Gluon for Micro.blog

For the next version of Gluon, I’m thinking of adding featured podcasts — for anyone on Micro.blog — and showing them on the Discover screen (one random one at a time of course). No payment required ✌️. All coming through Sublime Ads 😋. All optional of course!

Hoping to make a start on Gluon updates again as of February ✌️❤️

I just released version 2020.5 of Gluon for Android! Release notes are here. Probably forgot a few things. Thanks so much for the feedback to everyone using it on Android ❤️✌️

Pushed out a small update to the beta for Gluon on Android. It’s Build 35. Contains a few tweaks here and there. Hopefully I’ll get this out to everyone end of this week ✌️

Going to try and publish an update to Gluon for Android today. I’ll not be able to add push just yet though - have to wait a little bit longer (sorry!).

2 years ago, in November, I started working on Gluon. I’m at the stage, with iOS, where I want to rewrite it using SwiftUI. I started that 4 months ago… haven’t touched it much since that time. It was a feeler to get into it after the nice announcements during WWDC (Apple's developer conference).

Now I want to go ahead and treat it like I did for the initial build 2 years ago. That means TestFlight builds that take a serious step back from functionality whilst I build everything from scratch.

So… what does that mean for anyone using TestFlight right now? Well, it means that if you want to use it as is I suggest you go and grab the App Store version.

I'll be uploading one last build to TestFlight with a link to this page, so you all know what's going on.

Note that I will also reset the TestFlight list for this new version. For any existing people that have signed up on the gluon.app website, you don't have to do anything - you're still going to be getting slower updates anyway (but that might be some time away).

If you have donated and you want to be on this "everything will be broken" list, email me: [email protected]. I'll make sure you're first on the list for my broken builds haha. Of course, I'll be adding more testers as the app becomes more polished and closer to the features you have now. This is a gradual process so don't expect warp speed.

I was thinking of creating a new App Store app just for this version, but I think that's wrong. I would be more motivated to move ahead with what I have - because I won't have a way to fall back to an app that works on my devices! (If you know what I mean).

Why now? Why the change? - this is easy to explain in my head. I had Gluon open and wanted to start a few tweaks to the design and add a few new features... but I stopped myself! "This needs to stop until the rewrite". So here I am.

I'm not going to lie, this rebuild will take time. The original Gluon was in build for just over a year before it launched (as I’m juggling client work also)... so let's see where I'm at come WWDC next year.

Expect some blog posts in the near future and usual updates as I go!

✌️❤️

Just released version 2020.6 for Gluon on iOS. Release notes are here. Enjoy 😊

Pushed out a small iOS TestFlight version for the next Gluon update. 2020.6 Build 3. Includes a few small fixes here and there. Also going to Apple for approval as it contains a few iOS14 fixes.

Have sent the invites out for the next iOS TestFlight for Gluon 🥳 I reckon it will take me a bit longer to work on this update - steady as she goes though. Hope you enjoy it and please let me know how you get on.

Added a few new goodies to the iOS beta for Gluon:

1. Now recognises a push notification and alerts you accordingly if in the app. Will just badge the mentions tab nicely with a 👋.
2. When outside of the app, tapping a push notification, will open the Mentions screen and highlight the mention with a little green dot next to it.
3. Same as number 2 but with a "Nitpicky" option of opening the conversation view also - so you don’t have to tap so many times to see it all in context.
4. Fixes an issue when you’re not using the default "Safari" as your web browser… haha.

The TestFlight version is not yet approved, but will come once Apple approve it.

Here is a quick screenshot:

I might be making a few micro replies via Gluon today. Just testing push notifications and other fun stuff. Excuse the cursive language if it does happen. Gluon and me have a strange relationship.

And so it starts… 2020.6 for Gluon on iOS. Going to be the next release for iOS. Mainly bug fixes and things I want to address. This is in no way the big rewrite I wrote about… that will take time and will share more when the time comes.

I’m planning some sort of a "send a tip" functionality for Gluon. Something anyone could set up, within the app, and that will show up on their profile. Unsure if that would be an OK thing to do on iOS though. I know that Overcast does something like this for podcasts (I think it checks the feed for such data)… so maybe it’s worth trying? I think it would be cool/nice to have.

First step complete to get push notifications into Gluon for Android. Now it just needs testing ✌️ Maybe next week it’s ready and then I can release the next major update.

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