PocketWGU

The PocketWGU DevTeam has been down for maintenance for the past week (a.k.a. vacation!) and just came back to a pleasant surprise.  During the week, app downloads blew past the 18k mark and now represent over 46% of current WGU enrollment based on the latest number published by Western Governors University. Retention remains pretty strong too with an estimated 70% of everyone that has ever tried the app continuing to use it, or about 1 in 3 students.  Pretty cool!

Feedback remains good with 92.8% of ratings (across all platforms) in the 4 to 5 star range, about 80% at the top of that ratings range.  One thing that has always puzzled us is how few people bother to provide a rating or review.  For downloads from iTunes, only about 0.7% of users ever provide a rating.   Users on Amazon are twice as likely to rate (1.6%), and users on Google Play are nearly three times more likely (>2.0%) to let us know how they feel.  With over 18,000 downloads, and an estimated 13,000 active users, it seems rather odd that only a couple of hundred folk would rate the app.  If you like PocketWGU, rating it is a pretty easy way to let us know.

A month or so ago, total downloads from iTunes surpassed those from Google Play for the first time.  Android still has an overall lead -- 52% to 48% -- over iOS in total users (quite a few Kindles out there) but iOS use is growing at a slightly faster rate.  We're toying with the idea of releasing the app on the BlackBerry store to see if there are any WGU students with the new BB10 devices.

Thanks to everyone who continues to make this app a success by giving it a try, letting us know (via email, please) about problems we need to fix, and for spreading the word.  Here's to the next 18,000 downloads!

The latest versions of PocketWGU for both iOS (1.6.1) and Android (1.8.2) both have a new feature.  If the app crashes (sorry!), the next time you run it you will be prompted to send in a crash report.  Please choose to send these in as this is an excellent way to help make PocketWGU better.  First of all, crash reports are anonymous; they don't send us any information about you or your progress at WGU.  What they do tell us is what kind of device is having the problem, what version of OS it is running, and where in the PocketWGU code the problem happened.  This makes it much easier for us to know what we need to fix, and makes creating the fix much faster.  And the faster we fix bugs, the better things are for everyone!  So, by tapping the "Send" button, you help make PocketWGU better for everyone, and without spending a cent!  A big thanks to everyone who has already sent these in, here's what one of them looks like to us:

At some point during this past week, WGU made some changes to the Community system.  For most of Wednesday, PocketWGU couldn't display any community messages (it came back that afternoon).  Yesterday, we noticed that while we could get messages again, we were only getting small bits of the messages and not the whole message.  Bummer.  The good news is that we've figured out how to fix this, and the fix is now available for Android in version 1.8.2 of the app.  A new version for iPhone/iPad should be along soon (subject to Apple's review cycle).

Something nifty about this issue was that it forced us to re-think how we approach community content.  This involved looking at some very old code.  Our code for parsing community message threads is some of the oldest in PocketWGU, and relatively unchanged since it was created nearly 2.5 years ago.  This was one of the first features we got working and it's worked ever since (until Wednesday).  One thing we had never previously figured out was how to display a user's name in our listing, because the mechanism we used didn't provide it.  In looking for a solution, we found a slightly different mechanism that does.  So, after some tweaks to the old parsing code, the latest version now displays the actual user's name.  Nice.  We've also fixed a few more bugs and put some polish back on the new menu system.  Hope you like it!

Yesterday saw a new release of PocketWGU for Android with a big version number jump.  This was done to bring the Android versioning into alignment with our build process.  Version 1.8.0 represents release number 80 of the app for this platform.  There were enhancements as well, including better display of embedded videos within a CoS and tweaks to the "Menu" system.  On the top left of the app (next to the logo) you will come across two different and distinct icons.  Here's what they do:

This evening saw a new release of the app for iPhone/iPad (and iPod Touch for that matter).  Version 1.5.2 contains a long list of bug fixes and optimizations thanks (seriously, BIG THANKS!) to users who sent us an email letting us know what was going on.  We do our best to test out every release, but there are limits on what we can test and nearly everyone's degree plan and progress are unique.  Remember, PocketWGU is a student/alumni created app and we have ZERO access to anyone's accounts but our own.  A special thanks to "CoyKrill" for spotting and reporting a bug with the communities that nobody else had told us about, and to "JohnKFisher" for the enlightening post about oddness in the new system's CU calculations.  We're still working on that one.

We really appreciate getting bug reports via email as there's no way for us to respond to messages posted in an iTunes review.  With that said, we appreciate the reviews too, even the bad ones (though, to be honest, we appreciate the bad ones less :-).  A special thanks to "CWallfromNC" for letting us know months ago that refreshing data was too hidden (made sure to fix that in the new version!), to "Pam1119" for noting that degree progress wasn't keeping up anymore (fixed in 1.5.1), and to "bmacva" for being the only one to notice (or at least mention) that nearly every course was, incorrectly, showing up as "Objective".  We really did a face-palm over that last one, but it should be fixed in this latest version.  

Thanks to everyone that helps us make the app better, every bug report is ALWAYS welcome!

Update 5/19 part II:  Version 1.5.1 is now available on iTunes and appears to fix the issue that kept some folks from logging in.  More to come!

Update 5/19: Sadly, a couple of bugs snuck into the 1.5 release.  The first bug (Thanks to "DH" for the report!!!) causes a crash a few seconds after launch if there is no existing data and the username/password do exist but are wrong.  The app ties to fetch data without prompting for the correct credentials, and dies quickly thereafter.  Gaak!  This bug has been fixed in version 1.5.1 which is currently under review by Apple.  The second bug appears when accessing messages for certain communities.  We're working on this one now.  We're very sorry for the inconvenience but are working as fast as we can to square everything away.  Please let us know via email if you see any more things we missed!

Version 1.5 of PocketWGU for iOS just went live on iTunes.  This version is a complete rewrite of the app designed to support the new student portal and newer iOS devices.  Hopefully, you will find that it works on the 4" iPhone 5 in addition to the various flavors of iPad (including the Mini) out now.  While the main purpose of this update was to support the new portal, we did manage to squeeze in a few things that users have been asking for over the past year or so...  

Update 5/16:  Check out the new (v. 1.5) PocketWGU for iPhone/iPad with support for the new student portal.

Update 5/11:  The current version for iPhone/iPad does NOT support the new portal.  A new version that does has been submitted to Apple for review.

Update 4/10: Version 1.1.2 provides support for most "New Portal" actions, improved networking performance.

Update 3/5: Version 1.0.13 fixes some crashes when accessing the new portal.

Some of you have been using a new version of the Student Portal, it's been in beta since last summer.  Until today, PocketWGU couldn't support the new portal at all.  Starting with version 1.0.12 (Android), we've tried to add some support.  This version is experimental, not everything will work, but with your help we'll squash the bugs in no time.  If you are a student that is using the new portal, please give this version a try and send us an email telling us what works and what doesn't.  Here's what our internal testing has shown:

1. Community features all work, same as previous versions
2. Direct and Social features all work, same as previous versions
3. Program information: the name of your degree, current term, and mentor data should all be correct.
4. Course information:
   1. Course list should sync properly (although it will take a minute)
   2. You should receive a complete list of courses, and links to the CoS should work from each.
   3. Status of each course may be WRONG.  Please let us know about this via email!
5. Percent complete for Term and Degree should be correct (as of 1.1.2).  Please let us know if it isn't!

We need folks to work with us to iron out the kinks and get everything working with the new portal.  We really appreciate email reports of problems, and try to respond promptly.  Please remember that we cannot respond to reports on Google Play or Apple iTunes, it just isn't possible.  Thanks!

It's almost impossible for us to believe, but it's been two years since PocketWGU was first released (in beta) to students with a posting to the IT Community forum.  Build number 1 was written for Android version 2.2 (a version for 2.0 was released the next day) and did little more than let one read the community forums and track course completion.  Two years later, build number 70 is up on Google Play with support for 2,547 different devices and on the Amazon market for Kindle Fire devices.

Just got a great comment in a review on iTunes, and it really has us slapping our foreheads.  D'OH!

The iTunes user "CWallfromNC" notes that there is no refresh button on the home screen, and without refreshing, passed courses never show up in the progress.  She/He is exactly right!  We do have a refresh button in the app, but its hidden under the "Settings" tab and it really isn't obvious that you should go there to get it.  Bad UI design!  We'll add an obvious refresh button on the home screen in the next release.  Thanks "CWallfromNC"!  

In the mean time, users should tap the "Settings" tab and then the button labeled "Save / Reload Data" to refresh course/degree data.

Check for the update in iTunes, this version fixes a bug in how courses are sorted/ordered.  Previous version did not properly handle courses with a status of "Requirement Satisfied".