Thank you so much for all the interest in testing out the app. Rather that pick a few people I’ve decided to run an open beta on the condition that you all promise to give me lots and lots of feedback on the new features. Especially the background service in combination with pinned feeds and deep linking.
Few things to note:
- Before downloading please subscribe to the blog so that I can keep you up-to-date of any issues.
- Currently the initial load of the app isn’t great, visually, this is something I’m working on.
- As with all beta software, the normal warnings apply, expect bugs and issues. If you find one please get in touch so I can get it fixed!
- Mostly I just want to hear your opinions and ideas for the app. Whether they are look and feed, usability or performance.
- The Beta will work until a new version is available for download or the 1st of September.
The xap is available here. I look forward to hearing what you think!
GripDev 
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Breaking news push notifications work, but I had to turn them off- I was getting the same one repeated over and over every 30 min or so.
Usability improvement idea: when there are multiple “breaking news” announcements, sliding on the message at the top of the app could cycle through them.
Improvement: clicking on the Breaking news notification at the top of the app should open the associated story. Same if clicking on the toast notification.
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll work on a fix breaking news issue and I really like the idea of scrolling the breaking news when there are multiple items and deep linking them to stories. The only issue is that most of the breaking news items don’t have full stories associated with them.
Ah, that does make sense- still, it seems a bit weird from a UX perspective to have something that looks clickable not do anything. Hmm. Maybe even have a section it links to that shows all the past breaking news in a feed? So you’d have something it clicks through to, plus you could see the ones you miss if you get 3-4 breaking news and don’t have time to run over to your phone?
I’ll have a play, just finished working on the scrolling stuff. Hopefully publish a build in a couple of days so you can have a play.
Oh, forgot- the background of the articles has the words “Los Angeles” on the right. It’s a little distracting.
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Hi,
Love the look og your app, and would love to test it. But i haven’t got a dev unlocked Phone.
i know Microsoft has a new system for Beta testing apps, where you link your app to Windows live hotmail og the users, and those users han download your app via the marketplace..
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