What Beersmith could do that I haven't seen elsewhere is a highly integrated app to the main PC. What I've seen up to now are either standalone apps that try to be complete, or glorified calculators. Here is my vision of the ultimate powerhouse:
Desktop application for recipe design, full ingredient inventory management, mash design, etc.
However an app specifically designed for the following use cases, and tightly integrated and synced with the desktop:
1) Shopping list, Inventory Updates - take your handheld to the basement or the LHBS to buy or manage inventory.
2) Brew day - Think specific activities -
- Measuring and preparing ingredients (minor tweaks and substitutions to recipe for what was in stock, check box/to do list for what's been measured/added and what's left to do)
- Brewing Process/Brewday Notes - Mark when HLT started, actual temps used for mashing in and resulting mash temps, timings for each step. Essentially it should both prompt for when/what should happen, and allow for overrides to what actually happened. For things like temp, it could even be integrated to a calibration facility to help dial in the specific heat assumptions and evaporation rates and things like that.
- Fermentation - click a button to indicate racking dates, tapping dates, etc.
- Tasting notes - comp feedback
The key thing being these would all be things you could do at your desktop, but by having a tool at your fingertips, quick updates and changes could be done on the fly while brewing. I would expect the calibration adjustment stuff would happen on the hand held, just the data capture to provide the desktop app with the info needed to make useful suggestions.
My current process includes a notebook and running back and forth to the PC in the house. I've used apps, but frustrated the calcs aren't consistent and it's just even more double entry.
BTW - I'm an android user, so I'd vote android over iOS.
first post and really looking forward to 2.0!
Chris