We're excited to announce another patch to our official Windows Phone app today, which you can download right now here in the marketplace (Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7). Whilst this version 4.4.18 is not the biggest update we've ever announced we suspect a fair few people will be quite happy.
Following a flood of e-mails and messages complaining about our live tile's compatibility with the developer preview of Windows Phone 8.1 we've made sure that tile transparency now works correctly for both of our live tiles. The other headline change is that we've now made all features of the app available to all users.
Full change list
- Changed method of rendering live tile to add transparency to our custom live tile
- Fixed a bug with the iconic live tile that caused transparency to fail after launching the app
- Unlocked all features of the app to trial users
- Switched to Microsoft Advertising SDK for monetised adverts
- Upgraded the AdDuplex controls used for backup adverts
It’s worth just saying a quick thanks to Telerik whose controls made it possible for us to render our custom tile with a transparent background!
Free apps and the future
Yes, the “trial” version of our app now effectively becomes the totally free version. Every feature, including our custom live tiles and notifications, is available to those using the trial version of the app – supported by the advertising banner at the bottom of the screen. If you wish to remove the in-app advertising you simply need to purchase the app, and obviously, we hope you do.
As for the future, it is very difficult to transition our monetisation strategy to Microsoft’s new universal app strategy but this is the start. We have to be as fair as we can to the many wonderful people who have already purchased the app (seriously, thank you to every single person for the support!) we will be updating the existing app to take advantage of a few features in Windows Phone 8.1 in the coming months, to continue our commitment to those users. We are discussing how universal apps will work for us in the future, but for now the two will be separate in their current state.
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