In my business as a freelance software developer, the hardest part by far is maintaining quality communication with my clients, and having task-accoutability for both me and my corporate contacts. That’s why I and many others love Basecamp so much: it gives us a beautiful, simple, and easily learnable way to communicate with clients and delegate tasks, but more importantly, to document that communication and delegation.
Naturally, we all want to keep up with our projects on the go, which is where Summit, by Andy Smart comes in. Keep reading after the fold to see how you can simplify your Basecamp workflow like I did!
Getting Started
First, of course, you must download Summit from the App Store onto your iPhone or iPod touch. Once you’ve opened the app, getting started is dead-simple! Just type in the URL to your Basecamp site, and then enter in your username and password; now, you’re ready to go!
Getting started is as simple as entering your account information and tapping Save
Summit lets you setup multiple Basecamp accounts. This is especially helpful if, like me, you’ve contracted with a company that requires you to use a Basecamp account under a company email address. Now, you can access all of your projects, regardless of the account.
The Dashboard
When you open the account that you set up, you are shown the Dashboard, which does the exact same thing as the Dashboard in the Basecamp web application: shows all of the activity across your projects at a glance. In fact, the layout of Summit is such that if you understand Basecamp, you’ll have no problem using Summit.
Your dashboard shows activity across all your projects, just like on the real Basecamp.
From the tab bar at the bottom of the Dashboard screen, you have quick access to a list of projects, as well as a list of pending todos across all your projects
Explore the tab bar at the bottom of the Dashboard to see a list of projects and pending todos.
Interacting With Your Project
When you tap on the name of your project, you are brought to another view, which shows a all of the todo lists that are part of that project. From there, you can create a new todo list or view and edit an existing one. Like the previous view, there is a tab bar at the bottom which will bring you to the Messages section, as well as Milestones.
Another tab bar lets you jump to a project’s messages and milestones.
From within any of these views, you can tap on an item to see it in detail, as well as any commentary associated with it.
Design & Interface
Summit is truly set apart from all other Basecamp clients by its incredible elegant design; I recall having seen a Basecamp app try the dark-style theme once upon a time, but it didn’t really work. I now know that this is not the result of any flaw in the idea of a dark-styled Basecamp app, but the result of a designer who didn’t quite have the knack of making user interfaces that look right on iOS.
Indeed, Summit is a completely different story: the custom user interface elements (navigation bars, table views, tab bars, buttons) are all fantastically polished. One of my favorite parts is the dark, spotted pattern used for the background of table views; it plays against the rest of the color-scheme beautifully.
I’m also very impressed by the styling of the editor for composing messages, comments and todos: it is a simple text view on top of an exquisite gradient. The most common iOS idiom for this sort of large field-editor is to have a text view embedded in a rather large table cell, placed on top of a pinstriped background. I’m very impressed by the developer’s creativity, and ability to step outside the status quo in this respect. In fact, not more than three months ago, I designed an almost identical control for the HauteLook iPhone application; I suppose great minds think alike…
Summit stands apart with careful use of gradients, textures, and noise. The detail views and editing forms are simply beautiful!
The long story short, Summit serves us a deliciously beautiful and professional user interface that’s sure to drag many a user away from competing applications.
Functionality
The culture of 37signals and Basecamp users is simplicity, and to forgo features that are really unnecessary. When trying to convince “dorks” of the superiority of a simple product over a complicated one which has a thousand more features, I usually end up just telling them to throw away their expectations of various features, and start fresh with the product; in most cases, it will turn out to be all that they actually need.
Summit follows the same philosophy: you cannot create new projects, nor delete existing ones, nor type messages in rich text, nor change your account settings, etc. It is a beautifully simple mobile window into an application that is at home on the web. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, Summit is content to just be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Performance
When I first saw all of the intense custom controls and gradients, I expected that the app would run at a snail’s pace and probably scroll jerkily; but this was not the case. In fact, Summit is one of the most responsive third-party apps that I have installed on my iPhone 4, second perhaps only to Instapaper.
I congratulate the developer on producing something so elegant, and so smooth-running at the same time.
Room For Improvement
As awesome as Summit is, there are just one minor thing about which I’d like to gripe. The first is that in the text field in account-setup, where you enter the URL of your Basecamp site, the first letter is set to be automatically capitalized; for URL text fields, auto-capitalization should be turned off. Moreover, since most everyone’s Basecamp site ends in *.basecamphq.com, it would be nice to have that somehow autocompleted.
The Competition
Summit has competition in Outpost 2 from Enormego ($19.99, Universal), and Insight from Alexander Batalov ($9.99, iPhone only). Unfortunately, the few other Basecamp apps on the App Store are so amateurish as to avoid mention.
Summit, which only costs $3.99, is a clear winner. Despite it not having a special iPad version, I think that it is much better than Outpost 2, which I also own. Outpost 2 is a really great app (especially the iPad version), but it is mired in complexity as well as some rather poor choice of icons in UI elements. Summit is simply sublime.
Pricing & Verdict
Summit is an amazing deal at $3.99, a fraction the cost of its competitors.
By now, my ultimate recommendation on Summit is probably clear: 10/10. If you use Basecamp, you need this app now. Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section below!