Black Ink for iOS 2.0.1 is now available on the App Store.

Yesterday, in the excitement of debuting Black Ink for iOS, I neglected to notice that somehow in the process of submitting and releasing the app publicly, a months-old version of “Black Ink 2.0” was swapped in and became the version that went public!

This means there were a number of bugs in yesterday’s release that had long been fixed. To avoid any ambiguity, today I’m releasing Black Ink 2.0.1, which I have now confirmed is in fact the latest version of the app. If you did jump on the initial release yesterday and installed 2.0, please update to 2.0.1 ASAP so you have a better experience.

If you haven’t installed Black Ink for iOS yet, the initial experience should go a lot smoother starting with today’s update!

If you enjoy Black Ink, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the App Store, and spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter! Thanks for your support.

Black Ink for iOS (iPhone, iPad, and if all goes according to plan, visionOS), is now available on the App Store.

Like its Mac counterpart, core features are free to use, forever. These features include downloading puzzles from a variety of bundled “sources”, and solving the puzzles in the beautifully-rendered Black Ink grid.

Premium features include Check Answer, Reveal Answer, and planned future features such as Printing. Premium features can be unlocked by purchasing a monthly subscription for $1.99 (US), or an annual subscription for $19.99 (US). Exact amounts may vary internationally due to App Store pricing tiers.

Black Ink for iOS has been under development for an exceptionally long time. How long? Nearly 16 years! Looking back through my development notes, I found the very first step was taken on April 6, 2008:

commit b9257fa30eb3b329f5643583608a3f8113d0f282
Author: Daniel Jalkut <[email protected]>
Date:   Sun Apr 6 23:29:07 2008 +0000

    Very first building blocks for touch based Black Ink.

Why did it take so long? A combination of factors, but in a word: priorities. Something else was always swooping in to demand my attention. The app has been roughly working for at least 15 of those 16 years, but there were many rough edges to polish before finally calling it “done” (for now).

Now that the initial release is out, I anticipate more iterative improvements over the coming days, months, and years. I hope you enjoy the app, and that if you do, you’ll share the news of its existence with other crossword lovers in your life.

If you enjoy Black Ink, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the App Store, and spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter! Thanks for your support.

MarsEdit 5.1.2 is now available on the MarsEdit site and on the Mac App Store.

This update continues to improve the stability, performance, and functionality of the app.

Complete list of changes for this release:

• Restore inference of alt text from image file name if it looks like prose
• Improve inference of post title from content when no explicit title
• Improve reliability of plain-text editor syntax highlighting
• Improve first-time authentication behavior with TextPattern blogs
• Fix a crash while refreshing that affected some WordPress blogs
• Fix a crash that could occur when using AppleScript to create a new draft based on an existing post
• Fix a bug where pasting a link on a freshly-uploaded image could cause it to revert to pending upload state
• Fix a bug that prevented default Title field visibility from being respected after editing a post

If you enjoy MarsEdit, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, writing about the app on your own blog! Thanks for your support.

MarsEdit 5.1.1 is now available on the MarsEdit site and on the Mac App Store.

This update improves several issues that snuck through the cracks in the substantial 5.1 update, which was released last week.

Here’s the complete list of changes for this release:

MarsEdit 5.1.1

• Restore functionality of the MarsEdit Micropost app extension
• Cmd-Shift-D shortcut now works to send a post from the Micropost panel
• Fix syntax highlighting of entity references within HTML blocks
• Fix a bug in which published posts sometimems remained in Local Drafts folder
• Fix a bug that prevented Mastodon blogs with MP3 media items from refreshing
• Fix a crash when refreshing a WordPress blog with a malformed featured image post
• Improve performance when initializing a data source with lots of posts with featured images
• Restore dynamic hiding/showing of advanced menu items while holding/releasing option key
• Disable formatting keyboard shortcuts in Mastodon Micropost panel, since it doesn’t support markup

If you enjoy MarsEdit, please consider writing a review or rating the app on the Mac App Store, spreading the word on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, writing about the app on your own blog! Thanks for your support.