tl/dr: Available here, may take up to an hour to appear on your country’s App Store.
Hi all,
iOS 7 is now live, and the new version of Alien Blue is ready to download alongside it. It’s the perfect occasion to give Alien Blue a UI refresh to go along with the playful new platform.
That said, the aesthetics are only a fragment of what you can expect in this update… there’s a lot to play with here:
Inbox Notifications (requires iOS 7)
Thanks to Apple’s new backgrounding functionality, Alien Blue can now deliver notifications for comment replies, direct messages and Mod Mail directly to your lock screen. You have granular control over which notifications you’d like to receive, and can also obfuscate/hide previews from your lockscreen for privacy. There will be considerable notification lag initially, but as iOS learns your usage patterns, it will grant Alien Blue the ability to check your inbox more frequently in the background.
Canvas Improvements
Ported across from its iPad sibling, the Canvas now supports GIFs and Videos inline. It also has full support for Autoplay + TV/Out. Put simply, you can browse to a subreddit, hit play and sit back. Alien Blue will introduce titles and auto play GIFs, photos and (optionally) videos without further user-interaction. Just be sure to enable Mirroring if you’re connecting to an Apple TV.
Retina Thumbnail & Link Previews
This was initially a pro feature, but it’s always been something that I wanted every user to utilise. Retina thumbnails & link previews for blog posts & news articles still require a pro upgrade (due to server costs), however high resolution link previews for images, GIFs and videos are now available to every user.
Full Release Notes
I’ll highlight the juicy bits, so that you can skim through:
New Features:
Design refresh for iOS 7
Inbox notifications (requires iOS 7)
Retina thumbnails are now available to all users
Comment link previews are now available to all users
Canvas support for GIFs and Videos
Slideshow with Autoplay (also supports GIFs & Videos)
Canvas now supports TV-Out/Apple TV
Improvements:
Ability to view large GIFs in optimal mode
Added visual indicator for Stickied posts
YouTube videos now load with zero clutter and can play automatically (optional)
Improved stability for albums with multiple GIFs
Improved performance and memory handling for YouTube playback
Canvas now supports top/new/controversial sorting
Canvas now supports searching
Canvas images will require a tap to protect from spoilers
Added support for sharing via Tumblr
Ability to order search results by number of comments
Minor UI improvements to Inbox screen (major revisions coming shortly)
Faster launch times
/u/ links are now displayed natively inside Alien Blue
Added highlight and confirmation around comment deletion
Subreddit sidebar now presents links to threads and other subreddits natively
Added ability to copy a permalink for a comment to clipboard
Decimalised karma count under Reddits screen to be more granular
Fixes:
Fixed: No audio on YouTube videos when mute switch is active
Fixed: Numerous iOS 7 compatibility issues
Fixed: Dragging from left or right edge shows background only
Fixed: Some GIFs showing only first frame
Fixed: Moderation: Some removed posts are incorrectly flagged as spam
Fixed "Image not found" errors on some Imgur links
Fixed: Duplicate items appearing in Canvas
Fixed: Typing a subreddit manually attempts to autocorrect
Fixed: HTML characters rendering incorrectly in canvas titles
Fixed: Switching to Night/day mode occasionally causes some comments to be in the wrong color
Fixed: Facebook sharing
Fixed: Evernote sharing
Optimal Browser Additions:
DeviantArt
Soundcloud
Memedad
Livememe
Popular comic sites (XKCD, SMBC, C&H, Dilbert etc)
Flickr
Hope you like it folks, please be sure to keep me posted if you run into any trouble. There might be some teething issues with iOS 7, but I’ll have another release chasing this one for any problems that creep up.
Cheers and very best wishes,
Jase
PS: If you like this update, please leave a review on iTunes. These help me greatly, and (I’m quite certain) improve the rate at which I can get updates approved through Apple.
