The Unification service by Liquid Daffodil is picking up steam with more consumers and developers getting involved. To help make the experience as feature rich as possible, the team has enabled inline image support, meaning developers can now send images in notifications, as well as the standard text. This is especially useful for social apps that could render photos shared by others, for example.
Both the Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps have recently been updated to implement and support the new functionality.
So what do consumers need to do? Nothing at all really, except continue pressing on developers who haven't yet got on the Unification train. Should you be a developer, we strongly urge you to get in touch with the Liquid Daffodil team to get your apps ready for Unification. It will help you interact with your user base even when the app isn't running - who doesn't want notifications?
We've previously gone into some detail as to why developers should look at this avenue seriously, so we'll not dive into this once more, but without repeating ourselves, be sure to fire an email to Liquid Daffodil for more information: unifyus@liquiddaffodil.com.
To wrap up this news on a high note, the team has also placed the web-based version of unification into beta, which will eventually enable consumers to keep track of and manage notifications through a web browser - perfect for those who find themselves on a public machine or using an operating system that's not supported.
If you'd like to be included in the beta program and see what all the fuss is about with the web version of Unification, be sure to contact the team via any Liquid Daffodil app and they'll look to throw you on. You can download Unification for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 for free. Side note: our own app is being updated to take advantage of this change.
Reader comments
Liquid Daffodil adds inline image support to notifications sent through Unification
Is this app any good?
Yes and I wouldn't trust anyone who tells you otherwise. The issue is that it needs developer support which will always be an uphill battle. Still if your favourite apps use this notification system it's a bonus for the users
That's a little irresponsible to say I think.
So no one can have a different opinion or they should not be trusted?
agreed! I am no Fan of LD. The whole point of this NC App is to lock users into their "Ecosystem".
That just isn't true. LD are offering a service for free that you are in no way forced to use, like an extension to their existing apps and for other developers to use if they so wish. They are not locking you into their own ecosystem
Since installing I get no toasts or updates on any tiles. Including their own apps.
They dont have the apps i use :/
Same here, and the ones that ARE available are all paid. :-/
Still, downloaded and sent an email from it to the apps that I want on it.
It's quite easy, and I suggest everyone do it, so that devs KNOW that there IS life in Wp8. :)
If a tree falls in the forrest and nobody hears it.....
Not so much for me today. The live tile hasn't even worked for Gleek
The app is fine... unfortunately, there is little support for it. So you won't be getting notifications from most (if any) of your apps. No Facebook, no ESPN, no twitter, etc.
I have tried messing with this app several times and I can't get it to work with the WP Central app or show me one notification. I see the WP notifications from time to time on my phone (L920), I have followed the instructions in both apps, unpinned, repinned, lathered, rinsed, repeated. I just can't get it to work on my phone. I'm sure it works on others, I don't know. Back to playing tile path.
Is there a place where they list all the apps that have "opted" in to particiatping with Unification?
They have a list of pending apps in their app. Its a free DL so it doesn't hurt to download and look
There's a bit of work involved as a user because its not something built into the phone OS since you have to enable it and sign in to SkyDrive. May not be an issue at first with the few developers but if this takes off I can't imagine resetting my phone and having to do that for 100 apps. Also, images through Unification? I'm sure that will start to attract developers for Ad transport.
"Picking up steam"? You mean adding more "requested" apps to the list? The only new app I've seen that added support for Unification was WPCentral, and that came quite a while after Unification's release. I'm sure the app is great but it's pretty useless right now unless you only use LD apps.
Tried it, hated it. If I got a tweet I had to tap all they way in to gleek, to mentions, and then reply. To many taps. Was hoping to be able to reply from unification.
To few apps using it at the moment, so for now its kinda useless imo.
Not even available for my device. So sad. I was amazed on Itsdagram's development and it's availability until it's renamed as Instance. Such a rapid development! I hope this app can be available for other region as well...
I never understood my fellow windows phone fan. As it stands, Microsoft a HUGE company has yet to give us a notification center and a company attempted to do this, albeit not the best execution, and instead of ppl being supportive and trying to get the word out they bash and trash the app because it "sucks" which in theory it doesn't suck so much as there isn't a lot of support from other developers. Its ironic because it actually mirrors the whole situation with windows phone itself.
Could never get this to work on my phone. And I really wanted it to work!!!! No support sheet with instructions...i put this app in the too hard basket!! Hopefully Microsoft sorts this in WP 8.1
I won't download and promote this app to my friends until Daffodil release this app in Indonesia region. And no, I won't change my region just to download this app. The developer should release this in customer regions.
Nice try...but FAIL! We've gone this far without a proper notification system and managed. Just wait a bit longer and MS will finally get it out.
You think it would auto detect apps install and configure automatically.
Pixl already had it! ;) Check it out (http://www.windowscentral.com/ext?link=http%3A%2F%2Fclkde.tradedoubler.c...)!