Phew… busy times! BetterPlane is approaching one month after the public release, AND the next official version of BetterPlane was just released on the App Store! Version 1.1.6 is the second public-facing release of the BetterPlane app and brings a few sorely needed features.

IMPORTANT: If you are a customer and love the app, please leave a great review on the App Store — it helps the platform grow and survive.

Visit App Store: BetterPlane on the App Store

What’s in Version 1.1.6?

This new version contains a handful of improvements since the public rollout of v1.0 last month in late November:

• One feature that was frequently asked for: you can now organize your aircraft documents with Folders!
• Added introductory tutorial guides to help you get started.
• Several UI improvements, including a cleaner layout for the Aircraft Screen “More” button menu.
• Various bugfixes and performance improvements.
• Hardened the creation of Hour-Based Alerts to fully require an hours-based component to tie it to.
• Hardened the Update Component Hours flow to be much stricter about input range tolerance.

What is most exciting to me?

Features.vote integration!

Look in the “More” (hamburger) menu button in the Aircraft Overview screen on the bottom right; you’ll now see a link to BetterPlane’s Features.vote board, so users can now suggest ideas for new features, and others can comment and vote on the features they find important!

Much more will be made visible & votable to users going forward. You can see the board at: https://betterplane.features.vote but you must be logged in and access the board through the app to add requests.

In Other Good News (Android)

Other than a slight hiccup with a bug in an error reporting library that was causing lock-ups (oh the irony of that…) the BetterPlane app for Android is also coming along nicely. It’s mostly on-par with the iOS app, however the Play Store is just not fully built out yet and the Android version is still lacking some automated testing. The Play Store listing and the automated tests for Android should be built out in the next month. Android has taken a slight back seat due to the fact that nearly 90% of visitors to BetterPlane.com (as well as to the Facebook page) are on iOS (likely due to ForeFlight being iOS only…) However, one interesting thing I have noticed is that more than half of the aircraft mechanics I talk to are Android users!

Testers!

I’ve had two absolutely legendary, rockstar testers (out of about twenty-ish total now, which is about enough) who have provided such fantastic detailed testing and written reports. One legend is currently assisting with great advice and ideas and written test feedback via the Android app (Bob W.) and the other star reviewer has provided some really fantastic feedback on the iOS variant (Chris M.). Both apps share mostly the same functionality, so all of this great advice is going to make the platform for everyone. I’m still working out how to make sure these freakin’ awesome people are made known how much I appreciate them. However don’t get me wrong, I am still incredibly thankful for all of the testers, especially those that provided ANY feedback (about a third did not provide any.)

Customers!

Thank you to those of you who have already supported BetterPlane during the launch month! The platform is kicking off exactly how I was hoping it would; steady and positive growth. I have so much planned for BetterPlane, and I’m excited to see as much of this continues to align with feedback and feature suggestions from users. Without actual customers this platform would be doomed to fail, and it’s already growing at a rate that will keep it alive. Slow and steady wins the race!

IMPORTANT: If you are a customer and love the app, please leave a great review on the App Store — it helps the platform grow and survive.

Lastly: Cool Tool

One last thing: here’s a neat tool built to examine the light aircraft in the FAA’s registry. Check out the interesting spike in horsepower in 1944! WW2 aircraft effect on the civilian market? Has to be! -> BetterPlane’s Light Aircraft Explorer

If you’d like to chat about BetterPlane, aircraft logbooks, or even just airplanes, feel free to set up some time on my calendar. I’m looking forward to the months and years ahead! If you’re a BetterPlane user, log in and add or vote on your favorite features! Tell your friends!

Calendar: betterplane.youcanbook.me