A note from the developer

Hi. Im the developer of this app. I dont mind criticism at all, but some of the negative reviews here contain false information. One reviewer claims that you can only move forward through the time zones, but not backward. And yet the very first line in my description says "Tap a clock to advance by one time zone, or tap and hold a clock to go back." Even worse is his claim that the cities show up in random order. This is very obviously not true. All of the cities are arranged by time zone. When you tap on a clock, crosshairs appear and the map moves to show the next city. This lets you "travel around the world," so to speak. Its very obvious that the cities are not random.

There is a reason why I did it this way: I didnt want to clutter up the screen with lots of yucky back and forward controls. I knew that users wouldnt know how to work this unless I explained it, which is why I put this information in the very first line of my description. If I made an app that functioned just like all the apps before it, the upside is that 99% of everyone already knows how to use it. The downside is that, well, it works just like all the apps before it. Trying something new, different, and possibly better is great, except for one thing: you need to explain to people how the unfamiliar thing works. So this is the tradeoff I made: do it differently, but hope that people will read the first line of the description so they know just what is different about it.

I accept that not everyone likes the way I choose to do things. Many people do like my way, and Ive had some nice emails to that effect. But Im really surprised by the hostility of some of these reviewers. The app is very stable and it does everything I claim it does. Seriously, Ive lost sleep over the coding and design of this app. If you have an issue or a criticism, at least contact me through the support link on this page and tell me about it. If you suggest a new feature, Im actually pretty likely to think its a good idea and include it in the next update just for you. Ive done this dozens of times on my other apps, and Im happy to consider requests any time.

The next update to News Clocks, which should hopefully come out around June 29th, will have some great new features. Beyond that, I can see that some people value things like built-in help, even for a simple app like this, more than I did when I wrote it. So the update after the next one will address many of these issues without altering my vision of what I wanted the app to be.

People have asked for more cities, different ways to sort them, and all kinds of stuff. Id love to hear what you want. I really look forward to hearing from people, because if something isnt as easy or as clear as it could be, I definitely want to make it that way! I am constantly improving all of my apps. I really care about this.

I hope that you find News Clocks as neat as I do. And theres a lot more to come.

Tod

todllc about News Clocks