Official WPCentral app v1.4 - now with a delicious serving of Mango
Happy Mango day everyone! After a lot of hard work I'm pleased to announce that WPCentral has officially gone Mango, so for those of you rocking the developer previews, or those lucky enough to have mango today you should see an update to v1.4 in the Marketplace very soon.
If you who have opted for the full version of the app here's what you can look forward to:
- Brand new podcast player with Background Audio
- Brand new double-sided live tile with number of new articles since last opened
- Live tiles for each section of the app
- Toast notifications for news
- Background downloading of the news feed when live tiles are enabled
Whereas if you think the best things in life should be free you'll find:
- Brand new advertising provider (AdDuplex) making the app much more responsive
- Fast app switching
- Pinnable tiles for each section of the app
- New links page for viewing articles or web pages
- Search extensibility, the app will provide search results for Bing video games and Software
- Toggle system tray option
- Speed optimisations as part of Mango update
- Fixed a bug in the article parser & Facebook authentication
Of course with the exception of adverts the full version features all of the free features as well.
If you missed Daniel's preview a month back then you can catch the video after the break, you can find the app here in the marketplace
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Los says:
Mango day is like the best holiday ever
jubbing says:
Great job Jay, can't wait to see it myself.
futurix says:
One thing that I think can be improved is that now you are targeting Mango, you can use built-in system progress indicator (same as hubs) and drop your custom one.
JayTBennett says:
futurix I did look into the indicator, but couldn't see any real reason to upgrade, there's no performance gain and our custom one can be repositioned to the centre of the screen for certain pages. Still I will of course investigate further if feedback asks for it :)
futurix says:
SystemTray progress indicator runs on separate thread - so it never stutters even if UI thread is blocked. Also it saves space when SystemTray is enabled (which by the way I think should be the default for WPCentral app ;-)
JayTBennett says:
Ah but the progress bar we use is Jeff Wilcox's performance progress bar, which also doesn't run on the UI thread ;)With regards to the system tray, like every other option in the app each user has a completely different opinion, so I just have to make as many options as I can! I can remember in v1.0 I had no settings screen because my thinking was "people want a nice streamlined experience, not lots of control" oh how wrong I was :)
lerimer says:
Also when sharing, you can add the built in social network system. Instead of the old one. God I'm dying for comments to be added!!!
JayTBennett says:
lermier, I will look into using that share system, I'll admit I hadn't even thought about it until now. As for comments, I really wish I could have included them this time around, believe me I'm pushing for it
Ninja1043 says:
The update is out boys and girls!!! :)
surge48 says:
Awesome!!! *Checks phone*
FacilisDK says:
Update! What update :(
JayTBennett says:
If you're not seeing the update I recommend you turn your phone off and on again, then have a look on the marketplace yourself. Of course if you don't have Mango installed you won't be able to see this update.
psychotron#CB says:
Haven't yet used this app, but didn't see anything about forum access/updates. Any plans to include this in a future version, if possible? Would really love to see that since there doesn't seem to be a mobile version of the forums for the web browser and Board Express has proven to be a little "iffy" for me. Thanks!
JayTBennett says:
It's planned, but there are other features that have a higher priority right now, so stay tuned and I'll do my best to implement something if possible
psychotron#CB says:
Thanks for your response Jay!
theman60099 says:
why charge for the live tile? one of them should be free at least, this is getting out of hand.
JayTBennett says:
Because the kids need new shoes!... Actually full disclosure: I don't have any kids but the app does take me quite a lot of time to develop and support, I simply can't do it all for free, apologies
theman60099 says:
not saying to make all of it free, but at least one of the live tiles should be free.
lumic says:
Absolutely. Worth the purchase - $1 for what is a well-polished source for all things Windows Phone? I enjoy it more than using wpcentral.com on my laptop, with the exception of forums / commenting.
Daniel Rubino says:
@theman60099Dude, it's $0.99 on a phone that costs hundreds of dollars. C'mon. You act like we should devote hours a day to this job and not cover our server costs...?
theman60099 says:
I don't act like it l, just saying that at least the main tile should be free, doesn't ad revenue provide enough? I also made a pledge not to buy any apps no matter how much they cost or how useful they are, if there was an app that would make tons of women fall for me I probably still wouldn't buy it.
scdkad says:
I'll finish what Dan probably wanted to say-you must be one cheap SOB! Besides, almost all of the really well done apps are the ones that are worth paying for. You may as well not have the phone...
JayTBennett says:
Nope, the advertising revenue is awful on Windows Phone right now.The way I look at it, if you want free viewing of the content, there's the mobile site.If you want to load things in a nicer interface, and be able to share article etc plus have access to the search, there's the free version of the app.Whereas if you want premium features, deep marketplace links, live tiles, video searches and the podcast player, the paid version is there.I'm also going to remind people (for the last time) that it is just me developing the app. Rich Edmonds does (an awesome job on) the design, and the site guys work with me to provide feeds, but they don't pay me to develop it. So my only support comes from the awesome people who pay me 79 english pence :)
stevesu says:
I now have Mango, thanks to your handy dandy instructions on forcing updates in Zune...So now my question is...when i search marketplace for either your existing apps or your new mango app (and the other mango apps you've been posting about), they either come up blank or no update necessary, etc.Amy i doing something wrong or does the phone need to sit a bit before the apps will start updating to Mango???
scdkad says:
Wondering the same thing-I'll wait a day to see if Marketplace notifies us..
StealthCrawler says:
Why did you guys change the live tile to not have a picture. Constantly Updating pictures give a lot of color to the home screen and make it appear more dynamic. I agree it's only eye candy that i'm asking for, as the current flip on the tile still tells you the update time and the latest story title. But if you can, please add the picture from the latest story to the live tile. Make it optional if you want.
JayTBennett says:
@StealthCrawlerDon't worry it's still there :) The front of the tile will change to be a featured story if the site writers decide to publicise a particular story. The new tile count and back of the tile headline are just automated code I wrote to make the live tile a bit more... well... lively
