Home Inventory and Mobile Backup

We are pleased to announce the release of Home Inventory 3.2 and Home Inventory Mobile Backup 2.0.

Home Inventory 3.2

This new update to Home Inventory contains several highly requested features:

  • Our new Backup to Dropbox feature backs up your inventory to Dropbox (you must have a Dropbox account and the Dropbox client installed). This works in conjunction with Mobile Backup 2.0, which can download these backups from Dropbox instead of having to backup over WiFi or through iTunes, though you can still do that if you like.
  • The ability to browse your inventory by tag.
  • A new URL custom field type that lets you add clickable links to websites as part of your item information.
  • Automatic backups (if enabled) are now performed when you close an inventory file or quit Home Inventory.
  • No more paper clip!

Home Inventory 3.2 is a free update for existing customers. If you purchased Home Inventory from the Mac App Store, you will need to update using the Mac App Store app on your Mac (do not download it from our website). If your purchased Home Inventory outside of the Mac App Store, you can download Home Inventory 3.2 by clicking here.

Home Inventory 3.2 requires OS X 10.7.4 or later.

Mobile Backup 2.0

It’s been a while since we’ve released an update to Mobile Backup. Version 2.0 has been completely reworked for iOS 7 and includes some big new features:

  • You can now download backups directly from Dropbox that have been backed up using Home Inventory 3.2’s Backup to Dropbox feature.
  • Find items faster with the new search bar that appears at the top of the item list when browsing your inventory.
  • Browse your inventory by tag.
  • View your insurance policy information.
  • Mobile Backup takes advantage of iOS 7’s Activity Sheet to let you email, share, and print item photos, receipts, and PDF and image file attachments.
  • No more paper clip!

Mobile Backup 2.0 requires iOS 7 and is available for free from the App Store.

A Little Bit About the Ads in Mobile Backup 2.0

Another thing new to Mobile Backup 2.0 is that you may see advertisements. There are costs, both monetary and in terms of time, that come with developing, testing, updating, and supporting software. From a business perspective, we needed to come up with a way to offset those costs while still being able to offer Mobile Backup free of charge. In-app advertising seemed like the obvious way to go.

For now, we’re only using Apple’s iAd network to serve the ads and depending on a variety of factors you may or may not see an ad when using Mobile Backup (iAd’s formula for serving up ads is beyond the comprehension of mere mortals). If you find the ads annoying or just want to throw a buck our way, you can disable them on the Settings screen. Disabling the ads is a 99 cent (US) in-app purchase, but it helps support our development efforts.