PocketWGU

PocketWGU 2.1.2 for Android* was released to Google Play and Amazon app stores today, and should be available now.  There are a few tweaks and fixes, but the bigger item is progress tracking within the CoS.  A few folks have asked for this over the past year+, so we gave it a shot.  Hope you like it!

In a recent post to this site, we made the claim that PocketWGU was "...one of the most highly rated mobile apps for any major, online university."  Sure, that was a little "chest pounding" on our part, but as it happens, it's also true.  Taking a gander at the public app store listings for the other online universities we could think of (let us know if we missed one) shows that WGU fairs pretty darn well.  

We can't claim to be unbiased here, but the data are all public so anyone is free to check for themselves.  Without (much) further ado, here are the 2015 Online University Rankings based on how students rate their mobile apps.

Come and get it! 

Sometime late yesterday (October 8th), PocketWGU received it's 500th 5-star rating.  On behalf of everyone who has contributed to the creation, testing, and ongoing existence of this app, I wanted to offer my thanks.  This started as a little side project when I was a WGU student, there was no app back then and the portal was rather tough to use on a phone.  Some 4.5 years and over 47,000 downloads later, this little project is now one of the most highly rated mobile apps for any major, online university.  (Go Night Owls!)  Not too shabby for a completely volunteer effort by students and alumni.  I've long believed that a project like this would not be possible anywhere except WGU, and I know that without the forbearance and assistance of WGU's superb Faculty and Administration, it would have died on the vine a long time ago.

Across all app stores on which PocketWGU is published, the app has received some 642 ratings and/or reviews.  Of these, 93% are positive (4 or 5 stars) and provide an overall average of 4.65 out of 5 stars.  A fairly small portion of students who download the app choose to provide a store rating (anywhere from 0.5% to 2.5%, depending on the app store), but those who do, seem to like it.  The Android version of PocketWGU tends to be rated/reviewed most often, but the 500th 5-star rating appeared on the Apple App Store (user "hs24601") for the iOS version.

My sincere thanks goes out to you all!

David

The new release, available now in the Google Play and Amazon app stores, brings a few new features including support for a new CoS and Assessment details format.  The bulk of changes; however, are fixes for bugs and tweaks to certain things that weren't "quite right".  

Chief among these, tapping links to learning resources (LRs) in the CoS will now open those resources in a separate window.  This makes going back to the CoS both easier to do, and easier to understand.  This also allows more consistent format support for LRs that scale/zoom differently (or not at all).  We've revamped the process by which pages in a CoS are refreshed.  We still cache these pages, but now invalidate and refresh the cache more often and consistently.  

Substantial improvements have also been made to how the app handles links to external files with better support for downloading and displaying these files.  Links to lists of videos, and video folders should now perform properly, as should links to key external apps including Adobe Connect, Prezi, and Lynda.com.

Hope y'all like it, get it while its fresh!

We need some brave souls to help us test the next version of PocketWGU for iOS.  If you're willing to try out the app while we work out the bugs (and let us know what works or doesn't) please let us know via email (link at top of this page).  Do you like using buggy, unfinished software?  Do you believe that "bleeding edge" is always better than "leading edge"?  If so, have we got a deal for you!  :-)  Well... as long as you're an enrolled WGU student with an iPhone/iPad running iOS 7 or later.

Thanks!

Marshmallow goodness...  Starting with Android 6.0, there's a new system for requesting permissions from users at runtime.  This is good for users (which we are) but a pain for developers (which we also are).  Anyhoo, with PocketWGU 2.0.32, we've tried to update the app to respect the new permissions system.  If there are any WGU students already using Android 6 (or "M" preview) out there, please give it a try and let us know if it works for you.  The app should function without change on any previous version of Android.

More detail:  PocketWGU only requests two permissions:  access to the network (INTERNET), and access to external storage (WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE).  Under Android 6.0, all apps receive network access without asking.  Accessing external storage; however, does require permission.  So, if you run the app on Android 6, you will be prompted to provide this permission when going to "My Saved Files", choosing to download a video, or when attempting to download any file (e.g. PDF) from the CoS.  If you deny the permission, PocketWGU will prompt again if you attempt to use one of those features again.  Once you grant the permission in any of those places, you won't be prompted again.

Howdy All,

Sometime this past week WGU introduced changes to the student portal for some users.  Not everyone will have seen these, but for those who did, it had the nasty side effect of breaking the Course of Study (CoS) display in PocketWGU.  Sorry about that!  Anyhoo, we've released a new version of PocketWGU for all platforms to fix this, and these should be available sometime today.  If you're having this problem, be sure to update:

• For Android and FireOS:  version 2.0.24 was released on April 21, 2015
• For iOS (iPhone/iPad):  version 1.8.8 was released on April 25, 2015
• For Windows Phone:  version 1.1.0.3 was released on April 25, 2015

Enjoy!

Howdy All!  Just noticed on the calendar that another milestone is upon us.  Today marks the 4th birthday of PocketWGU, originally announced on the WGU Community site on this day in 2011.  Here's hoping that anyone around for that announcement has long since graduated!  Time for some cake...

There's a bug in PocketWGU for iOS versions 1.8.4 and 1.8.5 (mea culpa!) that, for some users, will cause the app to crash when loading new data, or when performing a full refresh.  Gaak!  We've made the fix (we hope!) in version 1.8.6, and submitted this to Apple for it's review on the 13th.  It should be available as soon as Apple performs its review.  Now, we're not one's to cry "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc." but we can't help noticing that the 13th was, in fact, a Friday.  ;-(  Sorry for the inconvenience!