Thursday, December 29, 2011

Enhanced sharing features in Picasa Mobile 2.7.5

We have just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.7.5, including some advanced sharing features:

  • Share link - allows you to share a direct link to an online photo or album, using any compatible app available on your Android device
  • Copy link - allows you to copy a direct link to an online photo or album to your device's clipboard
  • Email image - allows you to send an image as an email attachment
Whenever possible, for performance and flexibility reasons, Share link is the preferred method of sharing your albums and photos.

The new sharing features are available for your own albums and photos, the ones of your contacts' as well as for any public photos displayed in the Search section of the Social menu.

For more details regarding the new sharing features, please refer to the screenshots below.

We also included multi-select delete for web photos in this release.

Many thanks to the users who suggested these features and a Happy New Year to everyone!












Monday, December 26, 2011

Multi-select delete available for local media in Picasa Mobile

We've just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.7.4, that includes multi-select delete for local media files (photos and videos).
It also includes support for large local video playback (over 100MB). Please note the Google Picasa API does not allow uploading videos larger then 100MB.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Picasa Mobile 2.7.1: Improvements in the Contacts section of the Social menu

We just published a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.7.1, containing numerous improvements in the Contacts section of the Social menu:

  • By default, only the favorite (starred) contacts are shown.
  • You can show all contacts by choosing Filter / All from the context menu.
  • The contact's photo is now shown, if available
  • A contact's album list now includes album thumbnails
We hope you'll find these new enhancements useful. 
The Imprologic Team

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Android 4.0 (ICS) support

Yesterday evening we released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.7.0 that includes support for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
We were forced to publish this emergency release due to breaking changes in Android 4.0, for more details see http://webdiary.com/2011/12/14/ics-get-post/.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Local video playback & video upload in Picasa Mobile


A new version, 2.6.0 of Picasa Mobile including local video playback as well as video upload is now available from the Android Market.

Also, for all types of uploads, the progress percentage is now displayed when you drag down the upload icon from the notification area.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Picasa Mobile's main menu has a new look

Starting with version 2.5.0, Picasa Mobile's main menu has a new look. The new design replaces the old list view with a grid-based interface that facilitates identifying and selecting the right menu item.

Although the old menu was looking reasonably well on a phone, it was not the best choice for a tablet. The new layout adapts itself depending on the device's resolution, as well as and the current orientation.


Many thanks to Dan and Matth for suggesting this change!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Pich-zoom functionality in Picasa Mobile

We released today a new version of Picasa Mobile (2.4.0) that includes a very often requested feature: pinch-zoom. For best zooming results, please make sure the highest photo resolution is selected in Settings/Photo Browsing.

While in zoom mode, you can also pan the image by dragging it.

Many thanks to John, Lester, David, Ernst and Tzinzo for suggesting it.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Moving Web Photos in Picasa Mobile

We just released a new version of Picasa Mobile, 2.3.3, that allows users to move web photos to a different album than the one they currently reside in.



To use this feature, in the Web Photo Selector, tap the Menu key.
From the options menu that appears, choose "Move".





















Tap the thumbnails of the photos you want to move to select them.
The selected photos are displayed with a green border.

To unselect a selected photo, tap once again on its thumbnail.
The "Move" button shows you the number of selected photos (8, in this example).

Make sure all the photos you want to upload are selected, then tap on the "Move" button.










You will be prompted  to select the target album. Select the desired album from the list and you're done!



















Alternatively, the photos can be moved one by one by long-pressing on the thumbnail, then choosing "Move" from the context menu that appears.

Many thanks to Bob for requesting this feature and patiently waiting for it to be implemented, while supporting me with his kind emails!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

End of Support for Android 2.1 Starting with Picasa Mobile 2.3.0

Starting with Picasa Mobile 2.3.0, the support for Android 2.1 devices ends.
Android 2.1 is now used by less than 1% of our users and this change was needed in order to lay out the groundwork for new and awesome features only available in Android 2.2 and up.

If you are still on Android 2.1, your downloaded version of Picasa Mobile will continue to work, but you will not be able to receive updates until you upgrade to Android 2.2.

Stay tuned for more details.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Google Giveth, Google Taketh Away

On a day like today, if you're an Android developer, it's easy to feel like you're loosing it...

The Android Market has had, yet again, tons of problems. Of course, the average user doesn't know that.
And of course, they blame the developer and punish him with bad ratings and scathing reviews.

Some of the users have the decency to contact the developer with questions before shooting from the hip.
Others stick to their one-star guns.

On some level, I understand them. They need somebody to blame for spending $0.99 on an app that refuses to download. And it's hard to believe that Google is the culprit.

Of course, Almighty Google could do a lot to improve the situation for everybody. That is, if they cared...

In the good tradition of openness we came to expect from Google, they could admit that they have a problem (9 out of 10 experts say it's the first step on the path to recovery:)).
More importantly, they could provide a way for the developer to visibly respond to unsubstantiated claims from users.

For now, I suggest putting a red banner at the top of the Market app, something like the weather warnings on TV:

Severe Android Market conditions in effect. Use it at your on risk of being frustrated and disappointed.

I'm joking, of course. But something is very rotten in Googleland...

Picasa Mobile 2.2.8 is now live

This new release adds multi-select download for your and your contacts' photos.

Many thanks to Jim for suggesting it.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Picasa Mobile 2.2.7 is now available

Picasa Mobile 2.2.7 for Android is now available for download on the Android Market. Major highlights of this release:

  • Slideshow capabilities: the slideshow can be launched through the context menu and can be used with your online photos, your local photos, with any public photos displayed as the result of a search as well as with your contacts' photos.
  • Russian translation - many thanks to Stanislav Belyaev for translating the user interface into Russian. Great work, Stanislav!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Picasa Mobile 2.2.5 is now live

Picasa Mobile 2.2.4 for Android is now available on the Android Market. Major highlights of this release: 

  • Optional photo caching: if you are looking at those crazy vacation photos over and over again :), it would help if you enable photo caching. You can do so from the Settings menu, under Photo Browsing -> Caching.
  • We reorganized the Settings menu into categories - there were just too many options in the same screen.
Many thanks to John for his suggestions!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Picasa Mobile 2.2.4 is now available

Picasa Mobile 2.2.4 for Android is now available on the Android Market. Major highlights of this release: 

  • Album search - you can use a keyword to filter the list of displayed albums
  • Full screen photo browsing - starting with this version, the photos are displayed in full screen by default
  • Optionally hide the photo captions when browsing through photos
  • By default, show the newest thumbnails first
Many thanks to John, Tzinzo and Harald for suggesting some of the above enhancements!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Picasa Mobile 2.2.1 is now available

Picasa Mobile 2.2.1 is now available on the Android Market. Major highlights of this release:

  • Video playback - you can play any video stored on Picasa Web Albums, regardless if it's yours or if it was made public by somebody else, including your contacts
  • Thumbnail caching - this feature was requested by many users in order to speed up the thumbnail scrolling
Many thanks to Lester and Tzinzo for their suggestions.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Picasa Mobile 2.0 Is Now Live!

As mentioned in an earlier post, a major release of Picasa Mobile for Android is now available for download from the Google Android Market.

The main highlights of this new version:
  • Social features:
  • Public Picasa photo search
  • View public Picasa albums of your contacts
  • Invite your friends to see your albums with one click, from within the app
  • Web album visibility editing
  • French, Spanish, Italian and German translations
  • Improved overall performance and stability

Stay tuned for more highlights and new features! As usual, all the updates are free, always!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Working on Picasa Mobile 2.0

As some of you may have noticed, we slowed a bit the pace of new releases. That is because we are working hard on the version 2.0 of Picasa Mobile, which we expect to become available towards the beginning of July.
This major release would include lots of performance improvements, as well as some social features.
Stay tuned!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Feedback, Please!

A month has passed since we released Picasa Mobile and we have well over 200 downloads. One of the most challenging things so far has been getting user feedback.

Like with any other consumer product, knowing what the user expects from it, how he/she uses it and what other features they would like are essential ingredients in creating a successful app.

So far, we have been pretty quick in responding to our users' queries, and our above average rating reflects it.

We were told that browsing through a lot of local pictures may be a problem, so we implemented a time filter.

We were asked for camera key support and we implemented it as of version 1.0.9.
We were told the some phones don't have a physical SD card (see LG-P999 G2x) and, starting with version 1.1.2, we adapted Picasa Mobile to use emulated SD cards.

But we are sure that the items above are just the tip of the iceberg. So please, send us your feedback so we can continue to improve Picasa Mobile. And rest assured that any upgrade will always be free.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Picasa Mobile - Other Platforms

Yes, we were thinking big and we named it Picasa Mobile, but so far, it only runs on Android phones and tablets.
Do we intend to make it available on other mobile platforms, like iPhone and Blackberry? Of course we do! But there are some challenges...
While the Android SDK and its tools make mobile development a breeze, the same cannot be said about other platforms. Here's why.


1. iPhone / iPad
Developing apps for iPhone makes sense from a market share standpoint. The iPhone's market share is estimated at about 30% (slightly below Android's) and it would make business sense developing for its platform.
However, developing for iPhone is highly restrictive.

First off, you absolutely have to develop on an Apple device. Since a Mac laptop sells for about 1,200 CAD, this begs the question: do I really want to spend that kind of money to develop 99 cent apps?

Secondly, publishing on Apple's App Store seems quite painful. The apps are subject to a review process and only the approved apps make it to the App Store. And when it's finally published, if a user asks for a refund, Apple gets to keep its 30% and the developer has to refund the whole cost out of her pocket.

In terms of coding, Objective-C (the development language for iOS and most things Apple), although arguably faster, seems somewhat antiquated (think header files) and uses non-mainstream development paradigms (ex.: messages instead of method calls).
In my opinion, Java seems a lot more natural, intuitive and productive.

2. Blackberry / PlayBook
The transition from Android to Blackberry development seems less steep, since both of them are Java-based. Also, with RIM (the creator of Blackberry) being a Canadian company, it gives us even more incentive to try it out.

There's a big downside, though: the Blackberry development tools only run on Windows! Yes, you heard it right, although it is Java-based and in the form of an Eclipse plug-in, you need Windows to run it...
This presents a big challenge for us, since all our development is done on Ubuntu.

The PlayBook development seems a bit more accessible and it is available for Linux; however its market share has to pick up and RIM has to fix some of the problems with its tablet before it becomes really interesting for developers.
On the bright side, RIM has gotten the message that it cannot survive without a thriving development community. Although it may be a bit late for the existing Blackberry devices, the new direction seems to favor Adobe's Air platform for app development - in my opinion, a very good step forward.
Another good step: apparently RIM has waived the developer fee. (I'm using the word apparently since the said fee is still mentioned a few times on their website, I guess they haven't updated their whole site yet.)

Rumor has it that they also intend to support Android apps, which kind of begs the question: why build a different OS to run Android apps, when you can use the Android OS?

3. Windows Phone
At this time, we find developing for Windows Phone very unlikely. As mentioned before, all our development is done on Ubuntu.
Moreover, Windows Phone's market share and prospects are quite dim and we don't like betting on a loosing horse.
But, while we're on the subject, I can't stop wondering, what was in Nokia executives' heads when they forged an alliance with Microsoft? I understand that their Symbian OS had become quite outdated, but they could easily have adopted the Android platform without any strings attached.

Conclusion
For the foreseeable future, I think we'll stick with the Android framework. Although not perfect, it is, in our opinion, the best mobile framework available.
And you cannot help but be amazed at the stroke of genius Google showed here: release an open-source framework to be used and improved by the most handset manufacturers out there. And, while at it, trying to keep the mobile universe free...

Monday, May 2, 2011

Picasa Mobile - Initial Relase

At long last, on May 1st 2011, we released our first Android application dubbed Picasa Mobile.
It can be downloaded from the Android Market and more details, including a comprehensive online help can be accessed on the Imprologic's main site.


We felt there was a need on the market for such an application. The built-in Gallery app doesn't offer a lot of features in terms of interacting with Picasa while other similar applications seemed kind of incomplete or presented security concerns.


The intention was to allow the user to easily browse through her Picasa web albums, manage them and upload new photos, even directly from the camera. We are really proud of this last feature since no other Android app on the market seems to offer it. As the cherry on the cake, Picasa Mobile also uploads your current coordinates along with your pictures when you use its Camera option.


We also believe that the best place for your photos is on the web, you can easily share them with your friends and you can never loose them. Your phone may break or get stolen, you don't want to loose your precious vacation or family pictures if that happens. Bottom line, at any given moment, storing your photos online is the safest alternative.


Finally, here's a summary list of features, at the time of writing this post:
  • Direct camera upload including GPS coordinates - it will upload your photos the moment you take them. The photos will appear in your default Picasa album and they will include the location where you were at the time.
  • Fast Picasa album and photo browsing - you can use this app as a virtual wallet photo, you can show your Picasa albums to friends and brag about the places you visited.
  • Manage your Picasa albums: create new albums or update existing ones.
  • Local photo browsing and upload: review the pictures on your phone's SD card and upload them to the album of your choice.
  • Multiple accounts: you can easily switch between all your Picasa accounts. Starting with version 1.0.5, you can choose to use your phone's built-in Google account(s).
  • Secure connections: all the communication with Google Picasa is over https.
  • Free and continuous software updates: we will be releasing new features often, based on user feedback.
And because a picture is worth a thousand words, you may also want to see some Picasa Mobile screenshots, or  a video demo of the app.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Mission Statement

Imprologic is a software startup focusing on mobile and web software development. Our goal is to offer innovative, user friendly applications in an interconnected world. We intend to have a global presence, while maintaining a distinct Canadian character.