In a series of blog posts we’d like to give an update on all the things we’re planning for this release. The third part in this series will give an overview of the OS X Client we are releasing and the numerous webapp improvements that have been deployed over the last weeks.
In a series of blog posts we’d like to give an update on all the things we’re planning for this release. The third part in this series will give an overview of the OS X Client we are releasing and the numerous webapp improvements that have been deployed over the last weeks.
Mac OS X client
Another thing we are very enthusiastic about is the first version of an OS X Client that does the syncing magic between your Mac’s Address Book and Soocial. This is a major addition to the Soocial eco-system that we hope will successfully capture what we’re trying to achieve. The initial version will run on both Tiger (OS X 10.4) and Leopard (OS X 10.5). It’s really awesome to see the contacts in my Address Book showing up in my phone. Now any change made in any connected Soocial device will find it’s way to all other devices. For example adding my moms new mobile number (she just got a mobile for the first time!) in Address Book meant it was available in my phone so I could call her. We’re still experiencing some crashes so once we have that sussed out we’ll be releasing it for our beta users to enjoy.
The OS X client is installed as a preference pane, and thus will reside in your system preferences. You can choose to update your contacts every 30 minutes, every 2 hours, daily or manually. We’ve included an automatic software update, so you can easily install improved versions. Of course you have total control over removing Soocial in case you decide you don’t need or want it anymore. You can choose to show Soocial in your menu bar (see image below) so that you can trigger a sync, or see when the OS X client is syncing. (Of course your menu bar might get a bit crowded, it’s your choice.)
Webapp improvements
Another thing that we’ve been working hard on is increasing the usability and performance of our webapp. We think this will be a big part of how people will be using Soocial. For example, we’ve found it (us developers and our alpha users) a lot easier to add contacts to the webapp than in the interfaces of our clumsy phones, or when we were calling and getting a number during a conversation. The interface improvements have seen the webapp becoming simpler and less cluttered, including the application settings. We’ve increased the number of devices that support (Over-the-Air) configuration via SMS, so that its even easier to signup. We hope this will decrease the headaches of getting SyncML setup correctly on the phones.
Invites
We are handing out invites to users that join us around our campfire, so if you want an invite be sure to pop in there! We’ll be release invites to our existing users soon, so users can send out invites themselves. We are still working hard on getting a significant performance increase, before we get that implemented we are hesitant to release Soocial too quickly. We want to guarantee our existing users good access to their contacts. Once we are confident that new users won’t cause problems for existing users we’ll provide our beta users with 5 invites to hand out. Keep watching the invite count in the webapp to see if you have received any yet.
Future features
We’ve added a short list of features that we’re planning to create (see side box, on right ->). Although they are in order of priority for us, we won’t necessary release them in the order listed. Also the feature roadmap could change, as soon as one of our brilliant engineers or our lovely beta testers come up with new idea’s. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue marking items off this list in the near future, the OS X Client will be the released very shortly and we hope to include all Nokia and Siemens phones soon. Also feel free to join us around our Campfire to discuss the feature roadmap.
One Comment
Sounds great, guys!