Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark L
I have an app called Poker Mate that I have been working on in my free time the past few years. It probably doesn’t have the number of features or design as some of the others, but it’s free to try with no limit on sessions. Check it out if you’re looking to switch up your app. I’m almost done with an update to make it universal for iPad, then I’m going to continue working on adding graphs. I’d welcome any feedback as well.
-Opening screen
While I like the idea of going straight to sessions played, when you first open the app, and thus have no sessions played to display, you get basically a blank screen with Filter and More buttons displayed with a + at the top.
I click click and ask questions later, but this might not be intuitive for some users the first time they open the app. Perhaps a splash screen for the first time it's opened stating to click the + to get started? It just seemed like, "where's the cash game button?" at first and then I clicked 'More' because I didn't see the + first.
-Tokes
Not really a fan of clicking 2 or more buttons to add tokes, but it's not a deal-breaker. It would be great if, like when you've added a few rebuys of differing amounts and it remembers the last 3 amounts, that when you click Dealer Tips that the last 3 different tip amounts are displayed along with the enter amount option like it is for rebuys.
If you tipped a buck earlier and then tipped 5 bucks later, now when you click tips you only have '$5.00' and 'enter amount' to choose from, so you'd have to click an extra 2 buttons to get $1 back as the default. I think most players have a few different tip amounts depending on who is in the box or pot size. If it remembers the last 3 or so tip amounts, then that would be better than PJ's toke button because you wouldn't have to hit it five times to enter $5.00, for example.
-End Game
This is the same as PJ, and I have the same minor criticism. When you click stop and get to the cashout screen, your timer is shut off only once you click save.
While this is great because if you're playing short-handed and the other players want to break the game and you hit cashout and begin to type in what you have in front of you and as you're doing that the brush found another player and now the other players want to play again, you can just hit cancel and your session is still going.
For this same reason, though, if you did type the amount in and click save and close the session before the game resumed, it would be handy for an app to have a 'resume' button option for a few minutes after you end the session when you click edit on a finished session for cases like these.
However, if you hit stop and don't have a chance to type in cashout amount and click save for whatever reason, then when you do click save your session will be off by however much time you were talking with someone, for example.
You have a great feature that you can save the session while turning the clock back so you don't have to change session length in edit mode on a finished session, but mostly I think if you've never hit cancel on the cashout screen (and thus go back to the timer screen), it should save the session at the moment Stop was clicked so you don't have to estimate your end session time.
Basically, I think 'End: On Save' (for people that clicked Stop but decided to play another orbit or whatever, or for people that are immediately saving the session) should also have another selection of 'End: On Stop' (for people that hit Stop and couldn't save immediately) in addition to the great feature of having the ability to roll the clock back at cashout. /nit
-Font
Font is really small in the results tab and in general overall. I have the same issue with Poker Journal, too. 20 years ago I'd be fine; today, I don't mind having 4 or 5 game results to look at before scrolling instead of putting on my reading glasses to see 7 or 8. Perhaps a large and small font option would be nice, but I understand how that would require a complete redesign for the larger font.
I like the black and red instead of green and red in other apps; it's much cleaner on the eyes. Personally, I'd ditch the parenthesis on losing sessions. Since we have different colors today and you use red and black, I think parenthesis is superfluous and unnecessary clutter (despite accounting tradition).
I think card room location would correspond better with stakes and game on the left side, but I can understand how some people would like to see results and place in the same column.
Although I'd prefer a slightly larger font overall, the larger font combined with bold and layout in the Reports screen is jarring. One or the other (larger or bold only in Reports); it's not consistent with the overall theme, imo.
-Tourney buyin
When you click 'New Buy-In' and type in the amount and click save, the new buyin amount is not checked by default so if you click Live Game it uses your last buyin amount rather the new one you just added.
Same goes for adding a new game variant. If I type in a new game, say Omaha 5x2, it's likely because I'm about to sit in that game and not adding new games at home (so I don't have to do it at the casino), but that's certainly more possible than the tourney buyin amounts being done ahead of time, I would think.
-Reports
Like you said, you're working on more glitzy stats and graphs, so I'll just talk about navigation. If I select, More > Reports > Cash Games > This Month, the only way to get back to the results tab is Cash Games > Reports > More > Done. I think a shortcut to get back to the home screen would be desirable.
Features I really like and/or are not on other apps:
-App is clean and smooth
Basically a Poker Journal type format without the clutter. Familiarity, cleanliness.
-Notes
I like the feature of being able to add separate notes for a single session (even though I rarely note). Perhaps having a time stamp for when each note was taken would benefit other players that do take notes frequently.
-Start time
The ability to retroactively start a session, in the event that you forgot to click start when you began your session, is a great feature. More than a few times I've been 10 minutes in before remembering to start the timer... so much easier than having to edit on the fly or remembering to edit after the session is closed.
-Add button
At first this seemed unnecessary since it just gives you all the options you can click on the timer screen, but it's far easier to use that one extra click for options than clicking the specific field you want to edit.
All you need to do is pump up the stats and graphs, and this app would seem (haven't seen the filter settings on the Pro version) like the easiest app to transition to for Poker Journal users, with some new/nice features and improvements in areas that PJ lacks.