From the Realmac Labs

View all posts by Nik
Posted by Nik on

As many of you know, we love to build polished and reliable apps for the Mac. We spend a great deal of time working on the development, design and testing of each of our products: however, we also know that occasionally issues can pop up and users experience problems with our apps. Sometimes users will drop us an email letting us know that something isn't working however we also include a crash reporter in all our apps that allow users to optionally send us crash reports.

Like many people when submitting crash reports, I often wonder where the crash reports go. More often than not, they seem to go into the ether - maybe disappearing and reappearing in a poor developers inbox complete with poems, maybe just going into a big automated system never to be seen again.

Realmac Crash Report

At Realmac we've got a number of systems behind the scenes to help us manage and track crash reports. We've got the in-office info displays (which we'll be talking about soon) that show the number of crashes reported per product over the last 1, 7 and 30 days. We've also got the Realmac Crash Reporter that our developers use to view individual crash reports and look for trends in the crash logs to identify common issues. When you send in a crash log, this is where it'll end up and typically within the next working day or so we take a look at the logs to see what's going on. Whilst we look at every log that comes in, the nature of each crash determines what we do with the report.

Sometimes we'll simply ticket a crash log for our developers to look into on our bug tracker, and occasionally we send users who've reported a bug an email for some more details. Sometimes, however, we notice something that requires us to contact a large group of users. One such issue popped up recently, when we noticed a spike in the number of Socialite crashes reported. Looking at the crash logs we discovered that the sudden spike was due to a recent web plugin update (clue: it starts with "F" and ends in "lash" ) - in fact, over 90% of the crashes reported were due to this one plugin issue. Earlier this month the plugin in question was updated, and in our testing fixed the crash that affected almost all Socialite user. We decided to make the most of the our crash reporter by compiling a definitive list of those affected by the crash, and sending them a short email on how to fix the issue.

We know that people prefer to receive as little email as possible. However we happen to think that if you've included an email address with your crash report you probably won't mind us dropping you a note to let you know we're on the case! Over the last few months we've been emailing folks for details about their crashes - and plan to make the most of our crash reporter, contacting as many users as possible who report issues in the future!

And then there were four…

View all posts by Dan
Posted by Dan on

As I've mentioned previously we're trying to be a little more open with our users, so today I'm going to talk briefly about what we have planned for the Mac this year. I'll save our iOS plans for another time!

By the end of this year, we're aiming to release major upgrades to each one of our existing apps. In case you're wondering, that's RapidWeaver 5, Socialite 2, and LittleSnapper 2. Just on its own that's a pretty ambitious timetable, however those 3 releases are not the entire story when it comes to our plans for the Mac!

RapidWeaver, LittleSnapper, Socialite, Mystery App

Away from prying eyes, we've also been busy working on an all-new app. Before you ask, we're not ready to talk about the details just yet so you'll have to trust me when I say this new app is all kinds of awesome, and there's nothing else like it on the Mac. If all goes to plan (and things rarely do), we'll be releasing it in August.

If you want to know more about this mystery new app and be among the first to grab a copy, be sure to follow us on Twitter and 'Like' our Facebook page.

iPhone App Spotlight July 2010

View all posts by Nik
Posted by Nik on

One of the frequent discussions over lunch here at Realmac HQ is about iPhone apps - we're forever talking about our current favourite iPhone app or game - so I decided to pester the rest of the team about the game they're enjoying right now and share the list with you. Because I'm that pernickety, I also tried to extract a little more information from my colleagues as to why exactly they like the game - with varying success.

  • Bird Strike - Gold Edition

    Recommended by Dan

    Bird Strike - Gold Edition Icon

    Launch a little birdie named Gerald into the sky, and try to keep him flying by grabbing rockets, jet packs and umbrellas. Once you're in space, dive back down destroying as much stuff as possible. If you're into catapulting birds this is a must buy. £0.59 on the App Store

  • eBoy FixPix

    Recommended by Ben

    eBoy FixPix Icon

    A simple puzzle game with a difference: tilt your iPhone to get eBoy's pixel art to line-up. It's not the most challenging of games, but I'm a big fan of eBoy's pixel art and it's a nice example of putting the accelerometer to good use. £1.19 on the App Store

  • Geared

    Recommended by Danny

    Geared Icon

    A game where you rearrange different sized cogs in the aim to move a stationary one a distance away from a, provided, moving cog. The levels range from dead simple to pretty tricky, and the fairly constant progress has got me completely hooked. £0.59 on the App Store

  • Carcassonne

    Recommended by Nik

    Carcassonne Icon

    This iPhone version of the classic board game is really stylishly done, allowing you to play on your own & across the internet with friends. The multiplayer setup in't entirely hassle free - but hopefully the free iPad-designed update coming later this year can fix that. £2.99 on the App Store

  • Bit Pilot

    Recommended by Aron

    Bit Pilot Icon

    So there's this spaceship right? And you propel it around the screen… You collect these pulsing flying pills. When you get hit you by a rock you explode. The music goes blip blip blip. It's good. £0.59 on the App Store

  • Monster Mayhem

    Recommended by Luke

    Monster Mayhem Icon

    Slice, shoot and nuke a plethora of colourful ghouls before they break through your cemetery gates. The gameplay is nice and simple and I am particularly fond of the character illustrations throughout. £0.59 on the App Store

  • Ramp Champ

    Recommended by Chris

    Ramp Champ Icon

    Ramp Champ has to be one of the most stylish iPhone games around. It's beautifully designed, and totally addictive thanks to the the collecting of points as you play, which can be redeemed for more beautifully designed virtual swag. £1.19 on the App Store

  • Angry Birds

    Recommended by Team Realmac

    Angry Birds Icon

    In a distinctly unscientific office poll one thing became very clear: most of us love the insanely-addictive Angry Birds - in fact it was so popular that we had to ask folks to pick up their iPhones, browse their home screens and select another game. £0.59 on the App Store

That's all folks

We know that favourite iPhone apps (and particularly games) can change fairly frequently so we'll be sharing more of our favourite iPhone apps in future blog posts. Stay tuned!

TitleRealmac Software ID 2010

View all posts by Dan
Author Dan

New Realmac Software Logo

Description The new Realmac Software logo was designed by the very talented Denis Olenik, and shown above is the logo in just one of its many colourways. We'll be rolling out the new identity to the rest of our site throughout the second half of the year.