Teething Troubles!

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone who has downloaded the new version of the app - I've just had my first feedback today from qurgh on the FeedHammer web site:

http://www.feedhammer.co.uk/feed-item-details.php?id=9765

Qurgh raises some good issues (and thanks for contacting me directly!). I've done a quick fix of 2 of them and released a new version onto the Play Store - 3.0.2 (it should be available in the next few hours):

I've also now set up some software to track these, and future errors/enhancements as they crop up. You can view the issue that have already been raised here:

JIRA FeedHammer Issue Tracker

Just to cover each of Qurghs issues:

"App resets to the first screen when the phone is rotated"

• The latest version (3.0.2) should fix this

"why does the app need phone access permissions? I see no reason for an app of this nature to have permissions to be able to grab my phone number, check my phone call status or make calls as me"

• This was a mistake on my part - when I set up the permissions I added this by mistake (READ_PHONE_STATE) when I was adding READ_NETWORK_STATE (which is needed to check the connection).
• I have now removed this permission in 3.0.2

"There is no way to copy or share URLs"

• I'll look into this - I was going to add the 'Share it' links from the website - but they would just mean more stuff to download to the mobile device, which I wanted to avoid initially. I'll look into this more (and also some native Android share it options)

"App crashes randomly"

• I haven't seen this in my testing - but will test some more and monitor the crash alerts from Google to try and troubleshoot what the problem is

"Lots of lag when scrolling the feed lists"

• Again - I haven't noticed this yet (seems pretty quick on my testing). Is this on any connection (WIFI?) or just on 2G/3G connections? I'll see if I can replicate it

"Instead of using a built in browser, can you give us the option to use an external browser for web links and the youTube app for youTube links?"

• Any links using the buttons ('Read Full Article') - should open the external browser. I have noticed some issues where the articles themselves contain links - which if you click will open in the internal browser (which I guess is what you mean). This is a bit tricky as I might need to do some extra parsing of the HTML I pull down from the external feeds to add in some extra HTML - unless I can intercept these calls at a global level. I will look into it

I've added issues in the JIRA software for all of these issues - so I can track progress on them all:
JIRA FeedHammer Issue Tracker

If anyone has any more issues/requests/feedback - please let me know directly - either via email, the http://www.feedhammer.co.uk web site, or the Google group 




Thanks again for the feedback (and for making it directly to me) - it helps to make the product better! I hope to have more new releases very soon - watch this space!

Feedhammer - new Version! - with VIDEO!

Hi Folks,

Feedhammer is changing this weekend! The new version will be made live today sometime!

I've made a quick vid for the new version (see below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoqHrQIYPMc

There may be a few teething troubles - so please bear with me if you experience any difficulties. I think it should work ok - but you never know - there are some major changes happening here.

My schedule for the weekend is:

1. Do a video of the new version
2. Write this blog post to let everyone know whats happening
3. Switch the DNS over for the back end (I have 2 servers running in parallel at the moment - I'm going to switch from the old to the new one today...)

When the switch is done - if you have the old app - it should still work, but the images will all show Feedhammer.

I'd urge you to upgrade as soon as you can - hopefully the video shows all the good stuff in the new version!

As I said - I expect some problems - if you do have a problem please let me know directly (and not via a bad review on the play store - pleeeease!!)

Hopefully this is just the start of the next phase for FeedHammer - much more coming in the New Year!!

Cheers,
Ade!

FeedHammer coming on iOS! Pictures!

Hi All,

Following on from my last update - all the key work on the back end server is pretty much complete now (at least for the first release). I've spent the last month or so looking at performance and caching of content to make the system as fast to use as possible.

I've then moved on to redevelop the client app.

I'm changing from a native Android app to use Abode's Phonegap (Apache Cordova). This uses HTML/Javascript under the covers. The main benefit of this is that it allows me to code the app once - and then deploy it on a range of different mobile devices (anything that saves me time is most definitely 'a good thing'!)

I've been developing the app on Android - and just tried a quick deploy on iOS to see how it looks - and it's looking great!

I'm still a few weeks of testing and tweaking away from a release - but thought I'd give you a preview of some of the up and coming new features!

Running on iPad - new 'Suggestions Screen'

If you look at the bottom of this page - we now suggest 3 other stories that have similar content to the one you're viewing. Click on any of these to view (and then see another 3 similar news items, and so on  - I've found it's a great way to browse around all the content we accumulate)

Endless Lists

At the bottom of the list of items - we now have a 'More' button. So once you reach the bottom - you don't have to stop - just load the next set of items, and keep going

Running on iPhone - new Category View

You can filter the news items by broad category. I hope to do more sophisticated filtering in future - but that's for a later release...

Search

Search across all news items - this, combined with the 'Suggestions' once you view an item is a great way to access all the content you are interested in

New Feed Sources View

You can now see a list of all the news feed sources we use for Feedhammer. We can add/remove any of these dynamically using our back end admin console. We are careful not to flood the app with too many sources for now - but will bring more online as we improve the personalisation and filtering options

Listen to Podcasts Directly

This is a great addition - for any podcast you can now play the content directly from the app. We may add a feature where you can keep playing and control the podcast while continuing to browse the app. 

Android Update

All these great new features will also be replicated in a new Android app too!

Watch this space - more updates to follow soon as we get closer to the switch over!

As ever - if you use and like the app - please, please give us a positive review in the Android store! 

It makes all the difference - and keeps me motivated!