This has turned into quite a major update with many much-requested features, and of course the update is free – we love making HomeRoutines better and better! Thank you all for the support and all your feedback. Remember you can update your review on the app store when you get an update too. 🙂

Routine Reminders

We’ve had a lot of requests for this one, so here it is, and I don’t know how I lived without it!

Reminders only go off on the days the routine is shown, and you choose a time for each routine’s reminder. They use the local notification service on your phone, so you don’t need an internet connection to receive your reminders.

More Zones

You can now select to have 5, 6, or 7 zones, so if you want to spread out your current focus or sort your rooms in a different way, you have more options.

It also means you can use a zone for your garden, garden shed, garage or car.

Zones 6 & 7 won’t appear in the rotation if you’re switching zone per week of the month, but you can choose them manually at any time.

New Zone Scheduling Options

Now we have up to 7 zones we are free to put in another much-requested feature: scheduling a zone per day of the week.

Many of the housework systems out there have a focus per day of the week, so we’re stoked to get this feature in there to suit all the speed-cleaning, uncluttering, housework 101’ers, and everyone else who finds this the easiest way to keep a thin layer of tidy across the whole house all the time.  Of course, the original week-of-the-month schedule is still there for the “Flybaby” crew.

You can also choose when you want your zone stars to reset, once a week or once a month. This is a separate choice from the zone schedule because we thought you’d like to choose; we can see the benefits of all the available combinations, so we left it up to you.

Wide Keyboard

We’re supporting the horizontal orientation for the iPhone now for easier typing.

While we’re looking at the keyboard, we’ve also made the ‘Return’ key say Next when you’re typing in a list, to make it clearer that you can skip to the next item by tapping it.

More Space

You can put an unlimited amount of text in your tasks now with multi-line editing.

Improved daily message

Your daily message will now appear at the top of the home screen with today’s date – just touch the disclosure button to edit.  You can now enter as long a message as you wish, and add ‘returns’ in there if you want.  (If the daily message feature bugs you, delete the text in the default messages and they won’t be there to bother you any more 🙂

The daily message screen is now always editable, so you don’t have to touch edit to start editing your messages.

Cut and Paste Routine tasks

You’ve been able to copy rooms in your focus zones for ages, so it’s about time!  Now you can easily create similar routine lists for different days of the week without heaps of re-typing.

Just touch the action button (the one with the arrow on the right of the tool bar) and choose Copy Task List.

Then pop over to your other routine, touch edit, and hold on the Add New Task; touch Paste.  There it is.

Accomplishments Count on the Home Screen

The number of accomplishments today is right on the home screen so you can see how awesome you are at a single glance.

Backup with iTunes file sharing

You can now back up your data locally with iTunes file sharing (at the bottom of the Apps screen on iTunes)

You need the free iOS 4 upgrade to do this.

At present you can only back up using this method; restore requires the original wifi version. This is due to an issue with the app not restoring data from file sharing if it is currently running.   We will be making restore work via file sharing very soon.

iPad version coming really soon

The glorious iPad version of HomeRoutines has been submitted for review, and should be available for purchase very soon. The app will have a lower introductory price to make it easier for everyone who has been using the iPhone version on their iPad.

Enjoy the update – and don’t forget to update your reviews!