(Update Dec 16, 2010) Free again for limited time (until Dec 25).
What is it?
collegeFund is a college savings calculator iOS app (iOS 3.1.2 or later) I released a while ago (Oct. 5 to be precise). Link to iTunes App store here. For a limited time (this annual benefits enrollment and holiday season), I am making the v 1.0 app for free. I will end the promotion as soon as the v 1.1 approves.
Why free?
I am out of mind 🙂 Actually I thought about this before the release. Over the years I came to believe college education is a prerequisite for many things in life: the college experience, the knowledge learned and friendship formed in college, last but not least, the skill of “how to learn on one’s own” and a path to entry level job. For me and my wife this is not possible without the sacrifice of our parents. This March our baby daughter was born, and we enrolled in a college saving plan for her shortly. We are just trying to repeat what our parents did for us.
In the same spirit, we would like share this little app with all the hard working parents.
Is it really free? Am I ask anything in return?
Yes. If you are happy with the app, you can help me out by
1) send me feedback, including write reviews on iTunes store, good reviews only 🙂 ; send me unpleasant reviews by email (uudaddy no spam AT gmail DOT com).
2) I do have a paid app, myNestEgg ~ the retirement calculator at App store. So if you have an extra dollar(s), you can buy or gift this little app during holidays 🙂
What if you already paid for the app?
First I want to say “thank you”. I can either refund you the 99 cents, or give you the myNestEgg app.
What if you already bought myNestEgg too? We are not entering an infinite loop here, let me know and I will send you something, for your patronage.
Update version 1.1 coming
Version 1.1 will have the following fixes. I just submitted it and let’s hope it gets approved by Apple soon.
1) Adjust the inflation for the “annual fund available” and “total fund available when the kid starts college”, now they match the “Coverage Ratio” calculation result. Also note those two ratios (“Coverage Ratio” and “Saving Progress”) are more important indicators here;
2) Add new icons for the tab bars (the 3 bars at the bottom);
3) Add “shake” function to “Settings” tab bar. When at “Settings” tab, if the user shakes the phone gently, the rates will reset to default values: 6% annual investment return, 3% annual inflation. Note the user still needs to tap “Set Rates” button to make the rates take effect.
Known problem in version 1.0
The text field for “Current Savings” is too small to fit in number larger than 10,000. I have corrected this in the upcoming release.