BBC News Mobile

BBC News Mobile v4.0.1.0 (Windows Phone 8) Beta

Hi All,

I’ve been working like mad to try and get this one done and up to scratch. I set myself a deadline of Sunday for having a beta out to start getting feedback, while its not as complete as I’d like it would be great to get your opinions on it!

*Updated* link contains 4.0.1.1:

Fixes:

  • Settings page failed to save – Fixed – Thanks @mrlacey
  • Live tile update issue – Fixed – Meee
  • Also thanks to Mark Osborn and Ed Harrison for their feedback.

What’s Changed:

  • Everything! I’ve rebuild the app from scratch
  • The old app was based off 2 year old code, written when I was back at University. It made me want to vomit so I’ve started again
  • New Shared core between WP8 and Windows 8
  • Much improved performance (hopefully)
  • Wide and Medium live tile support
  • Lock Screen support
  • In Pictures support
  • Improved layout (hopefully)

Its not finished yet, full post has details on known issues, link to XAP and screenshots.

Edit: Limited to those with dev accounts who can load XAPs.

What’s Missing:

I plan to get most of these features back in the app, I’d really appreciate your help in prioritising.

  • Offline reading mode
  • “Next story” button when reading story (first on my hit list)
  • Share story
  • Secondary live tiles for sections

Known issues:

  • Icons, when static, are defaults
  • No Welcome experience. User must use app bar to access settings & sections to setup live tiles, lockscreen and select feeds.
  • Wide livetile contains full string date, this is just to help debug
  • Suspend behaviour is untested.
  • Lots I’ve forgotten

So if you’ve got some time have a play and let me know what you think! PS. keep in mind I started from scratch on the 21st, week and a bit ago, so things are going to have rough edges. The more you can spot and share with me the better!

Get the XAP here.

wp_ss_20121130_0006   wp_ss_20121130_0007  wp_ss_20121130_0003    wp_ss_20121201_0003

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12 thoughts on “BBC News Mobile v4.0.1.0 (Windows Phone 8) Beta

  1. I don’t know whether you can get any logging or diagnostics from the app, but FWIW in my first few minutes playing I managed to get it into a nasty state to the extent that it seemed to completely lock up my Lumia 920 for a minute or so.

    This was my first run having deployed the XAP and I was swiping through the screens from right to left – I’d swiped all the way through the default screens and was starting on a second go through when the entire phone became unresponsive.

    Having restarted the phone and looked again, though, it looks like a nice update!

    • Thanks, at the moment I don’t have any diagnostics feeding back – still working on it! I’ve got logging on the builds locally and I’ve noticed a couple of things that I’ve fixed in the XAP I’m about to upload, so let me know if you see this again as I can potentially make you a build with some debug output baked in.

  2. Marwan says:

    Great app, but the update seems to have removed the breaking news feature and stories in the live tile. Is this something you are planning to sort out?

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