iOS – Soluble Apps

Mailshot updates add iOS 13, Dark Mode, Print, and Drag and Drop Support

We’ve recently released a number of updates for MailShot, to add a ton of new features.

MailShot now supports the system Dark Mode on iOS 13. (This can be enabled from the “Display & Brightness” page of the Settings app, or the Control Centre.)

You can now print a list of the members of any group to an AirPrint-compatible printer, (tap a group on the Groups page, then select “Print”)

We have wound back the minimum iOS requirement for the app to iOS12, as a number of longstanding users found that the App Store would not let them reinstall to older devices.

And our next update (in a day or so) will bring Drag and Drop to iPad…

This will allow you to run Mailshot side-by-side with Mail, and simply drag a group across into the To: or Bcc: line of an email. See our Support Page for more details, or this video:

We hope you enjoy the updates.

Counting down with “One Day”

Our latest app, One Day, is now available on the App Store.

Sometimes there’s a special day that you just can’t wait for- it could be a wedding , a special anniversary, a party, the end of exams or medical treatment, the next Star Wars movie, or the holiday of a lifetime !

We help you count down the days to that special day, and share that excitement with friends as your anticipation builds.

Create repeating events (in weekly, yearly, and numerous monthly patterns)
Share directly to a wide range of social media and email
Includes iMessage app
At-a-glance view for your Today page
Events are automatically shared between devices

The app is available in two versions. “One Day” lets you try it out for one event, and can be easily unlocked to add the features from “One Day Pro” which lets you track multiple events and customise each event with your own images.

If you need assistance, just drop me a line from the “Email Us” button on the Settings page (a cog icon, in the top left corner of the app)

One Day Pro works with all iPhones and iPads running iOS 10 or later, and is available now on the App Store.

One Day works with all iPhones and iPads running iOS 10, and is available free on the App Store. It can be upgraded later through an in-app purchase to add more events, and custom images.

Mailshot 3.5- Bigger and better!

We have just released updates for our popular MailShot Pro and MailShot group email apps on the App Store.

The updates include:

NEW Optimisations for iOS 8, including 64 bit support.
NEW Support for the larger screens on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus.
NEW List or Print a group (see below)
NEW Case-insensitive comparison of email addresses- (i.e. “support@email.com” is now regarded as the same as “Support@email.com”)
NEW Prevent users creating blank groups, with no members
NEW Help message about the checklist feature, if a user adds more than 5 addresses by hand at once.
NEW Help message if user uses an email address as a group name.
FIX A rare bug if you exit the rename screen for a group without changing anything.

Occasionally we get asked for a way to send or print a list of people in a group, so we have added this (as an experimental feature.) Enabling a switch marked “Email Sharing Button” on the MailShot page in Settings, adds a share button to the menu bar of the group members page. Tapping that button creates an email containing the names and addresses of your group. You can then easily send, print, or copy and paste it.

The release was delayed a few weeks while we struggled to identify an issue introduced by iOS 8 that we now know only affects users using certain non-english characters in contact names, on devices set to non-english languages. We worked around the problem, but we see that Apple have also now fixed their bug with iOS 8.1.

We hope you enjoy the update. As always, you can find help on the Support page and in the User Guide. I that doesn’t solve your problem, please drop us a line from the Support button on the title page of the app if you have any problems and we will be happy to help.

MailShot Pro works with iPhone 6+, 6, 5S, 5c, 5, 4s, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini, and is available now on the App Store.

MailShot works with iPhone 6+, 6, 5S, 5c, 5, 4s, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini, and is available now on the App Store as a free download that can create up to 3 groups with up to 5 contacts per group. An in-app purchase removes those restrictions. No recurring subscription is necessary.

Our new app- “TextShot- Group Text Done Right”

Over the past two years we have received a lot of requests from our many MailShot users asking us for a companion app to handle text and iMessages. So we are delighted to announce the arrival of TextShot on the App Store this week.

TextShot will feel very familiar to users of our popular MailShot app. Adding contacts to a group is handled in the app in all the same ways, with a very familiar interface.

Unlike MailShot, TextShot sends its messages from within the app, so we also took the opportunity to let you create and send your own preset text messages. Select a group, choose your text, then tap the TextShot logo to create a new message. It saves a lot of typing on that cramped mobile keyboard (and you can easily do it one-handed)

We expect the app to appeal mainly to iPhone users for sending SMS, but you can send iMessages to other iOS users from all iOS devices. TextShot doesn’t handle email.

TextShot is available on the App Store in two versions-

TextShot Lite is free to try, but restricts you to two groups of up to four contacts, and two different text presets. It is upgradable with an in-app purchase.

TextShot Pro removes all of those restrictions.

A Support page and User Guide are also available, and will be built up over the following days. As always, if you need any assistance please get in touch through the Support button on the front page of the app.

ShotList And FAQ Feature In New Book (Special Offer!)

Its great to see our ShotList and FAQ apps featuring in Taz Goldstein’s new book “Hand Held Hollywood’s Filmmaking with the iPad & iPhone”. The book covers all stages of the filmmaking process, from script through to shoot (and after), with more than enough information to decide which apps and equipment are for you, and lots of useful tips and advice.

You can download the book from Amazon or direct from the publishers, who have also been kind enough to send us a 35% discount code to share with you. (Visit peachpit.com/hhh and enter “HHH” at the checkout). It is also available as a printed version.

The book also covers our unique FAQ app (which creates custom emails from reusable pieces) saying of it…

“FAQ was designed to be as productive as the people who use it, and for that reason it remains one of my favorite iOS utilities”

MailShot 1.60 Brings Larger Groups For Many Users

As thanks for helping us reach over 50000 users, and to celebrate our first year on the App Store, we have just launched another update to our popular “MailShot Pro” and “MailShot” group email apps, bringing increased group sizes and a number of other exciting new features.

NOTE: We recently renamed the in-app upgrade for the free version of MailShot to “MailShot Upgrade”, because a few users were confusing it with the “MailShot Pro” app, and were downloading (and being charged for) both. The upgrade still includes all the same great features as “MailShot Pro”.

New features in version 1.60 include:

More Groups.
The number of groups you can create in the upgraded and Pro versions has now been doubled, to 100.

TIP: Groups can be sorted into any order using the “Edit” button on the groups page.

More Contacts.
We have changed our address format, which will now allow you to address as many contacts as your ISP permits from the group contacts created in the new upgraded and Pro versions of MailShot. In many cases this is now 100 contacts.

We also added a warning when you exceed 100 contacts, which can be turned off in the Settings app.

NOTE: you can send to groups with as many as 500 contacts through Google Mail by connecting to it using the “Exchange” instead of the “Gmail” protocol, Here are the instructions. (For simplicity we suggest you don’t enable contact sync over Exchange if you don’t need it, just enable it for email). Be careful of the daily limits on Google Mail.

Use MailShot group contacts from a Mac.

Contacts that you create in MailShot on your iOS device can also now be used from Mail on your Mac, too. Note that you will need to tap “update” on each group in the new version before using this feature.

See here on our support page for more on this.

Removing Someone From A Particular Email

You can now exclude a particular contact, or contacts, from a group before you send it.

Just tap “Cancel”, save your email to drafts, then reload it again. You can now see all the contacts in the group by tapping on the address line, and can select and then delete them individually from the email.

See our support page here for more details.

Better handling of in-app purchases.

We now provide a clearer indication to users when an in-app purchase is successfully processed.

A “Restore purchases” button on the title page also enables you to restore a previous upgrade to a new device without any fear of being charged twice.

Importing MailShot groups back into MailShot.
Attempting to add a MailShot-created contact will show a list of the contacts it contains, for you to select contacts from.

You can use this feature:

To combine groups into larger ones
To import and manage a MailShot group someone sent you
Or to rebuild groups in MailShot after a backup failure or similar disaster.At a pinch you could use this to manage a group from more than one of your devices, though it is not recommended for that purpose (TIP: if you do try this, use a different name for the new group on your second device to avoid deleting or overwriting the original group)

Note that this feature can’t name the first contact in a group, as that isn’t stored, but it will restore their email address.

*TIP: You can easily share a MailShot group contact to someone else using the “Share Contact” button in the Contacts app- they don’t need to have MailShot installed to use it themselves on an iOS device or mac. (though they’ll need to store the MailShot contact in an address book which isn’t synched with Exchange, iCloud is fine for this)

Add contacts from a button.
There is a new “+” button provided at the bottom of the page that lists contacts in your groups. This allows you to easily add a single contact to a long list without needing to scroll all the way to the bottom of that list

If you have any questions, problems. or suggestions please check out our support page or drop us a line on support@solubleapps.com. We are always more than happy to help. We also run a mailing list which sends updates like this out to you every few months, simply send the word “Subscribe” to mailshotlist@solubleapps.com, and we will add you. You can unsubscribe at any time.

We hope you find the new features useful, and as always we really appreciate it if you can take the time to review MailShot on the App Store, or update an older review, as all of our fantastic reviews are moved from the main page whenever we update, and we depend on your reviews to keep developing MailShot. Here are links to the App Store for “MailShot Pro” and “MailShot” to make it easier for you to review us. As always, many thanks for those that do, it means a lot to us.

“Ultimate Charades” Released On The App Store Today

Our Suggestion Box app is getting great responses from those who have tried it, and it is finding all sorts of unforeseen uses (such as language teaching in Russia) due to its comprehensive customisation abilities. But it was always destined to be a fairly “niche” product, as it is aimed mainly at improvisers and drama students.

Ultimate Charades takes the customisation abilities of Suggestion Box, and applies them to one of the world’s all-time most popular party games – Charades. That customisation means you can remove any suggestions that aren’t relevant to you and your friends, and can add in the things you DO care about, such as the hit show or favourite celebrities of the moment, or even your friends and family themselves, making it a much more personal experience.

We have also put instructions for all sorts of game variations on the Ultimate Charades page, and answers to the most likely user questions on the support page.

Check it out on the App Store now.