[akosnitzky]

To Viigo’s beta Community,

Thank you for all the wonderful feedback you’ve sent us so far – and keep it coming!

We’ve received close to 4,000 submissions, from our roughly 8,000 beta testers – and believe it or not, we’re reading them all! Since we cannot respond to your feedback on an individual basis, we’re going to send periodic updates (like this one) to the entire beta community (both private / public), addressing the most common requests collectively.

Top Features Requested

1. More Sports (NHL, NFL, NCAA, Premier League, etc.)

Expect more sports throughout the summer, including NFL, NCAA, etc as the seasons kick off.

2. Ability to customize the home screen (reorder Viigo’s services, select a ‘default’ service, etc.)

For the beta, in order to keep things simple, we fixed the services on the home screen. When Viigo ships, it will be fully customizable by the user.

3. Enrich the weather service with more features (rename cities, radar, reordering, drill down further, etc.) Coming! Stay tuned!

4. Add more BlackBerry shortcut keys (ie. T for Top, B for bottom, Space for page down, etc.)

Good suggestion, we’re working to adopt common BlackBerry shortcuts.

5. Option to save media to a media card.

Users will have the option of saving Audio to the media card, and we’re exploring options to allow you to store your articles and channels there too.

6. Enable Wifi.

Improved support for WiFi is coming, including auto-sensing and adoption of WiFi.

7. Stocks – ability to create a custom portfolio.

In the beta, we shipped only a sample portfolio. In the production release you will be able to enter your own portfolio(s).

8. Travel – include flight schedules, restaurant reviews, etc.

Much of this is coming in the July 31st beta release.

9. A web console to improve the Viigo experience.

We’re working on this too … expect to see the first examples of this in the July 31st beta.

Most Common Bugs Submitted

• Memory Consumption - Depending on which BlackBerry device and which OS you’re running, you may notice an increased consumption of memory and increased batter usage while running the beta version of Viigo. We are aware of this issue and are working on improving it in a future release. (Symptoms: occasional lag ‘effect’, occasional hourglass, quicker battery drainage than normal.)
Pulling the battery will reset your memory settings. This is a known issue, and we are taking it very seriously. In the next week or two, we’ll be shipping an update to the beta which addresses some of the more critical memory issues. For production, we’re planning to unveil major changes to memory management/utilization.


• Dates displayed do not match actual dates. (i.e. days are off by one day). We’re looking into this.

• Renaming RSS Feed titles sometimes causes Viigo to crash/hang. Known issue … will be fixed in an upcoming release.

• Custom titles are not preserved after installing the new beta version of Viigo. Known issue … this one is a little trickier as we currently delete the data store after each beta upgrade (for safety reasons) and custom titles are preserved on-device in that store. We're looking into a better long term solution here.

• Sports, Stocks & Entertainment categories may not work initially; they may get stuck on the “initializing service” screen. Known issue … will be improved shortly.

• The "P" and "N" keys for navigating in News and RSS are switched from how they worked in version 2.2. Working on this.

• The number of max articles retrieved may exceed Max Article setting. Known issue … working on an improved algorithm here.

• Viigo takes a long time to close. We’re working on this.

• Saved articles are not preserved after installing the new beta version of Viigo. Known issue … caused by our deletion of the data store each time we install a new beta. Won’t happen in production.

Private Beta Testers

In the first few hours of our private beta launch last week we experienced a password authentication issue, preventing access to the private beta portal to a few of you. We’ve since fixed the issue – please try downloading/logging in again.

Don’t forget to stay tuned to the private beta web portal, http://pb.viigo.com to vote on popular features, review product updates, faq’s, and release notes.

FYI – Private beta testers will receive their first advanced beta in the next week or so. That version will include a preview of a major new capability.

Thank you,

Team Viigo

[shampoo]

Will version 3.x support the sync of read/unread articles from an aggregate such as Google Reader ?

Thanks

J

[bostonnerd]

Okay, so where is the Beta update? The one week is long over

[sabotage79]

I can't wait. Viigo is my fav app

[jubrand]

Any word on the new beta update?

[pandabearsue]

I love Viigo, but I've gone without it for weeks, now, because the memory leaks and battery drain was significant enough for me to keep it off until the update comes.

[akosnitzky]

Wirelessly posted (Verizon 8830)

The Original Post reads July 31

[squeff]

Originally Posted by akosnitzky

Wirelessly posted (Verizon 8830)

The Original Post reads July 31

Private beta in "next week or so." That was from the end of June. We're getting to the end of "or so."

[bostonnerd]

Originally Posted by squeff

Private beta in "next week or so." That was from the end of June. We're getting to the end of "or so."

Time I got re-acquainted with the Newsgator BB client.

[akosnitzky]

Originally Posted by squeff

Private beta in "next week or so." That was from the end of June. We're getting to the end of "or so."

Oh. I was NOT included in that group.

[jorgeledesmadds]

Originally Posted by squeff

Private beta in "next week or so." That was from the end of June. We're getting to the end of "or so."

Tell me about, I switched to FreeRange RSS, they're coming out with a new version really soon, trust me on this one It so much better than Viigo I think, I don't need a heavy memory app to read my RSS feeds, all the other stuff is cool but its not a must for me and I'm going to risk this by saying probably for a lot of people

[jorgeledesmadds]

I'm part of the private and still nothing but huge memory drops, I got tired of waiting for another version and jumped ship

[squeff]

Originally Posted by jorgeledesmadds

Tell me about, I switched to FreeRange RSS, they're coming out with a new version really soon, trust me on this one It so much better than Viigo I think, I don't need a heavy memory app to read my RSS feeds, all the other stuff is cool but its not a must for me and I'm going to risk this by saying probably for a lot of people

Same here. There are other changes coming to FreeRange that I think will make it more attractive (can't say, so don't ask).

[Orionizer]

Yes - I asked about being involved with the private beta over 3 times and NEVER even received a response. I've given significant feedback on the beta, but no new builds, no response to any questions, etc...

[sheldonbk]

Originally Posted by pandabearsue

I love Viigo, but I've gone without it for weeks, now, because the memory leaks and battery drain was significant enough for me to keep it off until the update comes.

I don't have Viigo automatically updating so since it doesn't run in the background, I figure, it's not contributing anywhere near as much to the memory leaks and battery drain problems that plague BB's.

[jubrand]

Originally Posted by akosnitzky

Oh. I was NOT included in that group.

You're not missing anything.

[squeff]

Originally Posted by jubrand

You're not missing anything.

How true. They haven't provided the private beta "team" anything different from the "public" beta (with the exception of the phrase "TOP SECRET" at the top of the screen).

They provide no mechanism for private beta participants to communicate with each other.

The private beta web site contains no information that's not provided to the public beta testers.

They don't answer e-mails from private beta participants.

They won't let private beta participants discuss the product under penalty of legal action, but anyone that didn't sign the NDA is allowed to say whatever they want.

I admit I was never really a fan of Viigo. But the way they've handled the beta has totally turned me off.

So, no, private beta participants don't have any hot more advanced version. Nor do we have any information, even if we were allowed to share it.

[Orionizer]

Hmmm... that's really sad. I really thought it might have been just me.

[akosnitzky]

Maybe things will change. At least we get CFL scores and Formula 1.

[fonejunkie]

Originally Posted by akosnitzky

Maybe things will change. At least we get CFL scores and Formula 1.

Yeah, before they added CFL scores, I don't know how I survived! Now, if I could only find a source for the curling scores... Viigo, are you listening?