We are pleased to announce that Cha-Ching touch 1.6 has finally been approved for sale. You can download immediately via iTunes.

Whats New:

New Features in Cha-Ching 1.6

• Transfers are now fully implemented and supported on the iPhone
• Scheduled transfers are now supported on the iPhone
• Enhanced category management (renaming a category is now instant whereas in 1.5 it could take up to 30 seconds)
• New per category options for including/excluding incoming and outgoing transactions
• New “Exclude from Budget” toolbar icon to quickly exclude transactions from the budget on a one time basis.
• Other budget enhancements/fixes
• New transaction detail view (now scrollable to show full length notes and account info)
• Adjusted layout of the “accounts” screen to be more readable
• Payee tab now remembers its position (all, favorite or nearby)
• Changed new transaction button back to a “+” button (instead of the compose button)

Bugs fixed in Cha-Ching 1.6

• Fixed an issue that caused Cha-Ching to crash suddenly when entering a transaction
• Fixed an issue where “total spent” might not be accurately represented from within your budget
• Fixed an issue where the “Passcode Lock” screen would show when receiving a text message or system alert while using Cha-Ching touch
• Fixed an issue where transaction status (pending vs. reconciled) wouldn’t sync correctly in some cases
• Fixed an issue where “nearby” payees wouldn’t be found sometimes
• Fixed an issue where syncing might only work once per session
• Fixed an issue which prevented setting a transaction category to “uncategorized”
• Fixed a crash that occurred when deleting a category from the category list while searching
• Fixed an issue where payee categories weren’t syncing properly to the iPhone
• Fixed an issue where category changes might not sync with Cha-Ching 2.0

As you may have noticed, the Cha-Ching 2.0 Beta is set to expire on September 30th.
You might be wondering what is going to happen with the current beta when this happens.

This blog post is meant to clear up any confusion you might have. We are working very intensely to bring the next update out to all of our loyal beta testers. We had planned to do this much earlier in the month but we have run into a few unavoidable roadblocks that have thus far prevented us from publicly seeding the latest beta.

As we have mentioned in the past, we have been maintaining a delicate balance between Cha-Ching touch in the App Store and Cha-Ching 2.0. Development has been split between the two projects as we work to bring feature parity to the Cha-Ching ecosystem. We have continued to work on Cha-Ching 2.0 while developing Cha-Ching touch.

As we work to add user driven features to both applications (especially in the areas of transfer support and better budgeting) we have had to be very careful to maintain the sync relationship between Cha-Ching for Mac and Cha-Ching touch for iPhone.
In order to add features like budget sync and linked transfer sync we had to make many changes and enhancements to the sync code.

That brings us to today. Any changes (there have been lots) to Cha-Ching touch also results in changes to Cha-Ching 2.0. Currently because these changes include enhancements to syncing and budgeting the releases of the next version of Cha-Ching 2 Beta and Cha-Ching touch (1.6) are co-dependent upon each other.

So what is the roadblock?

Last night, we received word that Cha-Ching touch 1.6 had been rejected for the second time. We originally submitted touch 1.6 at the end of August. As with past updates we figured the update would take no longer than 14 days for approval. The app had already run the gamut once and been rejected for a few niggling issues so we didn’t expect anything major this time around. We gave ourselves a full month for approval.

Unfortunately after waiting 14 days Cha-Ching was rejected for an issue relating to App Store keywords. Basically, we got rejected for using a keyword that was also the name of another application in the store which Apple took exception to. This resulted in rejection #1 for Cha-Ching touch 1.6.

We immediately removed the keyword in question and resubmitted the application within minutes of the rejection hoping that with this easy fix the app would be in the store soon. Unfortunately we were wrong. Another 16 days with passed with no word form Apple only to have 1.6 rejected once again this time for violating the Apple HIG for iPhone applications.

This time the rejection had to do with location services. Essentially, when you assign a location to a payee in Cha-Ching touch we show a progress indicator until the location has been assigned. This is were Apple took exception. Apparently if the user chooses “don’t allow” when prompted to allow Cha-Ching to use current location, the progress spinner continues to spin indefinitely instead of providing the user feedback that will tell them why the location wasn’t assigned. According to Apple this behavior could lead to user confusion and thus means Cha-Ching in its current state couldn’t be posted to the store.

To this point I do not disagree. This is indeed a bug that needed fixed (and has since been fixed and resubmitted). What is maddening about this situation is that we haven’t changed a thing about the way a location is assigned to a payee for 1.6. The application has been for sale for several months with this seemingly show stopping bug in place. We have received hundreds of feedback emails from customers and not one user has been “confused” by this behavior.

But I digress. The worst part of all of this is how it affects you the customer. Cha-Ching touch 1.6 is going to be a great upgrade. It fixes many issues (including the memory related crash that edge and 3g owners are experiencing) and adds several great new features. Unfortunately we are completely at Apple’s mercy to deliver this upgrade to you the customer.

So what does this mean for Cha-Ching 2.0?

Well like I said at the beginning, Cha-Ching 2.0 is dependent upon this release for certain features to work as expected. Without the 1.6 update, the 2.0 beta won’t sync with the iPhone application. Therefore we can’t in good conscience put out an update that we know will break syncing for our users. We are waiting, hoping that 1.6 will be approved very soon.

So what are we doing in the meantime?

It would seem that the easy thing to do would be to simply update the expiration date of the current 2.0 beta (build 340) and call it a day. This morning I had planned to do just that. Unfortunately due to a hard drive failure and a corrupted Snow Leopard Time Machine backup the source code for build 340 is no longer available to compile a new extended beta expiration copy. Today has not been a good day here at Midnight Apps :(

Currently, I am hard at work attempting to make the current 2.0 beta backwards compatible with touch 1.5. It is unfortunate that we can’t just post the 2.0 beta as is but that is the current state of things. We hope to have a beta update ready for tomorrow and we are also crossing our fingers that Apple will finally pull the trigger on the touch 1.6 update and ease some of the difficulties this is causing us.

On a personal note, I really appreciate the support the community has given as we work to deliver a great and easy to use product to you our loyal customers.

We will keep you posted and please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@midnightapps.com with any questions or concerns.

Thanks,
Juan Alvarez
Midnight Apps

Cha-Ching Mobile 1.5 is available now! This release is 3 months in the making (sorry for the wait!) but we are pretty sure you will like it.

Download Cha-Ching Touch 1.5 Here

Download Cha-Ching 2.0 Desktop Beta 99 Here

New for Cha-Ching Mobile 1.5

Accounts:

• Refined interface for creating and managing accounts
• Transactions can now be added directly from the account list (instead of first choosing an account)
• Account list can now be re-ordered
• Balances are now shown on the account list screen
• Added the ability to give an account an initial balance

Payees:

• Payees can now be added instantly by typing in the search field when adding a transaction
• Transactions can now be created by tapping on a payee from the “Favorites” screen”
• Favorites is now the “default” payee view

Categories:

• New category section
• All categories can be renamed, deleted or optionally excluded from the budget
• Custom categories are now shown alongside default categories in the category list
• New Categories can now be added when creating a transaction
• Category list is searchable
• Added several new categories/icons

Budgets:

• Budget scrolling performance is now very smooth
• Transactions can be added from the budget categories screen
• You can now choose which categories to exclude from the budget
• Budget information can now be synced with 1 or more mobile devices
• Added the ability to filter the budget list

Syncing

• Syncing performance is now very fast
• Preference added to automatically initiate a sync with Cha-Ching 2 for Mac when connected to the same wireless network
• Cha-Ching Touch database is now backed up when you sync with Cha-Ching for Mac
• You can now restore your Cha-Ching Touch database from a backup via Cha-Ching 2 for Mac
• You can now replace all transactions, accounts, budget info etc… during a sync with info from Cha-Ching 2 for Mac via a preference

General:

• Cha-Ching no longer crashes when editing many transactions
• Swipe navigation between transactions is now very fast and smooth
• Date and Status can now be set at the same time when editing a transaction
• All aspects of a transaction can be edited when creating a new transaction before saving
• Bottom tab bar can now be customized
• You can now choose which screen to see when Cha-Ching launches by changing which item occupies the first position in the bottom tab bar
• New global flagged section
• Scheduled UI now shows “Total Due Soon”
• New options added to the frequency options for scheduled transactions
• New global account search
• New faster launch times
• The passcode lock screen now shows much more quickly

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where non-dollar amounts couldn’t be entered via the onscreen keypad
• Fixed an issue where budget rounding could be inaccurate
• Fixed an issue which caused a budget entry for ”december 2000″ to show on the iPhone/iPod touch
• Fixed many bugs that might have been causing cha-ching to crash on occasion
• Fixed an issue where if the device locked while editing text in a text field the wrong keypad would be shown when prompted to unlock the device
• Fixed an issue where the bottom row of the account list could get cut off when moving transactions from one account to another
• Fixed an issue that would allow you to change the passcode lock inadvertently
• Fixed an issue that cause Cha-Ching to launch slower than normal
• Fixed an issue that would cause transactions not to be deleted when deleting an account
• Fixed an issue in the scheduler that would prevent the user from being able to select the bottom most item in the tableview
• Fixed an issue where viewing a transaction in budget view might cause double bottom toolbars to show
• Fixed an issue where swipe deleting payees from the “current location” screen would cause a crash
• Fixed an issue where one time payments might not get removed from the scheduled list when marking as paid
• FIxed issues where progress wouldn’t be properly indicated during syncing with Cha-Ching for Mac
• Fixed an issue that could cause Cha-Ching to crash when adding a new transaction directly after completing a sync

Now for the desktop. Cha-Ching Desktop 2.0 Beta 99. This update provides syncing capabilty with Cha-Ching Touch 1.5 and much more refinements and bug fixes.

New for Cha-Ching Desktop 1.5

• ability to view budgets created on Cha-Ching Touch
• compatible with Cha-Ching Touch 1.5
• fixed bug where “This Month” filter did not work properly in Smart Folders
• fixed issue where indexing transactions for spotlight still occured if setting was disabled
• fixed issue where multiple tags did not display correctly in icon view for transactions
• fixed issue where transactions were not deleted along with deleted account
• fixed issues with source list resizing and renaming
• added category column to transaction tables
• added “Every Six Months” to frequency option in Scheduler
• tags now autocomplete in Transaction List View
• progress when syncing with Cha-Ching touch is now shown on the desktop
• scheduler items are now sorted by date and payee name

The App Store approval gods have smiled upon us and that means that Cha-Ching Touch 1.5 is now available in the App Store!
Release Notes for v1.5

This is a massive update and we are very pleased that it is now available.

Important Note

Cha-Ching Touch 1.5 requires a new beta of Cha-Ching 2.0 (B99) in order to sync properly. We have made many changes to improve sync speed and reliability. We are putting the finishing touches on a new desktop beta and we will be uploading soon.

We will post more info on the blog and forum once the update is ready to go.

Big things are coming very soon
In the meantime here is a quick update to extend the current beta expiration date…

Over the next few days we will be submitting Cha-Ching Touch 1.1 to the App Store. Once that update is approved we will also be releasing the next beta build of Cha-Ching 2.0 for Mac which will improve the sync experience with Cha-Ching Touch as well as add and improve upon several user requested features like showing balance in the sidebar next to accounts.

Here is the download link for Cha-Ching B97 which will extend the expiration date while you wait for the next version of the beta.

Download 2.0 B97

As soon as Cha-Ching Touch has been approved we will be releasing a new build of Cha-Ching 2.0 (B98)