Over the past six months, although we’ve released several mini-updates to support features like multi-tasking on iOS 4.0, most of our time has been spent working on a 2.0 release of Better Christmas List for the Holiday 2010 season.

Well we’re delighted to announce that last week we submitted version 2.0 to Apple for review, and assuming everything goes well we hope it will appear in the App store within the next 5-7 days. This is a free update for all of our existing users. We’re also retaining support for the original iPhone and iPod Touch, while taking advantage of all the features in the latest devices.

Here’s a brief list of what’s new and a screenshot. We’ll be updating our product page with complete details when the app goes live.

• All new look & feel for 2010
• The ‘Classic’ look is a free optional theme.
• Two Premium downloadable themes for 2010.
• Added a much-requested “Wrapped” stage for gifts!
• Full support for Retina-display devices – every UI element is now in high-resolution.
• Every screen has been cleaned up, redesigned, and improved.
• Improved workflow for adding people/gifts from main screen.
• Improved performance on all devices.
• Improved photo previews for latest iOS devices.
• General code improvements.

Today we made the difficult decision to temporarily remove Better Gift List from sale. We’ve discovered what appears to be a very nasty bug in iOS 4.0 that can lead to frequent crashes. Note: this is a bug in the OS itself, not a bug in Better Gift list.

In short, the crash occurs when:

1. You have a table with a header that contains editable text field.
2. You edit that text
3. You then insert/remove rows in the table.

Unfortunately this is exactly how the Event and Person views in Better Gift List work.

In this screenshot the name and date (green) are in the header, and the details & list of gifts (yellow) are rows in the table. Changing “Amy to Vietnam” and then adding/removing a gift, or even collapsing the detail list, will result in a crash under iOS4.

We’ve been in contact with Apple regarding this and are waiting to hear if there is a way to work around the issue. We’ve already tried several things but until there is a version in the app store that does not have this bug, we feel the right thing to do is remove it from sale. That really sucks, but we feel it’s the best thing to do for existing and new customers.

For people still using 3.0, 3.1, 3.1.2 & 3.1.3 this bug will not affect you.

For people using 4.0, you can avoid the bug by always going back to the previous screen when you have edited the name of an Event/Person/Gift. It’s not ideal I’m afraid, but it’s something.

Again, we’re sorry to anyone who’s encountering this issue.

Update:

This is now fixed in the latest version of both apps. Apple confirmed it was an issue in iOS 4.0 so we have implemented a cunning workaround for those devices.

Hurrah! We’ve just submitted version 1.6 of Better Christmas List to Apple for approval.

Changes in this version include:

• By common request, Notes is now a full-page screen.
• Improved layout of gift recipient page.
• Recipient now includes photo (if present in Address Book)
• Can link recipient to your address book and view details.
• When creating a new profile, selecting from the address book will auto-fill fields.
• Improves performance of pass-code screen – no longer any need to pause between buttons.
• Pass-code a little more festive

Our past experience has been that it takes around two weeks for updates to make their way through the mountain of apps that Apple have to deal with. Look for it soon!