The new version of Roastmaster is ready for download from the App Store! We’ve been hard at work since early spring–retooling Roastmaster to be faster, smarter, more robust and to leverage the capabilities of iOS 8 and Apple’s new line of iPhones.
We’ve taken a long, hard look at the areas of the app that could be improved – from subtle adjustments in views and navigation that have big impacts on your user experience, to core function and speed enhancements to help you get your work done faster. Naturally, there are a number of brand new features as well – all geared, as usual, to help make your roasts the best they can be. You’ve given us many ideas, and great insights since the last update, and we’ve been listening and busy implementing!
Following are some of the noteworthy improvements that will be available in the coming update.
iOS 8 and iPhone 6/6 Plus
The Latest and Greatest
Roastmaster 8.0 offers full, native iOS 8 support
Expand Your Horizons
Native support for the larger iPhone and iPhone 6 screen sizes and resolutions.
Help
Get the Help You Need – Fast!
Roastmaster’s knowledge base has been rewritten and redesigned from the ground up. Browse clearly-written articles, grouped by subjects and topics. Peruse by related links, or quickly search for a specific keyword to easily find help fast when you need it.
Workflow Speed
Integrated AirDrop
Instantly send a profile, program, roaster, curve, report or an entire database directly to a nearby iOS device – no need to shuffle them via email or Dropbox.
Better iOS Services Integration
Roastmaster is more tightly integrated with common iOS activities. Quickly text a summary of a roast to a friend or colleague, or instantly open a report directly in any iOS application that supports tab delimited text.
More Precise Roast Graph
The home screen roasted graph now performs deep queries to traverse down to Roasts of Blends of Roasts of Beans.
Custom List Sorting
Easily sort your beans, roasts, blends, cuppings, profiles and programs by tapping the new sort button in the header of these lists. You can choose from many different attributes, and arrange them in ascending or descending order.
Explore Profile Alternatives
Easily duplicate a profile or program by long-tapping its icon in any list.
Effortless Snapshots
Roastmaster can now create automatic snapshots in the analyzer, as well as the console. If you attempt to edit the curve of any shared profile or program, a snapshot will be automatically created for you, and the edits applied to it instead, keeping your original data intact.
Easier Graphical Curve Editing
All unshared curves are now editable in the console or analyzer–whether they belong to the roast, or a profile or program. You can also edit a curve before a roast starts – making it easy to build profiles or plot a roast before dropping the beans.
Extended Roast Editing
The post-roast editing period has been extended from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, allowing curve and crack data entry as the beans cool.
Unrestricted Detail Editing
Profile, program and curve details can now be freely edited from any location in Roastmaster. If an item’s data is shared among multiple roasts, or belongs to a completed roast, Roastmaster will simply warn you with a count of the elements that will be affected.
Advanced Snapshot Management
Easily promote a profile, program or blend snapshot to the master position, or demote an existing master – while keeping all the past references intact. This makes it easy organize your library, keeping your most desirable data up front where it’s easy to access.
Miscellaneous Enhancements
From window titles, to button placement, Roastmaster seeks to provide a smooth and streamlined workflow.
Roast Analyzer
Super Speed and Reimagined Function
The analyzer has been rewritten, quite literally, from the ground up, proving an interface that is lightning fast, as well as more intuitive and informative. Better layout, typography, consistent curve ordering and improved tapping gestures smooth your workflow, while subtle animations draw your attention to functions and key events.
Delta Curves
Learn even more from your roast data by graphically comparing the rate of rise of reading curves overlayed on the actual curve data.
Consolidated Notes
The analyzer can now display notes from every item of interest in your roast. Simply tap the new notes button to see an arranged list of every item associated with the current roast: the roast itself, beans and blends, roaster, profile, program, curves and cuppings. Roastmaster will also show notes of the same items from the target roast. To edit the notes of any item, just tap its header and type notes you roast – all without ever leaving the analyzer!
Dynamic Layout
Drag handles in the y axis to quickly change how your curves plot. You can choose to overlay or juxtapose control curves, and place them anywhere on the screen – all with a tap and drag.
Complete Curve Control
The analyzer already provides targeting modes, but now also gives exact control over how each curve is displayed. Just two-finger tap to bring up the curve selector. Tap a row to select or deselect that curve, or tap the display button in that row to toggle the curve and label style among three modes: primary (solid), target (dotted) or off (hidden).
Easier Curve Selection
When tapping a curve to select it, Roastmaster is now smarter about its selections, and you’ll also be able to select curves by tapping directly on their label.
Colored Banner Alerts That Don’t Interrupt Your Work
Alerts are now displayed as unobtrusive, queued banners–color coded to match their source curve, and can be dismissed immediately or left on screen as a reminder if you want to temporarily delay that action. Navigation buttons allow you to navigate among multiple alerts, dismissing any individual alert as you apply that particular setpoint to your roaster.
Customizable Alerts
There is now a preference setting for determining which control curves produce alerts in the analyzer, as well as visual feedback within the analyzer for which curves have upcoming alerts.
See Cupping Details
Tap on the cupping icon in the analyzer to see a list of individual cupping dates, scores and notes for each cupping being reported. Tap the header of any item in this list to edit those notes right in the analyzer.
Easier Targeting
New targeting button (iPad) allows you to easily switch targeting modes without opening the controls dock. It displays the current targeting mode, and informs you if you have overridden the default curve styles.
High Contrast Viewing
New white color scheme for the analyzer provides higher-contrast viewing for outdoor roasters.
Many Other Enhancements
- The analyzer past roast target mode will now show the past roast’s profile curves by default
- Improved analyzer typography
- Long tap a node in the analyzer to delete it
- Smoother differential temperature projection markers
- The roast graph and analyzer now clip negative values at 0, preventing unwanted display below the baseline
- Node editor “x” buttons are easier to tap
Roast Console
See the Cost of an Individual Roast
The green bean ingredients list in roasts now includes the total cost of the roasted items.
Less Clutter
The roast console now provides large, easy to read text feedback in the graph area when selecting matching criteria–replacing the small, cluttered text descriptions beneath the buttons.
Data Logging Option
Range Probe Support
Introduces support for the Range probes from Supermechanical. These economical probes plug directly into the headphone jack, and provide reliable temperature readings.
Smarter, More Informative Crosshairs
Analyzer crosshairs have been redesigned to give a better view of underlying target data, and now contain new graphical delta pointers that change as the probe’s linear delta changes, showing you the direction and intensity of rise. Combine this with the existing differential projection markers, and you’ll have more data than ever before to keep your roasts on target.
Manual Sampling
Tap the digital temperature readout to quickly record a sample: before, during and after a roast to supplement the automatic temperature logging.
Miscellaneous
Behmor Plus Friendly
Behmor curves are now editable to support the Behmor Plus panel upgrade. Start off with an “automatic” Roastmaster Behmor curve like always. If you switch to manual mode on your roaster, just edit your Roastmaster curve as needed, and it will switch to manual mode as well. If you want to switch back to automatic, just tap the new “Convert to Automatic” activity button, and Roastmaster will reset the future portion of the curve to the last Behmor defaults–retaining all of your prior edits and time-shifts.
Crisp Label Type…and More Of It
Roastmaster’s label engine has been redesigned with smarter layout capabilities, and the ability to render character spacing and true typographer’s leading fashioned for high readability at the printed size. Crisp type, and better layout mean that Roastmaster can fit nearly double the notes on a label as before.
Smarter Inventory Management
Whenever you delete a roast that is not tagged as complete (e.g. using the console/analyzer to perform the roast, or manually setting its duration), the items of that roast will be automatically credited back to inventory before deleting.
Smarter Profile Creation
When creating a profile from a roast, you’ll be able to select the individual curves you want to include in the profile. You’ll then be able to designate which of these curves should be included as curve templates, providing automatic configuration of future roasts to record comparative data.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the “bouncing balls” issue on the home screen introduced in iOS 8
- Fixed an issue where the probe store could become unresponsive, and unable to connect to iTunes
- Fixed a bug that could cause “Export Database” to fail in rare circumstances
- Fixed bug that may cause a crash when browsing the green bean library, particularly if using the find filter
- Fixed report bug where the range may not honor the input range if the keyboard is dismissed before running the report
- Exports now properly handle names containing forward slash characters
If you have any questions, please let us know, and keep an eye out for the update!
