Doc's Stogie Rate for iPhone

Welcome to Doc's Stogie Rate for iPhone. Based on the same basic design as Doc's popular Stogie Rate for the desktop, this mobile cigar inventory software and rating app will keep your cigar collection and tasting notes no further than your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Designed by Doc from StogieFresh.com, this application is built from the ground up to be user-friendly and educational. Since 2005, Doc has been educating cigar enthusiasts around the world through his StogieFresh.com website, Stogie Fresh 5 podcast and Stogie Fresh TV. The Stogie Fresh name has been considered by many in the cigar industry as synonymous with top-flight quality in education and superior innovation. As a professional educator for 30 years, Doc now turns his attention to the world of mobile applications... and with impressive results.

New in Version 1.2

YOUR APP IS NOW A POCKET CIGAR REFERENCE TOOL: Thanks to the Stogie Fresh online database of cigars, you can use Stogie Rate for iPhone and iPod Touch as a tool for looking up information about cigars. And, this tool is never further away than your pocket. This database is currently at over 3, 500 cigars and is growing every week. All new cigar entries are transparent to the user. All you need to do is use your Stogie Rate app and you will see ALL new cigars as soon as they are added to the database!

EASY REFERENCE TO ALL BRANDS IN THE ONLINE DATABASE: When you elect to use our online database of cigars, you will immediately see EVERY CIGAR BRAND THAT IS CURRENTLY REFERENCED IN THE ONLINE DATABASE. No need to hunt and peck, you can quickly see all the brands. And, if the brand you are looking for is not in the online database, you simply back up one step and manually add new cigars of your choosing.

SEPARATE CIGAR LISTS: Whether you have an internet connection or not, you can use the Stogie Rate app to your best benefit. Now when you choose to enter a cigar into one of your collections or simply want to browse the online database, you are given a choice to access either the online database list of cigars, or your personal user list. If you don't have access to the internet, the Stogie Rate app will default to your personal list. You will still be able to enter cigar manually, even when you don't have access to the internet. If you do have access, you will be able to easily search the constantly growing database of cigar information AND scanned cigar bands.

Other Features:

ACCESS TO ONLINE DATABASE: Now, besides manually entering your cigars, you can also access our online database of cigars. We use a speedy, open source database engine provided by Factual.com and are very pleased with the results. Accessing the online database can make entering the facts about your cigars a quick and easy process.

SCANNED PHOTOS OF CIGAR BANDS: Searching through a database of cigars can be confusing. There are many cigars to choose from within most brands of cigars. Having a scanned photo of the cigar band will help you to more quickly identify the cigars you want to add to your collection.

CREATE AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF COLLECTIONS: You may want to organize your collections by humidors, by country, by Cuban vs. Non Cuban, or by room of your house. However you want to arrange your collection, you can do it with Stogie Rate for iPhone.

SUMMARY STATS: Stogie Rate supplies you with simple summary stats on the Summary page. Keep track of the number of collections, how many cigars you have remaining in your database, total cigars you have smoked, and the current value of your cigar collection.
ACCESS TO STOGIE FRESH 5 PODCAST: In version 1.1 you can now access every podcast from number 1 through number 200, and counting... The Stogie Fresh 5 podcast can be streamed through the Help section of the Stogie Rate app.

DATA FIELDS: The data fields contain almost every piece of important information you could ask about your cigars. Including...

Brand
Name
Type
Purchase Date
Length and Ring Gauge
Number Smoked
Number Left

Age
Country of Origin
Wrapper (Country)
Binder (Country)
Filler (Countries)
Tasting Notes
Vendor

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REVIEW/RATING FIELDS: The cigar review and rating features allow you to take notes on your cigars and to rate each one using the Stogie Rate 5-Star Rating Scale. Since you are able to generate multiple tasting notes on each cigar, you will have a note for each time you smoke a cigar and want to remember something unique about that tasting. [TIP: want more detailed notes? Use a word processor on your desktop computer and email the results to your iPhone or iPod Touch (OS 3.0 only), then copy and paste the contents into the notes field.]
- Generate multiple tasting notes for each cigar
- Use 5-Star Rating Scale like the ones used at Amazon.com, Apple.com and others.
- Rate your cigars in 3 categories: Look and Feel, Flavor and Aroma, and Construction and Burn.

HELP / EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES:* Your education doesn't end with the knowledge you will gain about your cigar collection. By using your iPhone's web connection, Doc has linked you directly to several different educational resources. AND, these are constantly being updated as new information becomes available. Included in Stogie Rate for iPhone Help section are direct links to the following informational pages:
- About 5-Star Rating Scale
- About Cigar Sizes
- About Cigar Shapes
- About Wrappers
- Stogie Fresh 5 podcasts: Every episode of SF5 can be streamed to your iPhone or iPod Touch.
- Stogie Fresh Cigar Education videos: Play on your iPhone/iPod Touch
- "Credits" page will tell you who's to thank for making this application a reality

* Help resources require internet access

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SEARCH FUNCTION: Finding cigars across all your collections is easy with the search function. You can search by Brand, Name, Type or Country.

GETTING STARTED IN 5 STEPS

Set up your Collections: To get started with Stogie Rate for iPhone, you must first establish your "Collections." You can set up your collections by the name of your humidor(s), by country, or simply by Cuban and Non Cuban. Name your collections in a way that make sense to you and that will "grow" with your cigar collection.
Add Cigars: After you have set up your collections, you will need to add cigars. When you click the "Add Cigar" icon at the bottom of the screen, you will be asked what collection you want to add the cigar to. Then you can choose to search the online database and add cigars to your collection that way, or if you don't have an internet connection, you can use your own "user brand list" to manually add cigars. The integrated entry scheme using the online cigar database, makes adding cigars almost painless. You can also customize entry fields to reflect your own method for naming Brands, Cigar Names, Types, etc.
Take Notes: When you smoke your cigars you can add tasting notes by clicking on the "Touch for Tasting Notes" icon. I use tasting notes to compare and contrast cigars as I taste and review them over time. By comparing notes, you can see how a cigar's flavor and body profile has changed over time.
Rate Your Cigars: Using the 5-star Rating Scale, you can assess the cigar's performance in 3 categories: "Look and Feel," "Flavor and Aroma," and "Burn and Construction."
Learn: Using the online database, search and learn the basic facts about thousands of cigars. Also, use the Help page resources to view educational videos, listen to hundreds of Stogie Fresh 5 podcasts, and learn other important facts about cigars.

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Question: Are you planning upgrades to Stogie Rate for iPhone?

Answer: You bet! With version 1.2 in the bag, we are already considering what features to add next.

Question: Does Stogie Rate for the desktop interact in any way with Doc's Stogie Rate for iPhone?

Answer: Unfortunately, Doc's Stogie Rate for iPhone does not work together with Stogie Rate for your computer. At least for the time being. We are working on a way of exporting and importing database files to and from Stogie Rate for iPhone. Regardless, I am confident that you will find the current mobile app feature rich and easy to use and I have plans to continually update.

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Question: How does the online database work?

Answer: The online database of cigars will be an ongoing work in progress. We are not trying to create an exhaustive list of cigars, but are trying to populate the database with the most popular large brands and boutique brands. Accessing the online database requires either a WiFi or phone connection to the internet. If you do not have internet access, you will still be able to add cigars to your inventory manually.

Question: Why no photos of cigars?

Answer: As of version 1.1, cigar bands are now a feature of Stogie Rate. We don't have a scanned photo of EVERY band that is in the database, but we have them for about 95% of the cigars in the database. Now that we've experimented with putting cigar bands in the database, scanned photos of cigars is a possibility. However, we don't forsee adding cigars in the near future. There are simply too many different cigars out there and it may not be feasible to try to photograph every cigar at this time.

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Question: Is there any quicker way of typing tasting notes into the notes field?

Answer: Sure, just type out your notes in a word processor on your computer and then email them to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Then, in your Mail program, copy the text you want and go to the tasting notes text field and paste it in. This is the best and quickest way to make lengthy and more detailed notes on your cigars. [NOTE: This works with iPhone OS 3.x and above.]

Question: Why does the Stogie Rate app calculate the age of the cigar using the purchase date?

Answer: This is a good question because subtracting the purchase date from the current date will rarely give you a true indication of the age of the cigar. However, while Cuban cigars regularly provide a "Box Date" and while this is a much more accurate item to use to calculate age, the vast majority of cigars made outside of Cuba do not have box dates. Therefore, if your cigars have a box date, I recommend that you enter that date in the "Purchase Date" field. I also recommend that you make a notation in your tasting notes of both the "box date" and the "purchase date." [NOTE: Since box dates usually reflect month and year, I put in the 15th of the month as an average.]

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If you have a problem that is not answered in the FAQs section, please use the form below. Be sure to describe the problem in as much detail as possible and we will help get you squared away as soon as possible.

Bug Reports and suggestions for the next version. Found a bug or have a suggestion for a new feature? By all means send all your feature requests and found problems using the form below.

Current Version: 1.2.2
Release Date: 2 February, 2010

Version 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 fixed various bugs including: Bug that caused crashes when new cigar brands were added to database, fixed a calculation bug on summary page, bug that caused check marks to disappear when looking at filler, binder and wrapper info pages.

Version: 1.2
Release Date: 29 January, 2010

New in version 1.2:
Cigar Reference Tool: now you can easily look up basic information about thousands of cigars
Continually expanding database of cigars and cigar band scans
Changed to new online database source table, reducing duplicate entries
Splitting of Online and User Databases
Browse screen interface changes
Fixed bug that caused "Filler" field to aggregate succesive cigar info
Fixed calculation bug

Version: 1.1
Release Date: 24 December, 2009
New in version 1.1:

Access to online database
Addition of scanned cigar bands to cigar information
Access (streaming) to all Stogie Fresh 5 podcasts
Can now remove Brand, Name, and Type elements from main lists
Fixed bug that caused crash when a "0" was added to the Cigars in Batch field.

Version: 1.0
Release Date: 29 September, 2009
Developer: Cory Imdieke, MobileVision Software