The updates to the Playbook apps have been approved and should be available shortly for download. Numerous bug fixes and a few small tweaks have been implemented. The apps have been tested on iOS 5 and so far I am not able to cause any crashing. Thanks for your support!
Playbook Apps – iOS 5 Compatibility
I’ve been contacted recently by a large number of users about intermittent crashing with all of the Playbook Apps. Having spent a significant amount of time debugging the app, the common thread seems to be iOS 5 compatibility. I will be releasing a new update shortly that will address the iOS 5 compatibility issues.
Thanks everyone who contacted me about these issues!
Note – if you are still using iOS 4.x and having intermittent crashing, please email me (project dot support at daren dot come). Thanks!
O’Reilly recently published the 1st edition of their “Best iPad Apps” and named PlaybookBball the “Best App for Drawing Up Plays”. Peter Meyers writes:
Eight seconds on the clock, your team’s down by two with the ball. Coach, how you gonna pull this one out?… Grab you iPad, fire up this app, and show your crew what to do. What you’ve got here is basically a striped-down animation program, custom rigged fro coaches… The game changer? Play mode shows your Xs and Os in action. Swish…
For the full text, check out page 216 of “Best iPad Apps” by Peter Meyers.
Manage Team Rosters with Playbook Apps
With the latest update to the Playbook Apps, coaches will be able to manage their rosters and lineups along with their plays. To get started, update your app now and tap on Main Menu > Manage Rosters.
There are four screens dedicated to Team Roster and Lineup Management. The first is the Teams screen where you can enter in general information about the Teams that you manage. The second is the Contacts screen where you can enter in all the players, coaches, staff, and parents general contact information such as their email, and phone numbers. If you setup a contact as a player an entry for them will show up on the Player Info screen, where you can add additional information such as their position, height, weight and vertical. You can also add in custom information if you so desire. Lastly is the lineups page where you can create and manage your lineups.
One of the best features of the latest update is the ability to modify the current lineup. Once you have added players to your roster, you’ll be able to easily assign players from your bench to the current play and set them as the active lineup. To access these features, tap Main Menu > Modify Home/Away Lineup.
Check out the new features and let me know what you think! Good luck Coaches!
PlaybookBball - Roster - Contacts
PlaybookBball - Roster - Modify Lineup
I have recently verified that performance of iPad Playbook apps is significantly slower than expected on Apple’s latest version of iOS. I am working hard to identify the root cause and will release an update as soon as I can to address the issue. Thank you for your patience.
Until this issue is resolved, I have removed the Playbook Apps from the App Store. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused any of my customers.
Update (3/23/11): I think I’ve got it figured out… Apparently for some apps using the old compiler, performance is affected by the iOS 4.3 update. Recompiling the source code on the latest iOS SDK fixes up everything quite nicely. I will recompile my latest stable code (which includes some bug fixes and other performance enhancements) and provide an update to the App Store. Thanks everyone!
Update (4/18/11): New update is available on the App Store. I’ve found the issue and tried optimizing it a bit. The problem appears when you turn on the Player Labels. If you are still having performance issues, please try turning the Player Labels off before animating the play. The latest update includes a short term fix, but I am still looking for a better long term solution. Thanks for your support.
Snap To Grid – PlaybookFootball
Hey Football Coaches! PlaybookFootball v 1.1.8 and PlaybookFootball-To Go v 1.1.6 now includes a ‘Snap to Grid’ feature making it immensely easier to line up your players at the line of scrimmage. You’ll save plenty of time without having to meticulously line up your players as they will now automatically line up with one another. Note that players will line up in 1/2 increments, so some tweaking may be required.
A few more Football specific features were included in this latest update such as linemen defaulting to blocking movement and the Center (Display Style Position Only) being displayed with a square instead of a circle.
If you have any more Football (or other sports) specific requests, please let me know.
The latest features are available now on the App Store.
Unfortunately, it looks like the latest Playbook Apps update is crashing on iOS 3.2. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but rest assured that issue has been identified and I have issued an update with the fix to Apple. The update should be available in about a week. Note that this bug only affects PlaybookBball, PlaybookFootball, PlaybookSoccer and PlaybookWaterPolo on iPad devices running iOS 3.2.
On the bright side, there is a workaround available. Users who have iOS 3.2, can upgrade the operating system of their iPad to iOS 4.2 (free update via iTunes). The apps all work as expected on iOS 4.2.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Update: Fix is now available! iOS 3.2 users please update now.
The latest update for the Playbook Apps has just been approved and is now available on the App Store.
In this latest update, the Plays menu has been revamped and is now the ‘Main Menu’. Tapping on the Menu button will open up a popover with a number of actions to choose from: Create New Play, Open Play, Copy Play, Email Play(s), Email Play(s) as PDF, Print Play(s) and Delete Play(s).
The top of the menu also includes a search box where you can quickly find any of your plays either by Play Name or by Play Tag. Tapping on one of the search results will give you the options perform some of the actions a bit more quickly if you already know what you are looking for.
Main Menu for PlaybookBball-To Go v. 1.1.4
Quick Action Menu for PlaybookBball-To Go v. 1.1.4
The last few updates to the Playbook Apps introduced a few tweaks to the user interface. Some of you might be wondering what the new buttons are, so let me describe them.
iPad Playbook Apps (Edit/View Mode)
First, PlaybookBball (applies to PlaybookFootball, PlaybookSoccer and PlaybookWaterPolo as well).
In Edit Mode, the Add Note and Add Cone buttons were consolidated to the Add… button. Tapping this will now bring up a pop up menu that will allow you to select between adding a note or adding a cone.
The icon next to the Add… button is an Eraser, followed by the Undo Pen, and finally the Pen button. In a recent update, whiteboard support was introduced allowing you to draw additional annotations onto the screen just like a whiteboard. The Eraser Icon will erase any annotations you have drawn for the displayed step. However, it will not remove any animation lines that you have drawn, keeping your play intact. The Undo Pen button erases the last pen mark (annotation) that you have drawn. The app remembers the order in which you drew each mark and will erase accordingly. Finally, the pen icon will open a pop up menu allowing you to customize the color for the whiteboard lines.
There’s one last icon that was added to both Edit and View Modes. In the center of the bottom toolbar you will no see 3 buttons instead of two. The first is for rewinding back to the first step, the second is for stepping back one step, and the last is for stepping forward one step.
PlaybookBball v. 1.3.4 – Edit Mode (Left), View Mode (Right)
iPhone Playbook Apps
For the iPhone Playbook Apps, two new buttons were introduced and the existing step back, play and step forward buttons were shifted to the right. The two new buttons introduced are the Undo Pen and Pen buttons. The Undo Pen button erases the last pen mark (annotation) that you have drawn. The app remembers the order in which you drew each mark and will erase accordingly. The pen icon will open a pop up menu allowing you to customize the color for the whiteboard lines.
PlaybookBball-To Go v. 1.1.3 – Updated Toolbar
Pause Play Animations
Need to pause a play during playback to better explain how it breaks down to your players? Or, have you accidentally tapped the play button for a play with many steps that you need to get out of?
The Playbook Apps have just been updated with support for pausing play animations. At the time of this writing, PlaybookBball, PlaybookFootball, PlaybookSoccer and PlaybookWaterPolo have been approved with the latest update and is available now on the App Store. Updates to the iPhone versions of the apps should be on their way soon.
Coming up in the next update, Printing support, a revamped main menu that will enable coaches to email/export as pdf/print multiple plays at a time.
Use Playbook Apps as a Whiteboard
The latest update to the Playbook Apps enables users to use PlaybookBball, PlaybookFootball, PlaybookSoccer and PlaybookWaterPolo as pure whiteboards. Coaches can now quickly draw up plays without having to setup an animation and go through all of the individual steps to setup a play.
The whiteboard can also be used to draw player passing options or to show zone coverage or make any other sort of annotations that you can imagine. Users can choose from 10 different pen colors to differentiate the lines and undo the last line drawn or clear the whole whiteboard for the step. See below for some screenshots of the new feature in action.
The updates are now going through Apples review process. PlaybookBball and PlaybookSoccer have just been approved earlier this morning and PlaybookFootball and PlaybookWaterPolo approvals should be coming soon.
PlaybookBball v. 1.3.3 with Inbound Passing Option
PlaybookFootball v. 1.1.4 with Defensive Coverage
Updated Playbook Apps On the Way!
Over the weekend I submitted the next update to the App Store. It seems that a few of the apps (PlaybookSoccer-To Go and PlaybookWaterPolo-To Go) have already been approved and the updates are available for users. Hopefully the rest of the apps will be approved soon so all of you can get the latest and greatest.
Update (11/11/10): Just got word from Apple that the updates for PlaybookBball-To Go and PlaybookFootball-To Go have been approved and will be available for download soon.
Update (11/12/10): Looks like the rest of the Playbook Apps have been approved! I just checked the App Store and the updates are now available.
This is a minor update with some new features and bug fixes. For the iPad apps, Notes are now included on the PDF exports. And, for all apps, players can now have their own custom color and custom line colors. So, if you need to highlight a certain player or route you can easily do so. I’ve also added an option to show/hide the motion lines during an animation.
Note that the text for the PDF files may not be readable when using a Windows system and Google Documents. The iOS devices have the same fonts embedded into them as a Mac, however it seems that Windows (and Google Documents) seem to rely on the fonts being embedded into the file.
There’s still a lot more things I’d like to do. I’ve promised myself that I need to slow down in my development and do more thorough testing to find the obvious issues (and crashing) before any of you do. This has resulted in a bit slower release rate, but I’m sure none of you will mind if the apps are of better quality, right?
I’ve also realized that I should really maintain some sort of change log on my web site. It’d be nice to be able to show that the apps have had certain enhancements and fixes since XYZ date or version. I’m not quite sure where I on my site I should put this yet, so for now I’ll try to maintain a more thorough list of changes for each update.
Here’s a full list of the enhancements:
- Added Notes output for PDF export (iPad only)
- Allowed player colors to be customized, default is their team color
- Allowed player motion lines to have custom colors, default is their team color
- Added toggleable setting to show/hide ‘Animation Lines’ (can choose to show or hide motion lines during animation playback)
Here’s a list of some bug fixes:
- Delayed menu display until play is completely over (iPhone only)
- Fixed play resetting after playback (iPhone only)
- Fixed PDF crash when play name contains non-standard ASCII letters
- Fixed crash that occurs when editing a copied play
PlaybookBball in Top 10 on the App Store
For the first time, PlaybookBball has broken the App Store’s Top 10 Paid Sports iPad Apps! (United States App Store) As of 10AM Pacific, PlaybookBball is sitting at the number 8 position behind such notables as NHL’s GameCenter and MLB’s At Bat apps.
More improvements to PlaybookBball are still underway. Since its original release in April, customers have provided vast amounts of valuable feedback. Over the past few months, PlaybookBball has evolved into one of the most advanced basketball play diagramming apps available on the App Store today. But, that doesn’t mean that it’s done yet! There are still a ton of additions in the works, so keep sending in your feedback so I can better prioritize what features to support next.
Thank you for your continued support!
Bob Tedeschi, writer of the New York Times’s App Smart Online Column, gave a few of the Playbook Apps and other sports related apps a test drive recently. He examined the current state of mobile sports technology software and had quite a few interesting things to say about the Playbook Apps. The following is an excerpt from the article:
PlaybookBBall’s developer requires you to buy a different app for each of the four sports in its catalog. (There are “Playbook” apps for basketball, football, soccer and water polo. Each one is $10.) But Playbook is more ambitious than CoachPad, in that you can see animated versions of plays you’ve drawn out, and it is more refined as well.
You can easily delete mistakes in Playbook, and e-mail the plays in a PDF. Storing plays is easy, and I could easily imagine using the animated playbook during games. Given a choice between showing young players scrambled lines on a whiteboard or showing them an automated play on an iPad, picking the iPad option is a no-brainer.
For the full article visit the nytimes.com Web site.
The latest and greatest update has been approved for all Playbook Apps and is now available in the App Store. The latest update’s biggest new feature is formations. Each sport now has several pre-built formations to choose from to help coaches setup their plays even faster than before.
The update also includes the fix for the ‘Can’t move players/play button disappears’ bug that existed on the iPhone versions of the apps.
Unfortunately, there is a known issue that I am currently aware of that I will be issuing an update for later today. I expect the update to be available in about a week or so pending Apple’s approval. One issue has to do with “Email Play as PDF”, which causes a crash. This issue affects PlaybookFootball, PlaybookFootball-To Go, PlaybookSoccer, PlaybookSoccer-To Go, PlaybookWaterPolo, and PlaybookWaterPolo-To Go.
Thank you for your patience and support. Now get back to coaching!
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