News & updates
This is Alwin, bringing your the CLZ News for March 2016.
This month, something extraordinary happened, something rarely seen in the software world: We finished a project 1 month earlier than planned! (the v4 apps for Android).
We were planning to release CLZ Movies 4.0 early April, then use the rest of April to bring the rest of the Android apps to v4 level. But it’s March 31 today and all of the v4 updates are live already 🙂
This newsletter gives you all you need to know about these v4 releases, plus I’ll tell you what’s cooking for our desktop and mobile editions:
- Five v4.0 updates for Android, now free to try.
- What’s cooking for Windows?
- What’s cooking for Mac?
- What’s cooking for iOS and Android?
Five v4.0 updates for Android, now free to try
By now, most of you will know the drill, but here’s what these v4 releases are all about:
Before v4, all apps were US $15 paid apps. But starting with version 4.0, the apps are free downloads, limited to 100 items. Higher database limits can then be unlocked with In-App purchases.
The advantages of this new pricing model:
- Everyone can try before they buy.
Download the free app, try it with max 100 items, then unlock as needed. - Cheaper to use for almost everyone.
(unless your collection exceeds 5,000 items) - Switch between Android and iOS without paying again.
Just download on any device and login with your CLZ Account.
Next to the above change in the pricing model, the v4.0 apps include improved Add screens, with a simpler and clearer interface and nicer looking search results (with cover thumbnails).
With this month’s releases, now ALL TEN of our mobile apps (5 for iOS, 5 for Android) have been moved to the new “try before you buy, then unlock” model.
Interested in a mobile companion to your desktop software? Then just open the App Store / Play Store on your mobile device, search for “CLZ” and download the ones you want.
What’s cooking for Windows?
After the well-received Alphabet Bar, we started thinking: What else can we do to the main screen to help you quickly zoom in to specific parts of your collection?
For example, to quickly find a movie to watch: find all movies (not TV Series), that you actually own, that you have not seen yet, having an IMDb Rating above 7, reasonably recent and not over 2 hours.
Of course, you can do all that using the Advanced Filter screen, but what if simple selections like the above could be made easily and quickly, right there in the main screen?
This is what Ronald and AJ are working on now, and we call it the Quick Filter Panel.
Coming up on a PC near you, together with a new optional Dark Skin!
What’s cooking for Mac?
For the Mac editions, we’re currently taking a different approach:
Sadly, our support people keep getting reports from our Mac users about all kinds of problems and general instability. So instead of building new features, we have decided to first focus on improving stability and fixing problems.
This does mean that the Mac editions may temporarily fall behind in terms of features, but judging from the feedback we get, most of our Mac users would prefer the current feature set to be “debugged” first.
In March, we have already released two maintenance builds for all Mac editions, fixing the most commonly reported problems. We will continue doing regular maintenance builds until known issues have been ironed out.
My request to all Mac users:
If you are regularly running into a specific problem or even a “user interface annoyance”, then please let us know at Support, so that we can investigate and fix. Let’s work together to make sure we can stabilize the Mac software and after that, continue building great features again 🙂
What’s cooking for iOS and Android?
In the past few years, we have had one huge mobile project after the other:
- First, the 2.0 versions, in which we introduced adding/editing capabilities.
- Then the 3.0 versions, which took the Cloud Syncing to a whole new level.
- Finally, the 4.0 versions, with the new “in app purchases” pricing model.
All of these projects where very important for the apps. However, with 10 apps to be updated for each project, we could hardly find the time to add actual new features.
But not anymore… with the big ones behind us, we can finally get into a schedule of releasing regular feature updates. Here’s what Pim and Patrick will be building for you in the upcoming months:
- Field Defaults: set default values for your new additions, e.g. for the Read It / Seen It fields.
- Manage Pick Lists: edit the properties of items like Artist, Authors, etc.. to set Sort Names.
- Easier editing of fields like Format, Genres, Subjects, etc..
- Edit Multiple: edit multiple selected database entries in one go.
Talk to you next month!