FitnessTrack 1.5.1 is now live on the App Store. This version includes a couple of fixes and a small tweak:

• Fixed decimal data loss issue with locales that use decimal separator other than period
• Fixed stuck highlight issue for currently editing field
• Workout Name field now starts editing as blank if name is default name “New Workout”

Enjoy!

I wanted to send out a hearty thank you to all the folks who bought FitnessTrack and Emergency Information on January 20th in support of Indie+Relief. I decided that BitBQ would cover Apple’s 30% and donate the full sale amount to Doctor’s Without Borders. Doing so means BitBQ made a $100 donation. While not a lot of money, I’m so proud to have contributed. Overall, Indie+Relief raised over $143,000 for Haiti! That’s an amazing number. Thanks to everyone who bought great Mac and iPhone software that made this possible.

Today, almost 150 Mac and iPhone companies are donating their sales to Haiti relief. It’s a great cause and BitBQ is participating and is donating to Doctors Without Borders.

Coming together like this is one of the reasons I really enjoy being apart of the Mac and iPhone development community. It’s amazing how quickly everyone rallied to this idea from Justin Williams.

If you’ve been eyeing any of the software listed on the Indie+Relief, today would be an excellent day to buy it.

Happy New Year from BitBQ! To help celebrate the start of 2010, FitnessTrack is 40% off until January 8th. I hope this provides some help for those with New Year’s Resolutions to work out more. I know it’s a high priority for me.

I’m excited to announce that BitBQ has acquired LittleSnapper for iPhone from Realmac Software! The fine folks over at Realmac are really focused on their Mac desktop applications. As a result, they have run out of time for LittleSnapper for iPhone. As a fan of the app, I was sad to hear this and that’s when a discussion about acquisition started.

BitBQ will now take up full time development of the application and it will be rebranded under a new name: Cinder. Additionally, the application will be updated to better utilize the Ember service provided by Realmac. Keep an eye on this blog  ( or twitter ) for status updates as Cinder makes its way back on to the store, which should occur in the first couple of months of 2010.

For those of you that already own LittleSnapper for iPhone, you will need to re-download Cinder once it becomes available. The App Store will not know that the applications are essentially the same. I really wish it didn’t need to be that way, but it’s the system Apple has in place. I’m going to help alleviate some of the inconvience: for the first two weeks, Cinder will be free. After that, it will become a paid application.

I want to thank Dan Counsell, Danny Greg, and Nik Fletcher at Realmac for their help during this transition.

I’m pleased to announce that FitnessTrack 1.5 is now available on the App Store. This is the first version from BitBQ. This version includes several improvements including the ability to create a playlist for your workout inside the application. FitnessTrack is also sporting a new application icon. You can see the entire change log here. You can get FitnessTrack from the App Store here.

Like Emergency Information, I had to submit this as a new application to Apple. That means, if you had previously purchased FitnessTrack, you will need to purchase it again to continue to receive updates.

To help soften the cost of updating to this version for previous users, FitnessTrack will be 40% off until 11:59 PM CST (GMT-6) November 30, 2009. That also means new users get 40% off too!

Emergency Information is back on the App Store, now under the BitBQ brand. Unfortunately, because I had to submit it as a new app, if you’ve bought Emergency Information in the past, you will need to buy it again to continue to receive updates. I’m really sorry about that, but my hands were tied by Apple. You can find it here.

It’s been almost a month since I announced the acquisition of FitnessTrack and Emergency Information from Justin Williams at Second Gear. Since then, both Justin and I have been patiently waiting for any word from Apple on the transfer request Justin made back in September. Every time either of us call, it’s like talking to a brick wall with the only information we’re told is that “It’s with an Internal Team”.

Additionally, we’ve heard rumblings from others in similar situations that Apple’s policy seems to be that they will only perform these transfers if the entire company is sold, not just specific apps.

So where does that leave us? Where “Where To?” was about a year ago. Basically, it appears that Justin will need to pull Emergency Information and FitnessTrack from sale on the App Store and I will need to submit all new binaries from BitBQ. Justin is going to pull the apps from sale today and I’m going to be submitting BitBQ versions on Friday.

What does that mean for users? It means that existing customers of FitnessTrack and Emergency Information will no longer receive updates unless they repurchase the apps from BitBQ.

Justin and I were doing everything we could to avoid this outcome as it obviously is going to upset those who have already bought the apps. Unfortunately it appears to be out of our hands and in Apple’s and we can’t wait on them forever.

As the BitBQ versions work there way through the review process, I will be considering ways to help alleviate the pain of having to repurchase the apps.

There always has to be a First Post, and this one is BitBQ’s. BitBQ is my little dream. A dream to write software that’s beautiful and easy to use that customers enjoy using.

To help kick start that dream, BitBQ has acquired FitnessTrack and Emergency Information from Justin Williams over at Second Gear Software. These are some great iPhone apps that look good and I think provide an excellent user experience.

I had the opportunity to meet Justin at WWDC this year while we ate some Korean BBQ. We had a good chat about his products (you should really be using both Today and Check Off) and how things with the iPhone were going. From reading his Twitter feed, I had gotten the impression he wasn’t very happy about being on the platform because of some of the things going on with the App Store.

A month or so after WWDC, Justin tweeted that he was thinking about just getting off the iPhone altogether. Not wanting to see his apps disappear, I emailed him to see if he would consider selling his iPhone apps to me. He was interested and after a little negotiation we made a deal for BitBQ to buy his apps.

So here we are now. Justin and I are trying to work with Apple to get the apps cleanly transferred over to BitBQ on the store. Which means, we’re trying to make sure that people who bought either app while they were owned by Second Gear will continue to receive updates from BitBQ. Keep an eye on this blog to keep track of that progress.

I’m really looking forward to adding new features to both FitnessTrack and Emergency Information. I think the App Store is in an interesting point in its evolution and I’m happy to be there.