTunes over the next 24 hours.  Make sure you back up your data to TeeShot Live before you install the update.

TeeShot 1.7 is coming along well and I figured now would be a great time to give you a preview of some of the features that are coming.  Most of these are near the top of the request list so thanks for all of the great feedback and keep it coming.

• Sand Saves and Up & Down Tracking - There is a new option in the hole scoring page and in group scoring that lets you track sand saves and up & downs.  They also show up in statistics for both the round and overall stats.  
• Historical Graphs - You can now see a graph of your performance at a course or on a hole.  You need to have at least two values for it to show up (a graph of one number is — not very interesting) but then you can see how your scores have progressed over time.
• Email scorecard - You can email the scorecard for a round to the players or to anyone you want.  The scorecard includes the key stats for the round for each player including strokes, putts, penalties, up&downs and sand saves.
• Round and Hole Notes - you can add notes about the round or a specific hole.  You can record weather information, course conditions or the reason behind that double bogey (a coyote stole my ball - seriously!)
• Updated Scorecard - The scorecard page now shows squares and circles around bogies and birdies
• More statistics - highest/lowest scores are now for 9 and 18 hole courses, percentages for fairway and GIR in round totals, up & downs, sand saves
• User Pictures - If the player was created from the address book, we show their user picture if it was set in both the player list and the round.

TeeShot 1.5.1 was going to be a quick little release with a couple of simple fixes in it, but as I received more mails from people losing data during updates due to the iPhone application update problem, I decided to add something to provide some more peace of mind for all TeeShot users.   So in addition to a number of fixes and small improvements to TeeShot 1.5, version 1.6 will also include the ability to backup and restore your entire database to TeeShotLive.  

Once TeeShot 1.6 is available, you will see a new option in the Settings page that looks like this:

Backup/Restore in TeeShot 1.6

Tapping “Upload Data to Internet” will upload your entire TeeShot data file to TeeShotLive and store it in a location that is associated to your actual iPhone (or iPod touch).  Tapping “Restore Data from Internet” will then download that same data from TeeShotLive and replace your local database with this information.  

You can back up your data whenever you like - after each round or just before application updates.  The restore will confirm that you want to replace all of the data on your device before actually pulling it down.

The information is stored on TeeShot Live’s servers.  It is not encrypted so it is possible that someone could download your data, though TeeShot does not allow you to download anything except for the data that was uploaded by your own phone.  In other words this is not really a solution for moving your information between two devices though we might be able to enable something like that once we add user accounts to TeeShot Live.

TeeShot 1.6 also includes a number of fixes. 

• Stableford round calculations are now correct for the main player and the course handicaps are calculated correctly
• Courses with GPS data can now be downloaded to TeeShot. Once 1.6 hits the store, I will release the updated CourseBuilder that makes it easier to tag greens with GPS coordinates.
• Group scoring now has an option to go from any user to their individual scoring page with one tap
• Entering a value in the Group Scoring page automatically advances to the next field, so it takes fewer taps to enter a player’s score.  You need to try it to see, but it is much faster now.
• Added a few countries to the countries list (hello Bermuda and Thailand!)
• Added Danish and Italian as languages
• Fixed an issue where a player’s scores from previous holes might keep appearing for subsequent holes in Group Scoring.
• The look of many of the lists have been updated and should be a bit easier to read on the course.

I received an email from Apple tonight that TeeShot 1.5 has completed the review process and will be live in the store within 24 hours.  Thanks for everyone’s patience!

As a reminder, there is a bug in the iPhone that can cause data loss if you download updates directly on the phone so make sure you download the TeeShot update using iTunes and install it from there.  Apple is still investigating this issue but it has not been fixed yet.

Thanks again for your patience and enjoy 1.5!