Author: Marshall Weir

Buxfer users, come join us!

Buxfer logo
If you want to switch from Buxfer to Splitwise, we’ve released an importer using their API.

In August 2012 we built an importer for Billmonk data as that service started to have problems. It helped a lot of their users seamlessly switch their expense histories and balances over to Splitwise, sparing them hours of re-entry and even worse, the horror of losing it all. We loved helping die-hard sharers find a new home, and it was a blast getting to know the Billmonk-turned-Splitwise community through the whopping 79 comments they left on our importer blog post.

We’re happy to now release an importer for Buxfer data, which we’ve developed in response to some observations about the service: The founding team appears to have moved on to Facebook, and there have been rather lengthy outages over the last year or so, with very spotty support throughout. It doesn’t seem that the site is going to close down anytime soon, but we wanted to give Buxfer users an easy way to turn over a new leaf if they felt so inclined.

If you’re a current Buxfer user and would like to get started with Splitwise, go import your Buxfer data! Or, keeping reading about the tool and co-founder Marshall’s development process below.  Continue reading Buxfer users, come join us!

Android Tokenized Auto-Complete, a New Splitwise Open-Source Project

gmail autocomplete in Android 4
This is what we’re going for.

For the past few months, Splitwise has been hard at work making much-needed improvements to our Android app. We released a faster, less buggy build in late August, and since then we’ve devoted nearly all our developer resources to a pristine 3.0 candidate that we can’t wait to get into your hands.

To achieve Android awesomeness for 3.0, we needed to build a Gmail-style autocomplete field for selecting friends when creating expenses. I was expecting to find this fairly easy to do with the Android SDK. Lots of apps must need this need, and I was aware of the AutoCompleteTextView and MultiAutoCompleteTextView classes. How hard could it be?

The short answer: Pretty darn hard! Hopefully, not anymore. We’ve just released an open-source version of the code on GitHub! Go grab the Splitwise TokenAutoComplete project to have your own wonderful, tokenized autocomplete view up and running in about half an hour. It works on Android versions all the way back to 2.2 (Froyo). More on my process below the fold.  Continue reading Android Tokenized Auto-Complete, a New Splitwise Open-Source Project

Splitwise in TIME’s 50 Best iPhone Apps

This morning, we were delighted to discover that TIME has included our app in The 50 Best iPhone Apps, 2013 edition. We’ve spent a lot of time polishing our iPhone app to make it as delightful as possible, and it’s wonderful to get this kind of recognition. Sometimes, it’s hard to see the wonderful parts of the app we’ve made; we are mostly focused on all the flaws we want to fix.

We also know our Android app is simply not this good yet. If you’re one of our Android users, you know we’ve only recently started making updates to the app again and they’ve seemed pretty small.

The secret is that I’ve been laying the groundwork in those updates to get the Android app up to the level of quality you see in the rest of our software. Right now, most of the engineering team is in the middle of a major redesign of our Android app that I can’t wait to get in your hands.

Splitwise Android 2.5: Halfway to Awesome Town

Hello wonderful Android users!

Splitwise Android friend view

You’ve been very patient as we’ve toiled to bring our Android app up to speed with the iPhone app in features and stability.

So, we’re incredibly excited to announce the release of a new version of the Splitwise for Android app. Most of the changes in this version are under the covers – the app is much faster and less buggy now. Admittedly it still looks like a copy of the iPhone app, but we’re going to work to change that over the next few months. This release is just the start of our path towards Android excellence, and we couldn’t be happier about showing you Droid users some love. Read more about the tip of the iceberg below the fold!  Continue reading Splitwise Android 2.5: Halfway to Awesome Town

ImageMagick for iOS – armv7 and armv7s

I’ve been working on some speculative projects for Splitwise this week (fun!). I ran into some issues where I needed to do more image manipulation than is possible in iOS, so I needed to add some magic to my project. Ahem. I mean ImageMagick.

ImageMagick logo
I wish it were actually that magical…

Fortunately for me, Claudio Marforio did the work to build ImageMagick for iOS armv6 and armv7. Unfortunately, I need libraries that work with armv7 and armv7s for the newer iOS devices. With some time spent tweaking build files, I was able to update his script and put together my own version that supports the newer hardware.

For most of you, there’s no need to build your own version. I’m working with Claudio to get this update pushed out to the official ImageMagick ftp, but you can grab a copy now. Update: Claudio published the updated files to the ImageMagick FTP site.

Continue reading ImageMagick for iOS – armv7 and armv7s

Welcome, BillMonk Refugees! (In Which We Import BillMonk Data)

Welcome BillMonk refugees!

[Edit: As of Friday, September 14th we now have our Simplified Debt feature live, which is known on BillMonk as debt shuffle. Information on Simplified Debt can be found here. We updated the importer Tuesday, August 21 to handle debt shuffles and multiple payers. If you imported before this, go through the import again and it will pick up the debt shuffles correctly and won’t import duplicates. ]

Like many of you out there, I’ve been waiting for BillMonk to load.

Why am I waiting? I’ve been testing our new importer for BillMonk data.

In the last week, BillMonk has sadly gone from slow to unbearable. While this is painful for their users, we hope we can provide a fairly painless process to move from BillMonk to Splitwise.

For those of you eager to try it out, go export from BillMonk and import to Splitwise. Otherwise, let me tell you a little more about the benefits and limitations of our importer. Continue reading Welcome, BillMonk Refugees! (In Which We Import BillMonk Data)

Take (time) off with TestFlight

If you’re like me, you probably have this interaction at least once a month:

It’s 11:30 pm. You’re unwinding after a grueling day of coding. Cue cell phone.

CEO: I just met [VC/Angel Investor] and I need to show them our app. Is the latest code up on TestFlight?

Me: No, it’s two weeks old. Do you need this right now?

CEO: Yes! I talked to this investor a few weeks ago and need to show some progress.

Me: Ugh. Ok, let me pull out my laptop and update the build.

…ten minutes of fumbling…

CEO: Can we just keep this more up to date? [VC/Angel investor] had to move on.

Me: Sure, whatever, it’s up to date now. Can I go to bed?

I got sick of these phone calls, so I decided to see if I could find some solution to change the conversation. TestFlight has an API and with a little elbow grease, you can get this whole process down to one step.

Continue reading Take (time) off with TestFlight

Sneak Peek of Splitwise 2.0

Have you ever wanted to use Splitwise to split a dinner bill, or a drink that you bought for someone outside your apartment? In Splitwise 2.0, you can! The preview version (version 1.9) is live in the iPhone App Store today (Android version coming as soon as possible).

Up till now, we’ve been very focused on housemates and roommates, but we’ve always felt that Splitwise was a bigger concept than just that. Want to figure out whose turn it is to buy lunch? Just take a glance at your list of friendships. Continue reading Sneak Peek of Splitwise 2.0

Developing Multi-Currency Support for iOS

Managing currencies in any language is not for the faint of heart. If you’ve been down this dark path, I’m sure you are familiar with the dearth of good recommendations for how to deal with this. Given our focus on group travel, managing different currencies is part of our nuts and bolts.

What follows is an iOS development blow-by-blow for multi-currency support. If you are a fellow developer, please enjoy! To celebrate our second geeky technical article, we’re kicking-off a new article category, “Dev Blog.” Continue reading Developing Multi-Currency Support for iOS