

Sure, we could have used it as the foundation, but it would have been a move that haunted us for a long, long time.

It had been built for single-processor computers.
#Recording savings bonds in banktivity 6 code
The problem was, the existing iBank finance engine wasn’t the code to do that. We knew we needed a cross-platform set of code that could carry all of our products into the future. It was a big undertaking and it was great to have an iPhone app.Īfter iBank Mobile and iBank 3.5 had been out for a while, we turned our focus on iBank 4 and developing a longer range roadmap for the company. Less than a year later, we released iBank Mobile and iBank 3.5 with WiFi and. We had to build this app from scratch, as the finance engine in iBank 3 at the time was not compatible with the iPhone (because the iPhone didn’t have Core Data yet!). It became clear that the first task for my brother was to develop iBank Mobile. If you’ll recall, the big disruption in 2008 was Apple’s release of a real SDK for the iPhone. New technologies get released, Apple might encourage you to implement certain new features and general disruptions can jump out at anytime. We started to develop a roadmap of where iBank (and iBiz) needed to go, but developing apps isn’t always a simple linear process. When James got to IGG, we both knew we had a lot of work to keep our products on a trajectory of incremental improvements. (While at Intuit, James didn’t work on Quicken, he worked on a precursor to Quicken Loans, TurboTax Online and TurboTax for Mac.) (James is pretty humble so he’ll probably object to this part of the blog post.) In October 2008, I was finally able to convince James to leave Intuit and come work with me. My Dad’s company, although winding down because he’s retiring, still uses the code foundation James wrote.
#Recording savings bonds in banktivity 6 software
He helped our Dad write software to run and model particle accelerators when he was in college. He has a truly uncanny ability to take a real world problem and model and solve it with software. My brother, James, is an exceptional software engineer and I always wanted him to work with me at IGG. Up until this time, I was the sole engineer for iBank (and iBiz for that matter, but that app is another story). IBank 3 was released in 2008 and it was at this time in the company’s history, where we were finally making enough money to offer my brother a position as CTO and parter in the business. The story of how I started IGG might be a good topic for another post, but for this one, let’s just skip ahead to iBank 1, which was first released in 2003. I’m a botanist by training, but have always dabbled in computers, computational modeling and programming. I had no intention of going into software development and running a company. Enjoy this post, as it explores the history of Banktivity from behind the scenes. I personally find the journey fascinating, challenging and rewarding. Either way, looking back is always 20:20. Sometimes the decision is weighed most by customer feedback and sometimes it is weighed more by where we need to be in the very long term. We make decisions in lots of different ways and we’re still learning what works best for us and our customers. In my attempt to “pull the back the curtain” you will see that software development is rarely a linear process as external forces are always at play. The next post, to be published at a future date, will focus on where we are now and what lies ahead.įor this post I go behind the scenes and expose some of the internal workings and decisions we made at IGG. This first post will focus on the history of iBank and Banktivity by going back to the beginning. I wanted to write these posts to give a good overview so people can understand how far it has come and where it’s headed. (In case you haven’t guessed, IGG are my initials.) The next two blog posts are going to be entirely dedicated to Banktivity, especially Banktivity for Mac. Slowly over time it gained in popularity and became the core business of IGG Software. It started as a simple app designed to track basic finances. Banktivity, or what was known as iBank until recently, has been a personal labor of love of mine for over 13 years.
