New Android Release 2.26.5

8 Likes

Congrats on the great job!

One quick question: if I update the app on my phone I don’t have to update anything else (I don’t have any password issues on the server) ?

If you don’t need new ‘restore password’ - all other fixes/updates are app-side updates, that have nothing to do with server

awesome, thnx. updating now…

I noticed you fixed 2 out of 3 bugs in the device tile, this one still persists:

Yep, it will be fixed in next release, we are working on adding some shadow to tiles in a case of same tile and background colors.

Thanks for update. When blynk add an option to use BLE devices without network connection?

Not soon, as in many cases Blynk app is used as a transmitter of BLE data to the server :slight_smile:.

1 Like

So we can pick and chose perdy colors for holding widgets… OK, that’s nice and all, but I was really holding out hope for restoration of a very important feature. But alas, I still cannot fit desired data into desired spaces like I used to…

Smallest font option… and on a tablet with lots of room…

image

Compared to Android 2.24.0 and prior… and this on a skinny phone at 1/2 the screen width of the above tablet… but yet the text is clearly readable and looks just fine with all the other neighboring scalable text.

image

I will be blunt, removing auto scaling text was a really dumb move Blynk!!

Despite much discussion, your seemingly lack of respect for end users preferences is causing my loss of trust in future changes.

One hand giveth; The other taketh away… What is next?

Bring it back please.

2 Likes

@Gunner

I hear your frustration and sorry for loosing your trust, but you can’t demand something that hurts our platform vision. Our mission is to allow developers to build nice-looking IoT apps quickly and with a minimum effort. Unfortunately, auto-scaling creates a lot of design mess + inconsistency in end-users applications.

None of the interface builders support font auto-scaling. Check squarespace, wix, tilda, shopify, (as web site builders are closer to Blynk idea than any other products). They increase the height of the block dynamically, not the font size. Font size is always fixed.

Currently, we don’t support dynamic change of the height for the widgets based on the amount of content, but maybe we will get to it at some point. It’s just a a different approach to interface building. Also, it’s native mobile app, not a website, so we just designed Blynk differently.

Again, product will change a lot. New things will be added, some will be removed. It’s a common way of software development.

I think you would agree that most of the community requests are always heard and implemented. There aren’t that many companies out there who are so flexible like us.

But sometimes we have a different perspective. And this perspective made Blynk a product that people love. It means that we also have an opinion on things and are working hard to make Blynk better every day. You can’t take it out of the equation. We are allies, we just have our arguments on certain things.

Hope it makes sense. Let’s move on and gain your trust back with all the good stuff we are preparing for you.

:pray:

1 Like

I was requesting something back that you already had available for years… no harm that I had noticed in that timeframe

Lots of buzz, no clarity… how exactly does leaving in the previously available option negatively affect the end-user application?? I have already shown many screenshots where the text flowed better then it does now with only three semi-fixed font sizes.

So, having Blynk revert from a innovative and functional form of displaying text to to the “lets be samies” status of other applications is a good thing?

Who brought this one up? I didn’t. The focus is the scaling font, not the widget size itself.

Don’t forget all those people who helped guide and shape Blynk with ideas, suggestions and opinions of their own… don’t disregard that major part of the equation.

Every time I look at my broken GUI layouts, even when tweaked just right on one device, only to see it messed up on another, due lack of former flexibility… well, I have doubts. I guess time will tell.

6 Likes

Hi,

I recently got the update to 2.26.5 for Android OS and now the button widget no longer works. I triple checked to make sure the device was happy by using the button in the app and this worked fine. Is there perhaps a bug related to this somewhere? I didn’t see anything in the issues page yet. Thanks!

… I’m assuming this is less relevant but I am running a local server that is a few weeks older.

You need to update it in first place.

Do you mean home screen widget?

Correct the home screen button widget on Android.

1 Like

Thanks we’ll check, have you only button home screen widget?

It will be fixed soon with a new build

No Pavel, in this case I seriously doubt you can hear anything. This is obviously your decision and you have every right to do whatever you want, but keep in mind that there is no single community member approving your actions towards font autoscaling removal, not a single soul shares your opinion on this matter. That’s most probably because of everyday practice - our once good looking apps built on absolutely superior Blynk platform now looks like shit on most devices, and I really can’t see any connection between bad looking app and Best Design Practices you were talking about, no matter how hard I try. It’s really unclear how can you ‘have a different perspective’ which made Blynk platform so great, and then insisting on downgrades to your own product in order to be the same as everyone else; this just makes no sense at all. I know a thing or two about software development and especially about customer relations and I can tell you that killing your own differentiating factors just to be in the line with others is counterproductive and will hurt your business sooner or later. In my country they would say that you have changed a horse for a donkey. Not every change is good, and this one is certainly not. Personally, I was hoping that in some moment you will reconsider your decision and I feel really sorry to see that you are pushing it so hard completely ignoring all complaints and begging coming from your own community.

11 Likes

Just one note: This might be as well just a single voice of a “silent” member, who is paying a business service subscription. His/her vote is obviously much stronger then. We might not like that, but that’s THIS world…