App Store

March 13, 2018

Yoink for Mac and iOS – Updates

What’s Yoink?

Yoink is an app for Mac, iPad and iPhone that speeds up your daily workflow by simplifying and improving drag and drop.
It accepts almost anything you can drag and stores it for you for later use, like a shelf to temporarily “hold something” for you.

Yoink for Mac Update + SALE (25% off!)

Yoink v3.4.2, available now on the Mac App Store, is a minor maintenance update recommended to everyone using the app.
The update brings improved compatibility with Firefox, Sketch and upcoming versions of Safari, as well as more reliable fetching of favicons (in, where possible, higher resolution) for URLs saved in Yoink.

As I’m sponsoring this week’s AppStories Podcast Episode, Yoink for Mac is – for the entirety of the week – on sale, about 25% off its regular price!

Links:
Yoink for Mac Website (with a free, 15-day trial)
Yoink for Mac Usage Tips
Yoink on the Mac App Store (25% off for the week)

Yoink for iPad and iPhone Update

Yoink v1.1.1, available now on the App Store, is also a maintenance update, albeit a larger one.

Among the more than 30 changes, improvements, bug fixes and new features in this update, version 1.1.1 brings:
– Live monitoring of your clipboard when used in Side-by-Side or Slide-Over mode
– Yoink’s Today Widget now offers a way to access all of Yoink’s items, instead of only the 3 most recent ones
– Improvements for item previews
– Downloads now show their progress in percent
– Improved reliability of all of Yoink’s extensions (the keyboard, Today Widget, Action/Share extension and File Provider)
– Fixed many (more or less rare) crashes in Yoink and its extensions

Links:
Yoink for iPad and iPhone Website
Yoink for iPad and iPhone Usage Tips
Yoink on the App Store

Video of Yoink’s new “live clipboard observer”

#Yoink for #iOS‘ new “live clipboard observer” in action, when used in side-by-side or slide-over mode pic.twitter.com/vxpEF7t24i

— Yoink for Mac & iOS (@YoinkApp) March 13, 2018

Video of Yoink’s updated Today Widget

#Yoink for #iOS‘ Today Widget now allows you to browse through all of Yoink’s stored items pic.twitter.com/xVwTc9vUmA

— Yoink for Mac & iOS (@YoinkApp) March 13, 2018

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December 7, 2017

Yoink v1.1 for iPad and iPhone now available

I’m happy to announce the immediate availability of Yoink v1.1 for iPad and iPhone.
It’s currently being featured on the App Store under “New Apps We Love”.

What’s Yoink for iOS 11?

Yoink strives to improve and simplify drag and drop and speed up your workflow.
It accepts almost anything you can drag, copy or share on your iPad and stores it for later use. This way, your fingers are free for more important things.

It’s a storage place for anything you might need later – an image from a website, a text snippet from a document, a URL, etc.

Here’s a quick YouTube video of how it works (check your sound, there’s some music) :

And a second one (with music, again) :

What’s New in Yoink v1.1?

Aside from numerous improvements and bug fixes, like an improved keyboard extension, the ability to create stacks by dragging items onto one another, smarter Spotlight indexing and a new take on the Share extension (it doesn’t need confirmation anymore for adding items), there are a lot of new features:

Clipboard Integration
When you open Yoink and have something new on your clipboard, Yoink will automatically offer to store it for you.
(You can configure this so Yoink doesn’t ask at all, and anything new gets automatically stored when you launch the app).

Download URLs
When you use Yoink’s Action extension to send something from another app to Yoink, the extension automatically detects if it’s a URL you are saving.
If that’s the case, you have the option of downloading the file the URL points to instead of saving the link to the URL in Yoink.
An optional notification can inform you about finished or failed downloads.

Today Widget
From the Today Widget, you can quickly copy the most recent items stored in Yoink to your clipboard, and save content from your clipboard in Yoink.

Quicker Sharing, Copying
Instead of having to tap Edit any time you’d like to share an item from Yoink with another app, each item and stack in Yoink now has a button that lets you quickly access those options.

Better iPhone Awareness
Quick Actions (via 3D Touch on the Home screen) for quickly adding your clipboard contents from your home screen, or to start a download.
Peek and Pop for items and stacks in Yoink
Full iPhone X support

URL Scheme
You can now communicate with Yoink from other apps using Yoink’s URL scheme.
For more information, please visit the Yoink for iOS Usage Tips website and read Tip #6 🙂

File Provider
Finally. After being rejected by Apple for the initial version of Yoink (over and over again), the file provider extension has now been approved and is part of the Yoink experience on your iOS device.
Any app that uses the documents browser can now access items stored in Yoink.

Pricing and Availability

Yoink for iOS is available on the App Store right now, a little longer for the introductory price of $2.99 (€3,49). An iPad or iPhone with iOS 11 is required.

Yoink is also available on the Mac.

Links

Yoink for iPad and iPhone Website: https://eternalstorms.at/yoink/ios
Yoink for iOS Usage Tips: https://eternalstorms.at/yoink/ios/tips
Yoink for iPad and iPhone on the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1260915283?mt=8
Yoink for iOS Press Kit: https://eternalstorms.at/press/Yoink-iPad-1-Press-Kit.zip

Yoink for Mac Website: https://eternalstorms.at/yoink/mac
Yoink for Mac Usage Tips: https://eternalstorms.at/yoink/mac/tips
Yoink on the Mac App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id457622435?mt=12
Yoink for Mac Press Kit: https://eternalstorms.at/press/Yoink-3-Press-Kit.zip

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October 13, 2017

Thoughts on App Review

As some of you may know, getting Yoink for iOS through Apple’s App Review was, to say it lightly, a bit of a pain.
In the end, I was able to release it, but a month late. Had this been my first app as an indie developer, there’s a good chance I would have had to declare bankruptcy now.
I am fortunate enough to have a couple of apps out already that create a steady income, but still, I spent about two months exclusively on this app, so it’s still scary thinking about how I got rejected over and over.

Long story short, here’s a couple of thoughts I’ve had during all of this.

TestFlight App Review

From the very beginning, I’ve had Yoink available to a couple of (awesome) testers via TestFlight.
Now, when you add a new app or a new version of the app to TestFlight, it has to go through a review before testers can download and test it.

My question, then, is: Why not reject the app right there if it doesn’t comply with the rules in the App Reviewer’s eyes?
If this is not checked, why have a review for TestFlight apps in the first place?

Or if that’s unrealistic for some reason, perhaps TestFlight App Review could give sort of a “likelihood of getting through the ‘real’ App Review”. Maybe on the levels of “yea, good luck with that” to “possibly, tentatively not going to be rejected”.

It would have saved me (and the App Review person) a *lot* of time and nerves had, for example, the File Provider extension been rejected right then and there for not being cloud-storage based. Or the keyboard, for not having a traditional method of input. Those are all things that could have been avoided, had TestFlight App Review caught these things.

Reasons for Rejection

Yoink was rejected for different reasons and in different areas of the app.
But those reasons were given to me one by one, one submission and “Waiting for Review” -> “In Review” cycle after another.
That’s *such* a waste of time (not only for the developer, but also for the reviewer. But *especially* for the developer).
Why not keep going after finding a reason for rejection and see if there are other issues after that? If so, the reviewer could note them all down and give them to the developer all at once, not one by one.

Notice of Escalation

When an App Reviewer isn’t sure about an app, the review is “escalated”, meaning it goes up one instance in the App Reviewer hierarchy to be reviewed by a “superior”.
That would be the perfect time to let the developer know in advance that, “look, review is going to take a little longer because we’ve run into an issue with your app. Please stay tuned, we’re working on it.”.
Not only would the developer know that it’s going to take longer for the app to be reviewed, they’d also have reassurance that the App Reviewer hasn’t forgotten about the app – anybody who had an app “In Review” for more than twelve hours knows that feeling 😉

In closing, I’d like to say that I have nothing but respect for App Reviewers. Their job is difficult and, mostly, unthankful.
But I believe a lot of grievances on both sides could be avoided if some of these suggestions were put in place.

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October 12, 2017

Yoink for iPad and iPhone now available – Improve and Simplify Drag and Drop

It’s here.
After an unnecessarily long, extended time in App Review, I’m so happy to be able to tell you that Yoink for iPad and iPhone with iOS 11 is now finally available on the App Store.

What’s Yoink for iPad and iPhone?

Here’s a quick YouTube video of how it works (check your sound, there’s some music) :

How can I add stuff to Yoink?

Obviously, especially on iPad, Yoink was designed for drag’n’drop use, and using it as a Slide-Over or Side-by-Side app, I’d say that’s the best way to use it. Just slide Yoink over any app you’re in and drag to it anything you need later. Then slide it back out, if it’s in your way.
There are, however, other ways to add items to Yoink. It can grab the contents from your clipboard and it offers a Action / Share extension, so that whenever you use a Share sheet in iOS, you can add that shared item to Yoink – no drag and drop required. The app doesn’t even have to run.

How do I get stuff out of Yoink?

That’s just as easy. Either use drag and drop, or copy the items, or share them from within the app.
Yoink comes with a custom keyboard extension, which lets you use items you’ve stored in Yoink without having to leave the active app you’re currently editing text in – just switch to Yoink’s keyboard and drag out (or copy, if you’re on iPhone) the items to the destination in your text.
All items in Yoink are indexed by Spotlight, so you can use the system-wide search to find items. The results are draggable as well.

Yoink Custom Keyboard

How are items in Yoink represented?

Yoink creates a rich preview for every item you add, so that, at a glance, easy identification is possible (for example, web link items show part of the website, map locations show a preview using Apple Maps).
A full look at the item is available by tapping onto the item.

Deleting Items

Yoink doesn’t delete items right away. Instead, like in Photos.app, items you drag out of Yoink or delete are put into the Trash, where they remain for a specified amount of time, after which they’re really deleted.
So should you find you still need an item, you can restore it right away.

Pricing and Availability

Yoink for iOS is available on the App Store right now, for the introductory price of $2.99 (€3,49) – it will rise in November.
An iPad or iPhone with iOS 11 is required.

Yoink is also available on the Mac, and for the occasion, its price has also been reduced for a limited time! 🙂

Delay of Release

I had planned and was ready for releasing Yoink for iPad together with iOS 11, on September 19th, 2017. As you may know, that didn’t work out. The app was ready, I was set, but App Review wasn’t happy with the app and so I missed the date, while other, let’s say similar apps, were allowed in.
After a lot of discussion by mail and phone with the App Review team, and having to remove some things from the app, Yoink was finally approved yesterday.

Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy the app 🙂 Please spread the word and if you have the time and like the app, please consider leaving a little review on the App Store – it would mean a lot to me!

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