Wednesday, August 21, 2013

LCARS Interface [Windows Phone 8] Release 4 is now available!

The next update for the Windows Phone 8 version of LCARS Interface is now available in the Windows Phone Store! This release adds an important feature of being able to upload log files of all types to your SkyDrive account. Due to Windows Phone restrictions on where you can save files, uploading to a cloud based service is the only way to get files off of the device. Due to some issues with the Windows Phone 7 version of the Windows Live SDK, we are still currently working on adding the same functionality to the Windows Phone 7.1+ version of the app. We are hoping to have that version updated soon, but there is currently no ETA for this.

We have some big plans for Windows Phone that will hopefully make the LCARS Interface app the best phone app of its kind! We do have to work within the limitations of the Windows Phone/Windows Store platforms themselves, though. These 2 operating systems are limited in what they have access to similar to the restrictions apps have on iOS devices with regards to system level access. Android does not have most of these restrictions, so you may see apps for that which do things that Windows Phone apps are not capable of due to the OS itself. This annoys us as much as everyone else, but it is what it is for now unless Microsoft changes their policies on some of it. That said, we are constantly working to be innovative in how we work within those bounds to deliver the best apps possible to you all! We thank you for the great feedback and also for the many great reviews we are getting for all of our LCARS apps in Windows Phone/Windows 8 Stores across the globe!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

LCARS Interface [Windows 8] Release 26 is Now available!

Less than 24 hours after being submitted, Microsoft has given release 26 of the LCARS Interface app for Windows 8 their seal of approval!

While not a major release, this one does fix a few annoying bugs, and also "fixes" some things in the entertainment modules to make them more closely match Star Trek canon. A lot of this takes places on the Conn module, and that module also has received a new animation for the external viewer section. The new one should be much more smooth in operation instead of jittery like the old one. This one should also be less resource intensive as well, so it should be a good change all around. Another change is to how the velocity is calculated. The speeds indicated will now properly match the actual warp scale used in the shows. Sometimes we get too excited about new features and some things like that are overlooked....we do try and make them right when we can!

Check the version history for the other major changes in this release.

As always, other new features for this app are in progress that didn't make it into this release, but keep checking back because we will update you when we have a better idea of the release schedule.

Next up is likely the previously mentioned updates to the Windows Phone 8 app!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Misc News and Feature Previews

We had an amazing weekend in Las Vegas at the biggest Star Trek convention of the year. Just in case any of you are worried about Star Trek losing popularity, you only need to go to one of those things and see all the fans young and old excited about every aspect of Star Trek. Unlike many other conventions where Star Trek people appear, this one is ONLY about Star Trek and the number of events they have there makes it impossible to see everything.

Now it's back to reality and that means working on more updates to your favorite apps. We've got some fixes lined up for the Windows 8 app, but not any large features just yet. We may do an interim release just to get those few things out there until the next big update is done. Bug fixes especially are high priority so we want to get those released as soon as possible. Hopefully it will be ready within the next couple days.

On the Windows Phone front we have quite a few things in the works. The closest big feature to being complete is the ability to upload all types of log files to your SkyDrive (Windows Phone 8 only for the time being)! Currently there is no way to back up your logs and that is not something we are happy with. Unlike with the Windows 8 app, 3rd party apps can't write files to the media libraries on the phone (which are the only accessible folders when connected with USB to copy files on and off the device). The logs are instead saved in isolated app storage which is inaccessible to everything else. With SkyDrive integration you will be able to upload the logs from your mobile device to the "Central Database" just in case something happens where you need to uninstall the LCARS Interface app, in which case all of your logs would be lost. This situation can happen at any time, and we want to make sure you are able to back up your data soon! The beta tests of this feature are going well, so we hope to have this feature submitted for Microsoft's approval sometime this week. 

So those are some of the new features in the pipeline...but there are TONS of features in the plans and many are already in progress. Some of them will blow your mind!  Unfortunately due to the lower priority of these apps vs. the things that actually pay the bills, we can't get them implemented as quickly as we would like. Even so, we believe our apps are some of the best supported ones out there and will always remain committed to having high quality applications for you to enjoy. Keep those feature requests coming and we will do our best to accommodate them if it's within the restrictions of the Windows 8 and/or Windows Phone stores!