I haven't bought an iPad of Apple and not even thinking to buy one. The reason is low applications and high price. Also it's size is too big for me. I would like to have a gadget which I can carry with me by putting it in my pocket. And iPad really doesn't have features as it's size at all.

Team,

If you are implementing something on the iPad/ipod touch/iphone platform, please please see if you can somehow leverage the touch screen to add some sort of signature capability.

This would be awesome, and and help in a paperless workflow; Customer sign on the iPad/iPod Touch (with a Pogo Sketch stick), and then you hit email and email the XLS doc to their email address in PDF.

We are doing something similar now with a middleware called zoshapp, www.zosh.com. It works, but does need some careful planning, and will require a 2 step process.

Having this signature ability integrated into Lightspeed would just put you several steps above the competition and will make LS even more elegant, and hey, you can even now tag 'eco-friendly' in your sales pitch!

Thanks!

I agree, signature input would be helpful but we don't need an iPad to do it. If Xsilva implemented a simple pixel capture into a blob (such as is the product photo), we could hook up a really inexpensive Wacom tablet and use that for signatures.

To the developers: Open an image well and make it fill the entire screen... place a canvas with a pen tool selected... (user signs)... 'Enter' key saves and exits. Keep the resolution of the full screen.... at black and white, it shouldn't be a problem.

We need this for SROs where we need the customer to agree to the terms and conditions before work can begin. Take out the 'Delete' button and replace it with a 'Signature' button.

On the topic of 'LightSpeed as an iApp'...

Let me dust off my crystal ball... and gaze deeply... nope... not gonna happen.

Here's why:
- As previously mentioned, LightSpeed is written in REALbasic and iApps are written in Objective C using the iPhone OS. As such, this is not a simple matter of porting over existing code... they would have to rewrite it from scratch.
- Xsilva doesn't have the talent on board to do this as iPhone OS development is a special skill set... so, they'd have to hire it or outsource it.... previous attempts at outsourcing having been less than successful (ie: OTR)
- Xsilva is way too busy to devote resources to a whole new application on a different platform... new developers, training support staff on a new product... = nightmare.

Now, on the other hand, if I was Dax, I would jump on it. I would recognize that any iPhone OS version of LightSpeed wouldn't have to be a 'full' version. It wouldn't have to do purchasing or product generation. It would just have to target a specific user workflow such as a sales rep.

The mist in the crystal ball is clearing now... I'm seeing something....

- The new XSL API works as promised.
- Dax hires an iPhone OS developer who uses the API to create an iApp that browses/adds/modifies customers, quotations, orders, invoices. It can browse products but privileges are limited and fixed... ie: no product creation, no cost data, etc...
- Xsilva releases LightSpeed for iPhone OS as a free iApp... but it requires a license to access the DB just like LightSpeed does (this causes a sudden spike in user license upgrades which more than pays for the development of the iApp)

No wait... more mist is clearing...

- The API was released as a low cost developer tool that could be used on any LightSpeed installation with no special license requirements or increased cost to the user of an application that uses it other then the increased user licenses to access the database.
- It wasn't Dax after all... it was me and the iApp cost $19.99!

Right now, Dax is experiencing a cold shiver down his spine and he has no idea why.

So Kristin, when will we be able to download this wicked cool app? No sleep for you until you get it done!

I'd gladly pay $199 for the app on an iPad, plus the additional user licenses.

Well said. I am surprised this is not done. Capturing it in b/w and perhaps in screen rez shouldn't be taking too much space on the backend.

Your method is pretty elegant, and yes, the delete button should be relegated as those who actually need to delete something, should know where to find it. The signature button would be more used.

Using a wacom or otherwise would probably be better, and probably would be cheaper and easier to implement!

Ditto.

But in the meantime, the Zoshapp method provides a pretty reasonable workaround for us. We deal with 200+ SROs a week, and we are now on 2nd week of implementation.

Initially it was a little weird since it's a 2 step process, but customers liked the novelty of signing on the iPod Touch, and our staff quickly adopts this system.

I only wished that we can run the zosh engine locally, i.e. without sending the sro out to embed the signature. Half of the workflow involves our local mail servers, and it's really nice to be able to quickly find the document on our imap server by searching for the SRO # on the subject line.

I just wished that Xsilva would just add this signature thing into LS instead of making us jump thru hoops to get this capability. The alternative of printing 4 copies of A4 paper for each and every SRO and the need to sort/file/store them, gets really old, really fast.

Come on, there must be a better way. I am sure many are using the SRO module, even for non-ASPs. And everyone would rather not have paper to store if they can.

I don't want to get anyone too excited here but take a look at the job postings on Xsilva's website to get a peek at things to come...

http://www.xsilva.com/en/careers.html

Interesting. Good to see Xsilva at least dipping their toes into Cocoa. It's a pretty awesome set of frameworks, at least as full-featured as REALBasic, and way more optimized and performant. Plus lots of hot-shot developers who know it (many of my friends who program for Mac OS X and iOS say they'd never want to go back to anything else).

I'd be a lot more excited if it was for more support personal so they could get what they have already working reliably.. Xsilva seems to feature focused and not customer service and reliability focused at all.

Fingers crossed it actually gets better (here lots about that it will, but doesn't seem to happen.

Xsilva continually has both positions for Support Specialist and Customer Service Rep positions posted. I think they're just experiencing a lot of growth and cannot train new hires fast enough.

That said, I'm really looking forward to an expanded support department from Xsilva.

One of the Xsilva Support managers told me they're making large changes and growth to their support structure, but that it takes a long time to put that into effect (training, planning, systems, etc.).

Fortunately, it doesn't look like hiring one Cocoa developer will keep Xsilva from considering Support

Just an FYI, we already have Cocoa developers on-staff. The advertised position would be an additional hire. The LightSpeed 3 POS screen is a Cocoa interface built on our Python-based LightSpeed Server. Several other windows in LightSpeed 3 are also Cocoa windows, like the Login and Setup panels.

As for Support staff, we are rapidly expanding the team to keep pace with growth and are always hiring.

Best Regards,
Dax Dasilva, CEO

Oh, very interesting. I didn't know you could mix and match REALBasic and Cocoa like that. Glad to hear Xsilva are making that transition.

Also, cool to know the server is Python-based. Good language.

Thanks for keeping us nerds updated, Dax.

As a customer and reseller that is using this product, you will likely see several threads encouraging on a stable product first and iPad and other features later. There are some serious issues with the migration to the new database platform and compatibility with the new webstore. Great potential, but I regrettably have to join the chorus that I feel more like a a beta tester than someone benefitting from a potentially great product. I do find the paid support worthwhile and while there may not be fixes for many of the issues at present, the trouble shooting tickets are always addressed quickly.