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!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
LCARS Interface for Windows 8.1 (Version 3.0, Release 36) has been Released!
It's finally here! After a month and a half of development, version 3 is now complete and should start rolling out to all of you today.
On the surface it may not look like that much has changed when you first load up the new version. You will notice there is now a PDF reader, which many of you have requested over the past several months! That alone is worth submitting an update for, but there was a whole lot more done than that. Read on for more details on what's new!
On the surface it may not look like that much has changed when you first load up the new version. You will notice there is now a PDF reader, which many of you have requested over the past several months! That alone is worth submitting an update for, but there was a whole lot more done than that. Read on for more details on what's new!
Friday, January 24, 2014
Working Hard on the Next Update!
Well if Microsoft featuring LCARS Interface for Windows 8 in the Red Stripe deals a couple weeks ago was good for anything, it certainly opened up LCARS to a whole new set of users. It has been a bit of a whirlwind working to sort through all of the feedback and minor issues that we have heard about from you all recently! But I'm loving every minute of it, and of getting the next update ready!
If you follow us on Facebook (which I suggest you all do, since we tend to post a lot of updates and sneak peaks on there that we don't post anywhere else usually) you have seen a few screenshots of the next update and some of the new features it will bring. At this point we are looking at Version 3.0 which will come as Release 36 when it is ready. You may notice that you are currently on Release 33. Releases 34 and 35 were used for the price changes during the Red Stripe deal. We are going to keep the release numbers in sync with what Microsoft has to avoid confusion. Release 36 will have enough changes to count for 3 updates though! Read on to see what we've been up to...
If you follow us on Facebook (which I suggest you all do, since we tend to post a lot of updates and sneak peaks on there that we don't post anywhere else usually) you have seen a few screenshots of the next update and some of the new features it will bring. At this point we are looking at Version 3.0 which will come as Release 36 when it is ready. You may notice that you are currently on Release 33. Releases 34 and 35 were used for the price changes during the Red Stripe deal. We are going to keep the release numbers in sync with what Microsoft has to avoid confusion. Release 36 will have enough changes to count for 3 updates though! Read on to see what we've been up to...
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Changing gears for a little bit...
Recently we've spent most of our time working on the brand new "ship" that will exist as a backbone for our next major update to LCARS Interface for Windows 8. Our preliminary work on that has been very promising! We are looking forward to continuing that work soon.
Now that we've had a bit of time to examine the changes for developers with Windows 8.1, we are finally starting to go ahead and make the changes in order to take full advantage of all the new features. The first step was mentioned previously and that was to divide out the Windows Phone 7 code from our portable class libraries that make it possible to share code between the different platforms. Some of the modules taking advantage of this are the Clock, Weather, and Calculator. The Simulator also follows this structure. We have made all of the necessary changes and upgraded our projects to isolate WP7 so that we can continue to support it as best we can, while moving the other platforms forward with all of the API improvements Microsoft has made available.
Today we are turning our focus to re-targeting LCARS Interface for Windows 8 (and its associated framework components) to Windows 8.1, which if we did nothing else than re-compile it and release, it would benefit from many performance enhancements. We have been pretty successful in making this app run lean and mean as it is, so any additional optimizations we get for free are most welcome as well! In our opinion, Microsoft has been doing a fantastic job of listening to developers and they have been making tons of changes to make our lives easier. Some things we had to work around before are now fixed. We may even be able to finally provide a basic web browser for the next version that so many of you have asked for! We will continue looking into this as we have always promised and evaluate what we can do within the new limitations.
We could blog for days upon days describing all of the changes that Windows 8.1 will bring, but safe to say it is going to take a bit of time to optimize everything for a new set of APIs and to add new functionality to existing modules. We know you all have been missing our previous rapid updates, but we are rebuilding the entire foundation of the entertainment side of things, as well as making bug fixes, optimizations, and feature additions to pretty much every module in the app! That is in addition to adding several brand new modules, and topping everything off with a huge helping of animations. As you can imagine, this is no small task, and we need to make sure that every feature still works as intended after the updates.
We have no ETA on when the next update will be yet, but at this point it is possible we will do it in two stages now instead of one. We may make the updates to the productivity side of things first, and then update the entertainment side later on, as that will take the most time. This will allow us to roll in all of the new API calls and take advantage of the new performance improvements for the existing modules more quickly. We will continue to make updates as we narrow down the release cycle.
Now that we've had a bit of time to examine the changes for developers with Windows 8.1, we are finally starting to go ahead and make the changes in order to take full advantage of all the new features. The first step was mentioned previously and that was to divide out the Windows Phone 7 code from our portable class libraries that make it possible to share code between the different platforms. Some of the modules taking advantage of this are the Clock, Weather, and Calculator. The Simulator also follows this structure. We have made all of the necessary changes and upgraded our projects to isolate WP7 so that we can continue to support it as best we can, while moving the other platforms forward with all of the API improvements Microsoft has made available.
Today we are turning our focus to re-targeting LCARS Interface for Windows 8 (and its associated framework components) to Windows 8.1, which if we did nothing else than re-compile it and release, it would benefit from many performance enhancements. We have been pretty successful in making this app run lean and mean as it is, so any additional optimizations we get for free are most welcome as well! In our opinion, Microsoft has been doing a fantastic job of listening to developers and they have been making tons of changes to make our lives easier. Some things we had to work around before are now fixed. We may even be able to finally provide a basic web browser for the next version that so many of you have asked for! We will continue looking into this as we have always promised and evaluate what we can do within the new limitations.
We could blog for days upon days describing all of the changes that Windows 8.1 will bring, but safe to say it is going to take a bit of time to optimize everything for a new set of APIs and to add new functionality to existing modules. We know you all have been missing our previous rapid updates, but we are rebuilding the entire foundation of the entertainment side of things, as well as making bug fixes, optimizations, and feature additions to pretty much every module in the app! That is in addition to adding several brand new modules, and topping everything off with a huge helping of animations. As you can imagine, this is no small task, and we need to make sure that every feature still works as intended after the updates.
We have no ETA on when the next update will be yet, but at this point it is possible we will do it in two stages now instead of one. We may make the updates to the productivity side of things first, and then update the entertainment side later on, as that will take the most time. This will allow us to roll in all of the new API calls and take advantage of the new performance improvements for the existing modules more quickly. We will continue to make updates as we narrow down the release cycle.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
LCARS Interface featured as Red Stripe deal in the Windows 8 Store!
As part of their ongoing Red Stripe deal promotion, Microsoft has chosen LCARS Interface for Windows 8 to participate this week! For approximately one week you will be able to purchase the app for 50% off the normal price!
We're only a couple days in and the response has been wonderful so far! It is great to hear that so many from all over the world like what we have done with the app, and we are sure that you will continue to enjoy the major updates we have planned for the coming months! We also appreciate all of the new 5 star reviews we have gotten in the past couple days! As always, we read each and every one of them and take any suggestions made very seriously about how we can improve the experience for you. No request is too big or too small...we will do it if we can.
So far it seems that with Windows 8.1, Microsoft has made quite a few things available through their APIs that were previously not available, and many of those things have been requested before, so we are looking forward to now being able to address that in the coming updates. Given the extensive changes happening, it is not likely that we will release another update for Windows 8.0. Given that the update to 8.1 is completely free, and anything running Windows 8.0 can upgrade to it, we see no reason to hold back the capabilities and support 2 platforms. It is a very different scenario than Windows Phone has, where we will be continuing to support WP7 because those users have no option to upgrade to a newer version. We have completed our modifications to support legacy WP7 devices that were mentioned in the last post. We see no major issues with continuing WP7 feature additions if they are possible on the platform, other than potentially a short delay after we release for WP8.
Hope all of you have recovered from the holidays!
We're only a couple days in and the response has been wonderful so far! It is great to hear that so many from all over the world like what we have done with the app, and we are sure that you will continue to enjoy the major updates we have planned for the coming months! We also appreciate all of the new 5 star reviews we have gotten in the past couple days! As always, we read each and every one of them and take any suggestions made very seriously about how we can improve the experience for you. No request is too big or too small...we will do it if we can.
So far it seems that with Windows 8.1, Microsoft has made quite a few things available through their APIs that were previously not available, and many of those things have been requested before, so we are looking forward to now being able to address that in the coming updates. Given the extensive changes happening, it is not likely that we will release another update for Windows 8.0. Given that the update to 8.1 is completely free, and anything running Windows 8.0 can upgrade to it, we see no reason to hold back the capabilities and support 2 platforms. It is a very different scenario than Windows Phone has, where we will be continuing to support WP7 because those users have no option to upgrade to a newer version. We have completed our modifications to support legacy WP7 devices that were mentioned in the last post. We see no major issues with continuing WP7 feature additions if they are possible on the platform, other than potentially a short delay after we release for WP8.
Hope all of you have recovered from the holidays!
Sunday, January 5, 2014
A sad situation for LCARS apps on Windows Phone 7....
Ever since we decided to support Windows Phone 7 for our LCARS style apps, we have been able to keep the features and functionality very close to our Windows Phone 8 app, short of a few features that are just not supported by the platform. We hope to continue this trend as much as possible, but it's going to be a little more difficult going forward.
It seems with Windows 8.1, Microsoft decided to give the hard axe to Windows Phone 7 support for its portable class libraries, and that means if we want to be able to support the newest functions in Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 going forward, we will have to remove support for Windows Phone 7 when it comes to a lot of our code. This is a bit of a tough pill for us to swallow, since we just spent several weeks a couple months ago setting everything up to work across all Windows platforms including WP7!
So, what does this actually mean for our WP7 users? Well, it means things will go back to the way they were previously where WP7 may get updates a little slower than the rest. We don't intend to completely drop support for it in the short term. We are going to have to make some changes to our back end code once again to have one code base for Windows 8(.1), Windows Phone 8(.1), Windows Desktop (when we get there...) and possibly XBox One (If we ever get there...) and a separate code base again for WP7. Rest assured, if it's possible to add the new features to the WP7 app that we add to the WP8 app, we will just as we always have. It's just going to take a bit longer in come cases. It's a shame that we only had the luxury of our current setup for a couple of updates...it really did make things nicer!
But Microsoft, for what it's worth, is doing a lot of great things to improve the Windows Phone platform overall, and so we intend to take full advantage of that as they bring the Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms closer together, our LCARS apps will grow closer together and more tightly integrated as well.
We will also have a bit of good news coming up later this week. We can't say what it is just yet, but those of you who lurk on this blog but haven't yet gotten our Windows 8 app will want to stay tuned for our next post...
It seems with Windows 8.1, Microsoft decided to give the hard axe to Windows Phone 7 support for its portable class libraries, and that means if we want to be able to support the newest functions in Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 going forward, we will have to remove support for Windows Phone 7 when it comes to a lot of our code. This is a bit of a tough pill for us to swallow, since we just spent several weeks a couple months ago setting everything up to work across all Windows platforms including WP7!
So, what does this actually mean for our WP7 users? Well, it means things will go back to the way they were previously where WP7 may get updates a little slower than the rest. We don't intend to completely drop support for it in the short term. We are going to have to make some changes to our back end code once again to have one code base for Windows 8(.1), Windows Phone 8(.1), Windows Desktop (when we get there...) and possibly XBox One (If we ever get there...) and a separate code base again for WP7. Rest assured, if it's possible to add the new features to the WP7 app that we add to the WP8 app, we will just as we always have. It's just going to take a bit longer in come cases. It's a shame that we only had the luxury of our current setup for a couple of updates...it really did make things nicer!
But Microsoft, for what it's worth, is doing a lot of great things to improve the Windows Phone platform overall, and so we intend to take full advantage of that as they bring the Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms closer together, our LCARS apps will grow closer together and more tightly integrated as well.
We will also have a bit of good news coming up later this week. We can't say what it is just yet, but those of you who lurk on this blog but haven't yet gotten our Windows 8 app will want to stay tuned for our next post...
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