What’s New In TimeTune 2.6

TimeTune 2.6 introduces new features, visual changes and internal improvements. The new version pushes the project forward on the path to create a valuable tool for you and opens the door to future improvements.

Here’s a look at what’s new.

LESS VISUAL NOISE

A small drawback of the original Material Design guidelines (a.k.a. ‘Material Design 1.0’) was that it was too easy to create a ‘noisy’ interface. The use of bold colors for screen components could easily clash with the information the application is trying to show (especially if that information already includes bold colors, as it’s our case).

Good interfaces, however, should direct the user’s attention to the information itself and a few key actions, not to the container of the information.

So, in order to reduce visual noise, we made the following changes:

The top action bar is not colored anymore

This change redirects the focus to the things that really matter: the information, the floating action button and any possible calls-to-action.

We don’t use gray backgrounds anymore

A gray background combined with a colored action bar created a sensation of clutter in the previous version. The new design is more pleasant to the eye and highlights the information in a better way:

New soft accent color

We now use a soft accent color to differentiate some elements without creating too much contrast:

We decluttered the drawer menu

Before version 2.6, some drawer menu items wouldn’t fit on screen depending on the dimensions of the device. We simplified the aspect of the drawer to fit as many options as possible:

PAST DATES IN YOUR TIMELINE

In the previous version, the timeline section only showed activities from the current moment until 7 days later. This was a problem if you missed an activity or event, because they just disappeared from the timeline.

In version 2.6, you’ll be able to see the previous 7 days in your timeline as well:

To help you go back to the current activity, a new ‘Now’ button will reposition the timeline automatically (the clock icon you can see on the screenshot).

NEW OPTIONS FOR THE WIDGET

The widget now includes new options and tools:

Date range

You can now select the date range you want to see on the widget, from 7 days before until 7 days later:

The widget can now have rounded corners

Tool buttons

You can selectively add five new tool buttons for the widget:

NEW INPUT METHOD FOR NOTIFICATIONS

Instead of three fields to select when a notification must take place (minutes, before/after, start/end), now we use just two:

However, the big difference resides on the ‘Time’ field, the one that lets you select the amount of minutes, hours or days for your notification:

The new method allows to select any custom amount of time, and is arguably faster than the one in the previous version, where you needed to search a drop-down field to see if it contained the amount you needed.

NEW PURCHASE SCREEN

One complaint we received from several users on previous versions is that we didn’t make a good job explaining the features in the Pro Version. And they were right.

To solve this problem, we created a new purchase screen where we explain the Pro features in a centralized place:

DELETING UNUSED TAGS

After using the application for a while, you’ll have several tags that you created before but you’re not going to use anymore. In TimeTune 2.6 we added a new option to delete all unused tags in one go:

SELECTING ALL DAYS WHEN CLONING

Most of the time, when cloning a day or an activity, we want to clone our data to all the days in the routine. In the previous version we needed to select each day one by one on the clone dialog.

Now, in version 2.6, a new option allows to select all days at once:

FIREBASE ANALYTICS INTEGRATION

We’ve been wanting to add an analytics tool to the app for a long time. Analytics will allow us to better understand how users use the application and which features are not working the way they should.

We chose Firebase Analytics for its mobile-oriented philosophy, its wide array of configurations and its full compliance with data protection regulations.

To avoid any privacy concerns, we made sure that Firebase Analytics does not collect any kind of private information. We are only interested in anonymous, aggregated user behavior to help us improve the app.

So, regarding our specific implementation of Firebase Analytics:

• We disabled the collection of the Android Advertising ID. This means we do not collect information about user interests or demographics.
• We disabled the option to share analytics data with other Google companies.
• We made sure that IP addresses are always anonymized.

Finally, we expanded our Privacy Policy to reflect this analytics integration.

SURVEY ABOUT ROUTINE LAYOUT

One of the features of Firebase Analytics is the possibility to use analytics events to gather anonymous user feedback.

So, in the new version, we’re using analytics to show a survey about a controversial change we made a while ago: the change from horizontal tabs to a single vertical screen to show the days in your routine.

The survey will appear as a new call-to-action on the top bar when a user opens a routine:

This survey will help us make a final decision about this polemical change.

MIGRATION TO ANDROIDX LIBRARIES

Google introduced the new AndroidX developer libraries a few months ago. These new libraries provide a more coherent and modular approach for Android development. However, the migration from the old support libraries to the new ones can be a delicate task.

We used this version change to make a full migration to AndroidX. Now TimeTune is ready for further development and evolution.

MISCELLANEOUS

Besides the highlighted changes, the new version includes several bug fixes and a long list of minor improvements. However, if you find anything out of place, just let us know and we’ll look into it 🔎

We really hope you like TimeTune 2.6 and the new changes.

Thanks for reading and thanks a lot for your continuous support! 🧡

(Illustration: App development concept with flat design, by Freepik)