It's been a little quiet on this blog lately! But it's been as busy as ever here working on lots of new content. Our latest update to the LCARS Interface app for Windows 8 seems to have been going over very well with all of you. We've gotten a ton of feedback on the new additions, and quite a few new great reviews as well! We followed that up with an update to the Windows Phone version that brought a few of the same new features.
Speaking of Windows Phone, that's one of the reason it has been so quiet...Windows Phone 8.1 is coming out soon and from the information that's been leaked so far, it seems like it is going to bring some sweeping changes to the platform and bring it even more in line with Windows 8/RT! We've been very busy prepping all of our libraries, LCARS and otherwise, in order to be ready to take full advantage of these changes. The more shared code we are able to use between the Windows 8 and Windows Phone versions of our apps, the faster and more feature-rich updates will happen. It also appears Windows Phone 8.1 will allow setting of a new default SMS app, so that may open up some new potential for the LCARS Personnel app that we currently have which is limited by Microsoft in terms of how useful it can be.
Also now in development....we've also begun porting our Windows8/RT and Windows Phone LCARS controls to the WPF and Silverlight platforms, which means more powerful versions of our LCARS style for the desktop may be possible in the future. This would enable us to accomplish many of the things a lot of you have asked for with regards to deeper system integration that just isn't possible on Windows RT. Of course maintaining desktop software is more complicated with regards to distribution and informing you of when updates are available, but it also doesn't have to go through any approval process so getting fixes out for bugs will be more immediate. We don't have any immediate plans to make a desktop application yet, but we want to make sure that if we do, we aren't starting completely from ground zero. The same goes for Silverlight. It may be possible in the future to build some web-based content that wouldn't require installing anything besides the Silverlight browser plugin, which most of you probably already have. This brings in complication of obtaining web hosting with the required capabilities and setting it up online. We also don't have any immediate plans to do anything with Silverlight, but we're building it the capability to do so in order to spread our popular LCARS application style as far as possible eventually!
There is a lot more in the works as well, but it would take a very long time to talk about all of it! We have a couple new utility apps in progress that may be of some use to you retro gamers out there. Also being re-built from the ground up is the Simulation core that exists in the LCARS Interface app for Windows 8, as well as having its own app for Windows Phone. We are building it more universally so it can work across any platform and with any interface in front of it. That brings about many new possibilities and it will also have more possibilities to increase difficulty eventually. This is still in the early stages though, as it's taking a while to set up the new architecture. Stay tuned though...there are lots of exciting things coming down the pipeline!
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
LCARS Interface for Windows 8 and Windows Phone Featured on Nokia Conversations Blog!
Nokia Conversations, the official Nokia blog, has done a feature on our LCARS apps for both Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone! Check out the article at the link below!
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