Convertbot [$0.99 - iTunes link] has seen their latest update, version 1.4 for iPhone (and iPod touch), rejected by at least 2 of Apple’s 40+ App Store reviewers because the icon they’re using for “Time” (the same icon they’ve been using since 1.0, mind you) is nigh-identical to Apple’s built in “Recent” icon, and that was enough to raise that troublesome “user confusion” flag at iTunes HQ.

They’re going to try and find a different yet equally minimalist icon, and we’re going to start counting down to a letter from either Phil Schiller or the FCC…

Sigh.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Convertbot 1.4 for iPhone Rejected by App Store Because Same “Time” Icon Now Confusable for “Recents” is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Paul Haddad from Tapbots let us know just how fast he’s seeing users update to iPhone 3.0. Based on the headers included when their app Convertbot checks with its servers to get the latest currency information, Paul figures:

The data seems pretty clear. Prior to June 8th we have a fairly low adoption rate of ~3%. Starting on June 9 this jumps up to 6-8%, which can be directly tracked to the developer release at WWDC. Starting on June 17th we get a huge jump as all the non devs start upgrading. We’re currently running at an overall 75% upgrade rate which is pretty insane considering the number of devices and the fact that its only been 5 days.

Outside enthusiasts who regularly follow the news, users are only alerted to updates when they tether their iPhone to iTunes to sync. Looks like a lot of people are either enthusiastic enough to know about the update and want it, or fairly regular about syncing with iTunes.

Either way, these uptake levels are amazing.

iPhone 3.0 Also Stands for Speed — of Adoption is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Tapbots, one of the most consistently innovative user experience-oriented development houses on the iPhone platform, just let us know they’ve updated their latest app, Convertbot (see our review), to version 1.1.

Convertbot is for those who not only want to get things done, but who want to enjoy doing them. This update adds user-selectable enabling/disabling of categories/units as well as a TON (standard or metric! Convert to your choice!) of new categories/units and new currencies.

What’s more, they’ve released Convertbot Mini as a Lite-as-in-FREE version of the app that gives you the same great UI, albeit without as many different units and categories (hey, it’s free and the full version is a steal at the introductory price!)

Convertbot 1.1 ($0.99 – iTunes link) and Convertbot Mini (Free – iTunes link) are both available now.

Convertbot Hits 1.1, Adds Convertbot Mini for Free! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Convertbot Forum Review by msbaylor. (Visit the thread for video and more pics. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum!)

ConvertBot is by Tapbots – the developers of WeightBot and for those of you that love the way the application operates, this one will not let you down.

This is probably the sleekest conversion application I have seen with its cool animations and sounds. However, the only issues I ran into – it takes longer than I thought the program should take to load. At first I believed that it was the app itself checking an Internet connection to update the currency conversions, but when I put my iPhone in Airplane mode, it took just as long. But it is a good thing to note that even though the currencies could not update, the program is still usable.

The sleek interface is what really makes this app so nice. This has to be the coolest working Conversion app for the iPhone. The “wheel” that takes up the main part of the screen can be rotated to set the conversion type:

• Angles: Degree, Radian, & Grad
• Area: Square Meter, Square Centimeter, Square Millimeter, Square Mile, Acre, Square Kilometer, Square Yard, Square Foot, Square Inch
• Currency: Australian Dollar, Brazilian Real, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Danish Krone, Euro, Pound Sterling (UK), Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, Swedish Krona, US Dollar
• Length: Foot, Meter, Inch, Centimeter, Mile, Kilometer, Nautical Mile, Yard, Millimeter, Foot+Inch
• Mass: Milligram, Kilogram, Pound, Ounce, Gram, Stone, Stone+Pound, Metric Ton, Pound+Ounce
• Power: Watt, Horsepower, Kilowatt, BTU/Minute, Foot-Pound/Minute, Foot-Pound/Second
• Pressure: Pound/Square Inch, Centimeters of Mercury, Inches of Mercury, Kilogram/Square Meter, Pascal, Atmospheres, Bars, Pounds/Square Foot
• Speed: Miles/Hour, Kilometers/Hour, Knots, Miles/Second, Miles/Minute, Feet/Minute, Feet/Second, Kilometers/Minutes
• Temperature: Celsius, Kelvin, Fahrenheit
• Time: Second, Millisecond, Microsecond, Nanoseconds, Year, Week, Day, Hour, Minute, Hour + Minute
• Volume: Cup, Teaspoon, Tablespoon, Cubic Feet, Gallon (UK), Quart, Pint, Ounce, Cubic Meter, Gallon (US), Liter, Milliliter, Cubic Centimeter
• Work (Energy): Kilogram Calorie, Foot Pound, Newton Meter, Joule, BTU, Erg, Watt Hour, Calorie

Once you have rotated the wheel to the type/category, then you tap on the bottom left button and you use the “wheel” to select the specific conversion unit, take the center blue button, “ok” and it locks that unit in. This unit is the unit you are converting from. The other black button is the unit you want to convert to. You repeat the same process of locking in the unit.

By tapping on the top “number screen,” this opens up a keypad so that you can type in the amount you are converting from. The application has a live update, in which the app auto converts as you type the number into the app. Tapping on the “number screen” again brings back the conversion “wheel”

You can tap on the center wheel to switch the units if you need to.

By tapping on the “i” icon you can view the Settings which allows you to turn the sound on or off as well as the choice of viewing the Demo (which is quite a nice feature in the app).

Issues:

• Would like to have the “wheel” spin more smoothly, rather than “clicking” into place.
• Not as common currencies are not available in the app. (exe.: Argentinian Pesos or Chilean Peso)

Pros:

• Sleek Interface
• Sounds & animation to go with each “screen” or tap
• Complex conversions

Cons:

• Takes quite long to update currencies at app start up (quicker in airplane mode, due to currencies not updating)
• “Wheel” ‘clicks’ into place rather than smoothly rolling.
• Uncommon currencies not available

TiPb Review Rating

[Convertbot is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.]

App Review: Convertbot Unit Converter for iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad of Tapbots are the breakout designers and engineers behind Weightbot (iTunes link), one of the most original user experiences released on the iPhone App Store to date. Continuing the iPhone blog’s behind-the-scenes look at iPhone application development, Mark and Paul were kind enough to take time and discuss their ideas on interface and interactivity, and how what more we might expect from Apple’s next generation mobile platform.

TiPb: How was approaching the iPhone interface for this App different than how you would have approached an interface for another platform?

Mark: It was really different coming from a web design background. 320×460 isn’t a lot of space to work with and then you have to factor in the huge difference in input devices. A person’s finger is a lot less accurate than a mouse cursor. At the same time, I wasn’t designing a website so I was freed from a lot of rules and conventions I’ve been following over the past 8 years. So my initial approach was pretty simple. If Weightbot was an actual physical device, how could I make it usable and fun at the same time?

Paul: The thing I found challenging about dealing with the iPhone interface is that users want a silky smooth and yet the iPhone and iPod touch are both very slow compared to any modern Mac. I spent a lot of time juggling things around in order to get a consistent 60 fps for all the various animations within Weightbot. Coming from our current Multi Gigahertz, Multi Gigabyte and Multi Core world where for the most part you don’t have to worry about performance to a platform like the iPhone where every cycle and byte counts is a big change.

TiPb: Weightbot’s interface is obviously both creative and innovative. Is the robot theme something that came to expressly for that app, or does it exemplify a personal style of interaction that you can see pushing further in future with different types of Apps.

Mark: The whole robot theme sort of just fell into place. That happens a lot with the work I do. I can’t always sit down with a piece of paper and try to think up a whole concept from scratch. I prefer to just dive into the work and then see what ideas pop up from it.

Paul came to me one day telling me he wanted to test the iPhone market and was going to start off simple with a weight tracking app. He asked if I was interested in helping out and didn’t want to spend more than a week or two on it. I think the original plan was to use all of the standard UI elements provided in the SDK, but I thought I’d let my imagination run a little and then see what Paul would think. My initial sketch was simple. It was just the shape of the iphone with the lcd as seen on the app today. One thing popped into mind at that point. It was Eve from Wall-e. Everything just fell into place from there. Weightbot was inspired by Eve, and the Tapbots idea was based on the whole concept of different utility robots in Wall-e. That was such a great movie. When I was in high school, my dream was to become a 3d modeler for Pixar. Obviously, my career went off on a tangent (along with this interview).

So now that you know the story of where Tapbots and Weightbot came from, obviously you can expect there to be more robot applications in the future.

TiPb: Given the stylization, was it difficult to balance form and function, and make sure the interface didn’t take over or drown out the underlying App?

Mark: Over the years, my web design philosophy has matured. I used to be all about the flash, bang, whiz type of websites, but one day I just realized that people just want to use the site or get the information they need. That’s not to say flashy sites don’t have their place. I’ve just changed my philosophy on it. So my take on all UI design is function first, and then wrap a solid, usable design around it. The same approach was taken with Weightbot. I pictured a user balancing on his/her scale, and easily being able to enter weight data into the app with one hand and without needing too much precision or concentration.

The Wii fit is probably the best example of simplicity because it weighs you and stores your weight data automatically. It’s also somewhat fun to do. The big flaw with it is you have to turn on your TV and Wii just to do it and that can get tedious if you do it everyday. I know because I have one and hardly ever turn it on anymore. So Weightbot needed to be very simple, fun enough to be motivational, and not feel like a chore to use. I’d like to think we did a pretty decent job on it.

TiPb: Did developing an interface for the iPhone change the way you may approach future interfaces on other platforms? Did you learn anything special from developing for the iPhone?

Mark: New experiences always help shape the way you think about other things. I’ve definitely learned a lot from the experience and I’m sure it will influence my work on the web. Maybe not from a visual standpoint, but definitely from a user experience point of view.

TiPb: You use touch and accelerometer based interactions in your Apps. Are developers fully tapping the potential of iPhone interactivity yet? What more, if anything, could Apple surface to help developers create even better user interactions?

Mark: Some developers are doing really cool stuff with it. The multi-touch screen, accelerometer, and even the mic are all input devices for the iPhone. Developers should use them to their app’s advantage. Our main purpose for using them was to simplify the interface. Imagine having a “graph” button in Weightbot to switch to the graph. The button would have to be small so it doesn’t make the interface busy, but then the user has to look for the button. Using the accelerometer was a no brainer. It keeps our interface clean and it’s very intuitive.

Google Earth makes really good use of the accelerometer and multi-touch controls. I think games are also pushing how users can interact with the iPhone. I think the possibilities are almost limitless so we will be seeing a lot of great solutions in the future.

Paul: I don’t think most developers fully tapping the iPhone at all. It’ll probably be another year before we see a large number of apps that really push the iPhone. Unfortunately in the current iPhone SDK there’s very little defined support for detecting things like two finger swipes or shaking the iPhone. You pretty much have to depend on accessing the accelerometer and Event code at fairly low levels. Once Apple provides some higher level support for these features you are going to see more and more developers using them in innovative ways.

TiPb: What worked out especially well for you with Weightbot? Any favorite features or elements that you’re especially happy with?

Mark: I’m happy most with the pure simplicity of it. Part of me wants to say this is the final version. But we get a lot of feature requests and Weightbot is nothing without people using it. So we will do our best to make our users happy without sacrificing on the initial vision of Weightbot.

Paul: I really like the Date Slider screen, maybe its because I spent an obscene amount of time tuning it, but I really enjoy the effect of flicking the Slider and hearing it tick as it switches dates.

Mark, Paul, we sincerely appreciate your taking the time to share with us and our readers!

Tapbots is Mark and Paul’s website, and their premiere application, Weightbot, is available via the iTunes App Store.

TiPb Interview: Weightbot Developers Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad Discuss iPhone Interface Innovation is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog