As of Jan 4th, Strip 1.6.3 (for iOS) is available in the iTunes App Store. This is our best release of Strip to date, providing a slew of major and minor bug-fixes over the previous rev, and a number of new improvements and features. All customers are strongly encouraged to upgrade, this should be a smooth one.

What’s New

This may seem like a minor thing, but the password reset screen got a lot of needed love, as did the shake-to-generate password generator. The latter no longer requires you to shake the device to generate a password, but the accelerometer is still being used for entropy, so we encourage you to wave your iPhone around in public like a maniac before settling on a random password.

There’s also a couple of new preferences available in Settings: defaulting the login keyboard to the numeric keypad (we still discourage this, but it’s been on some of your wish-lists for a long time), and ensuring the pasteboard is cleared of copied data when you exit Strip.

What’s Been Fixed

Editing text for notes in landscape mode has been fixed, and we’ve made it easier to view longer field values on the entry screen by shrinking longer text a bit to fit. We also fixed a nasty but hard-to-track-down bug involving memory warnings and the login screen, which could cause the screen to go blank, and data loss could occur in obscure cases as a result.

Sync operations on the whole should be smoother, and error messages far more informative. In addition, we fixed a couple of nuisance issues you could run into when syncing with Dropbox. Strip now properly reports whether the remote database has a different password (or a different database version—it will automatically update an older database schema before replicating). When a Dropbox operation errors out due to such a condition, Strip will remove the lock-file it places in your Dropbox so you don’t get an additional error on your next sync.

Thanks

Thanks are due to our beta testers! Thanks very much for taking a chance on the newest version of Strip before we were sure it was ready for public distribution.

We are happy to announce that version 1.0 of SQLCipher for Android has been released. With this latest release, a collaborative effort between The Guardian Project and Zetetic, much work has gone into stabilization of the library across various Android versions. For those unfamiliar, SQLCipher for Android allows a drop-in replacement of the standard SQLite database used on Android to encrypt application databases.

Now that SQLCipher is supporting Android with this latest release, we have written up a tutorial covering both the integration of SQCipher for Android into an Android application as well as the steps required to build SQLCipher for Android from source. The latest binaries are available here. In an era where mobile security continues to be a threat, protecting your data becomes ever more important.

Last week we had a quiet release that we forgot to mention here on the blog, an important update to Strip for Windows. This version includes our Dropbox Sync feature, making it possible to sync your Strip data via Dropbox to iOS, OS X, and Windows.

Full change-log:

• New Feature – Synchronize Strip desktop with Dropbox!
• New Feature – New application toolbar for quick access to application functions
• New Feature – Support field reordering via drag-n-drop move handle
• Improvement – Improved integrity check command finds and fixes improper field indexes
• Improvement – Double click non-url fields to switch entry into edit mode
• Improvement – Proper centering and alignment of modal dialogs
• Bug Fix – Allow export of data sets containing empty field values
• Bug Fix – Installer now shows proper program name instead of random string

If you have any questions or feedback, please get in touch.

We released Strip 1.6.1 to the iTunes App Store and then pulled it from the store a few hours later yesterday due to confirmed reports of a bug preventing our customers on iOS 5 from accessing their data after successfully signing into the application. It’s that bug scenario you always fear as a developer with the App Store—something that you simply must fix right away, but can’t due to the app review process. We have already submitted a fix to Apple as version 1.6.2 and requested expedited review due to the circumstances.

We pulled the update to make that sure no one else gets bitten, and as a result Strip is currently not showing up in the iTunes App Store. There’s unfortunately no way for us to rollback a version update once it’s on your device.

We know this is a horrible inconvenience, but our recommended option is to wait for the forthcoming App Store update because it is the safest and lowest-impact fix. However, if this is not an option there are two other potential courses of action:

1. Sign up for our TestFlight beta service. If you become a beta tester for Strip we can send you a new version before it hits the app store. However, this process involves a sign-up and registration of your device. You can sign up and register devices here: http://tflig.ht/nxGEhq
2. Restore from backup using iTunes. As long as you haven’t synced your device since the update was installed, you should be able to restore from backup. Unfortunately this would erase any data from Strip and other applications that was not in the last backup. If you are think you might need to do this please don’t sync your phone with iTunes, as it could overwrite your last backup. This should be a last resort due to the potential for data loss.

We’re really very sorry about the problems this has caused – we are doing our best to get this fixed as soon as possible.

Since the availability of the iPhone 4S and iOS 5, many of our customers are upgrading to new iPhones (in particular, it would seem, the 3Gs users!) and are running into trouble because they often find that after the upgrade and after iTunes supposedly copies their data, data from their old device is not there, including Strip data. Stephen Lombardo, chief here at Zetetic, has put together the following upgrade advice for our customers. -Billy Gray

The easiest and most reliable way to migrate data from one device to another is to use one of Strip’s sync and backup features. Here are the backup and restore options:

Option 1: Desktop backup / restore

Strip has two desktop application that support syncing. The first, Strip Desktop, is a full editing environment with a backup facility. The second, Strip Sync, is a free utility you can install on your computer that just supports backup and restore. Both are available for download from getstrip.com.

In either case, you’ll want to start by installing one of the programs and syncing your old device with your computer. You can do this by running the desktop program, then switching to the Sync tab on the device, locating the computer to sync with, and running the basic sync operation (do not use Restore or Overwrite for this).

Once you have a solid backup of your data on your computer, the restore process to the new phone should be quite easy:

1. Download Strip onto your new device. Run the program the first time and be sure to use the same password you used on your old phone and for Strip / Strip Sync on the desktop.
2. Run strip / strip sync on the desktop and log in with your password.
3. Back on your phone move to the sync tab.
4. Choose computer and find your desktop in the list
5. For Sync Operation type chose “Restore from Desktop”, with the the icon that shows the arrow pointing from the computer to the phone (This will overwrite the local database on the iPhone with a copy from the computer)
6. Tap Sync and agree with the warning that says you’ll overwrite your device data from the desktop
7. Once it’s compete you’ll have a complete copy of your Strip data on your new phone

Option 2: Dropbox backup / restore

The latest version of Strip in the App Store supports backup and sync with Dropbox. If you are a Dropbox user, or don’t mind signing up, you can perform the backup and restore with it’s cloud data service. JUst make sure you are running the latest version of Strip on both your devices. Then, on your old device, initiate a backup to Dropbox on the Sync tab.

Once that is complete, you can restore it to your new device.

1. Run Strip on your new Device, and be sure to use the same password you used on your old phone
2. After logging in on your new device, move to the sync tab.
3. Change the Mode to Dropbox and link to your account.
4. For Sync Operation type chose “Restore from Desktop”, with the the icon that shows the arrow pointing from the computer to the phone (This will overwrite the local database on the iPhone with a copy from the computer)
5. Tap Sync and agree with the warning that says you’ll overwrite your device data from the desktop

Option 3: iTunes backup / restore

If you really don’t want to use option 1 or 2, then it should still possible to use iTunes to restore your last backup from your old device onto the new device. I want to mention that this option is not recommended, because some users have reported data loss during iTunes sync and restore.

1. Make sure your iPhone is not connected to your computer
2. Open iTunes, go into Preferences –> Devices and make sure that “Prevent iPods and iPhones from syncing automatically” is checked off.
3. Now connect your iPhone to your computer.
4. Open up iTunes and in the devices list on the left side panel of iTunes, right-click or control-click your device.
5. Select ‘Restore from Backup…’ If you are offered the option to choose a backup, you’ll want to choose the newest one.
6. After the restore, log in and test the restore
7. If the restore worked, uncheck “Prevent iPods and iPhones from syncing automatically”

Please let us know how you fare with the conversion in the comments or send us an email.