Written by dgoldring on Thursday, March 5, 2009

Brandon updates GCalWall

Earlier in the week, I reviewed GCalWall, the first (and hopefully not last) iPhone app from JAMM team member Brandon Steili. He and I have spent a considerable amount of time talking about the included features and what is/is not possible on the iPhone. Sadly, many of the limitations of the program (such as not automatically updating) are limitations imposed by the iPhone SDK, not Brandon’s technical prowess. In fact, he is just as frustrated by some of these limitations as any of us. Anyway, last night, iTunes finally pushed the new GCalWall upgrade to my iPod Touch, which I quickly downloaded and installed.

New features include:

A fully redesigned user interface (which I thought was much cleaner and more intuitive)
Quicker download time from Google calendar
More control over where the text appears on the screen

I think there are still two limitations which will continue to frustrate some users. First is the aforementioned inability to live sync or automatically sync data with Google calendar. Unfortunately, that one remains outside of anyone’s control except for Apple. I have a feeling that Brandon could probably implement that within minutes if Apple ever lifted that artificial restriction. The second problem, and one I suspect Brandon is working hard to fix, is that the program can still only download your default Google calendar. Hopefully multi-calendar sync will be coming soon.

I have to admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed sitting on the sidelines and watching Brandon go through this process. His joys and frustrations have been a learning experience for all of us and have really opened our eyes to the less than scrupulous practices which are happening right around us to manipulate the process.

Check out GCalWall 1.1 in the iTunes App Store. And remember that Brandon still has a few codes to give away.

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