Device Magic Blog

We know a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting our PlayBook release – well, it’s finally available for download on App World. You can just search for “Forms”, or use he direct link to our application:

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/23200/

The app was discussed  in a previous post but since then we’ve ironed out many of the initial issues. It runs really well and we encourage PlayBook users to give it a try and let us know what you think. Known issues include:

• Barcode scanning doesn’t work
• Image field type can’t use the camera automatically – you need to capture the image first and then locate it in your gallery.

The above items will be fixed in a future release.

We’re long-time fans of Wufoo and the simplicity and fun it brings to building web forms. So today we’re happy to announce we’ve completed our integration with them and made it available on all accounts, including our free plan.

Our vision for this integration was to bring Wufoo users all the benefits of having rich, offline access to their forms on iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android while still enjoying the wide variety of partner integrations Wufoo offers. Many of our customers ask if they can submit forms from their mobile devices and a web browser and now they can!

Linking up with your Wufoo account is pretty simple and only takes a couple of clicks. To see how, please check out our introduction video below and let us know what you think:

Happy collecting!

The Device Magic Team

Today I’m going to walk you through a very useful feature that we’ve just released.  Repeat groups are like sub-forms that you can complete multiple times.  Think, for example, of an order form, where you don’t know ahead of time how many different types of items someone will be ordering.  Or a medical survey, where you need to capture a list of medications and doses, many times over.

The designer now has a new button to add a repeat group, at the bottom of the Toolbox:

Once you’ve clicked it, you can add inputs inside it, as with a normal form.  I’ve built an order form example to illustrate:

When you open the form on your device, this is what you’ll see (I’ve started filling in the details of the person placing the order):

Now you can click the “Add Answer” button for each item that’s being ordered.  The items will the appear in the list:

Press the Edit button for each item to fill in the details:

I’ve set up e-mail and Google Spreadsheet connections to show you what the result is when you do this submission.  I did 2 submissions, the first was an order for 2 items, the second an order for 3 items.  First the spreadsheet:

And the e-mail for the first submission:

We’re sure you’ll find this feature very useful, we’ve certainly had a great time creating it.  Let us know what you think!

We’ve got new releases on each of the app stores, and one of the great new features we’ve added is the ability to customize the branding of each of the applications.

Some configuration on the server (colors, a logo, and an icon), and all of the devices in your organization running the latest clients will update their UI to adopt your brand.

Pictures say it better. Here’s what the iPhone and iPad clients look like with a custom Vandelay Industries theme:

Android with the same theme:

And BlackBerry:

Notice how on the middle BlackBerry we’ve even changed the application icon on the home screen to the custom one you provide. (Unfortunately not possible on iOS or Android.)

What does the theme consist of?

Two colors, light and dark:

 A logo:

 An icon:

 Hope you guys like it.

For those of you wanting to extend our Mobile Forms platform, we’ve published a quick demo video of our Push API in action. In the video we’ll demonstrate how to pre-populate an existing form with data and send to an iPhone via push notification. You can read more about the API here.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on our product and API, so please feel free to leave a comment.

Playbook Tablet OS 2.0 is available for developers, and it includes an Android application repackager and player.

Our Forms application repackaged without any hassles, and runs great:

(The only issue we have is that camera interaction – for images and barcodes – doesn’t seem to be working, but the player is in beta, so for it to work this well is impressive.)

With the help of our friends at mixpanel, we’ve added a graph of your organization’s form submissions to your dashboard. Expect something like this:

You can find it at the bottom of your dashboard by visiting http://www.devicemagic.com.

After a very unwelcome absence (that discussion is for another post), we’re back on the Android Market here:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.devicemagic.androidx.forms

You may be required to uninstall any existing versions of Mobile Forms to continue being notified of updates.

Apologies to our users from the Device Magic team.

Our iPad has shipped, been approved, and is available from the store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mobile-forms/id412808376?mt=8

There are a bunch of stability fixes included, so even if you’re on an iPhone/iPod, it’s worth the upgrade.

Here’s a quick (<5 min) demo of building a basic form and connecting it up to a Google Doc:

Does it effectively communicate what Device Magic does? Would love to hear comments…or ideas for future videos!