Welcome again everyone,
With 1.2.2 just been released it gives me more motivation and time to help you out and improve Bloo. I am announcing Bloo 1.3 which will be a major update in Bloo.
In particular these are the following features you can expect in Bloo 1.3:
- Brand new feed, you will be able to expand/collapse comments, view older posts and generally must smoother and faster UI
- New push notification system working outside Bloo that informs you for much more stuff than currently Bloo does
- New “What’s on your mind?” screen with the ability to post status updates, video uploads and post existing links from your Browser.
This list will be updated as I am working through the next update.
In the meantime, enjoy Bloo 1.2.2 and do not forget to post your feedback, bad or good I always read. First time I am doign this and I must say it has been awesome.
Feed 1.3
What's on your mind 1.3
-dc
Bloo - The Android Facebook App 
Is there the ability to comment on pictures, or look at pictures that I was tagged in? Or am I blind haha…
Btw, great work on this app.
the feed takes way to long to load at times. hopefully it can be fixed in th enext update
Just wanted to ask if you have thought about creating the chat feature into Bloo?
Good working app!
Get FBabble. It’s free and it’s a dedicated FB chat program.
Good work sir.
Few things I’d like to see implemented :
Option to upload pics direct from Android Gallery.
More long-press actions, I hate using the menu button on G1, long-press feels more natural.
Customise notifications (when the push service is up)
Friend Requests / Some sort of way to access Inbox without leaving the program
Still needs speeding up, it’s timing out A LOT on my handset even on WiFi
Keep up the good work though, much appreciated.
(Also – I’d LOVE to see what you could do with a Twitter app, that would be superb! One for the future, maybe? 😉 )
I’d like to see the following functions implemented in future versions:
# background notifications
# background photo/video uploads
# share link from Browser or Youtube
# share photo/video from Gallery
# chat
I was wondering whether you have plans to add uploading photos via th “Share” button in the Gallery app, like Twidroid does.
YES! I do need this also!
Don’t think it’s the most tricky function to implement so I hope it’ll be available in 1.3 (or 1.2.3 if there is!)
Keep it up Dimitris
Many thanks
Glad that you’re getting everything updated on a timely basis! I’ve pretty much enjoyed the app. A few force closes here and there, but otherwise, good job! Just keep adding stuff as you can! Thanks!
Sound great! Can’t wait for the updates. My three main gripes were notifications, the ability to see more of the feed, and the fact that you can’t clear your status. And you’re addressing two of them in the update. Cheers!
Great update as always, I love the constant feedback from you dude. In 1.2.2 I noticed a few things, maybe they were mentioned in the last post…
-I only noticed once, but the last item in the feed or wall has a blue background.. strange.
-The layout on profile info needs tweaking. Long items in profile interests/etc run off the page. Also if the status is longer than the height of the profile picture, it will overlap the text below.
-Birthday notifications appear everytime I open Bloo. It would be nice if this system was overhauled (sounds like push notifications in 1.3 will fix this)
Other than these small issues, Bloo rocks!! This really is THE Android Facebook App. 🙂
OH and one more thing.. I noticed someone posted a text link to youtube in one of their comments on a status post.. it would be great to parse this link to be clickable, load straight in the browser.
This app is definately one of my favorite ones in the market. Well worth thr money. The only thing, apart from what was already mentioned, is that I can’t seem to be able to tag myself in pictures.
Awesome. I’m so excited. My friend who has the ipod touch is like “wow, that’s better than the one for the iphone’. He’s getting the magic when his contract expires with verizon next month. I’ll be sure to make him buy bloo as soon as he clicks that market icon!
I love ever update that has come out because each one is definately showing your making bloo for the users which is what the g1 is all about! Keep up the awesome work!! I am glad to hear more notifications will be coming out is there a way that you can make bloo watch email links pressed and open the action in bloo instead? Like when fb sends you a notification with a link it would be nice if the link opened bloo instead of the browser even if it is by like a prompting like it does with youtube videos.
Good job though can’t wait for more updates.
Is it possible to integrate bloo picture uploads with the camera app’s share function? Alsol, alo ng the same line, is there plans to integrate video uploads? Finally, the ability to access various bloo sections via the menu button might be a feature some would find useful. Beyond that, keep up the good work, this app was well worth the price of admission.
Why is there no way to see photo album comments or picture comments!!?? please add this
I can’t find the App on my Android G1 (in USA)
How do I search for it?
Thanks
Is it possible to add Friends from this app?
I love the App, however the only problem I have is the new Friends display. With over 400+ friends, trying to find one by scrolling through all of them gets kind of annoying. I know it’s hard to please everyone, if I can suggest a sub-menu within the friends menu, one that could let you choose to Search for friends, one to “View All”, and something like “Recently Updated”.
This is by far the App I use the most and definitely the BEST $1.50 that I could ever spent. Thank you for all your hard work and all the updates. I know that in short time, every Android powered out there will have THE BEST FACEBOOK APP on the market: BLOO!!!! 🙂
Yamil, thank you for your comments!
You can filter your friends list! Switch to your keyboard and start typing your friends name!
This only works if you have a physical keyboard, there doesn’t seem to be a way to bring up the OS keyboard from this menu.
Just press and hold the menu key!
Just noticed as well :
Clicking the Status button brings up the text entry, but tapping on it will not bring up the soft keyboard at all.
Brilliant update D’
Couple suggestions.
Having Bloo run in the background, with the push notifications It would be nice to receive these alerts when bloo isn’t the app in focus.
and a way to be notified when there is a new message, just a notification would be cool, fbook had it and it is 3rd party so it should be possible I hope.
The feed does take its time to load up. but still the best app on the market.
Nathan.
Great app and I am enjoying following its development, you have all my support! I am a FAN!
I’m pretty sure I have hidden some of my friend’s news feed from showing in my web version of facebook, however I still see it showing in Bloo… is that a bug which can be fixed in the next version??
Another suggestion is the ability to ‘share’ a video posted by others, maybe??
Thank you for your great work on such nice facebook app for Android
This is not just the best FB app out there, I would have to say, this is one of the best mobile applications in the market to connect to a typical desktop browser community.
keep the updates flowing DC , great job. my only request is for adding friends and comments on photos
Dimitris, I was using 1.2.2 last night after the update and I noticed 1 post by someone had a blue background, it was the same colour as the text of their name so it couldn’t be read. Another post by them further down was fine. I took photos if you want to see, I’m not sure if it’s a bug or not (I restarted phone and it was still the same). Not seen it before or since though.
This happened to me earlier today as well. Not sure if I can reproduce it.
The feed takes way too long on this version..
Some feature suggestions.
Cache the previous feed displayed so you can show the user something when they first open the program.. Waiting on a Blue screen for 3 or 4 longer minutes with the only thing to see is the spinning icon is pretty boring.
Use the search button in the friends screen to search for a friend on HTC Magic… I cant figure out another way to search for friend.. someone posted how to do it on the G1/Dream
when you view a friend and hit back, it should go back to the friends list rather than back to the main menu
settings area so you can change the sort order for friends…. sort by date added , sort by surname , sort by first name.
Background syncing on notifications.. (this maybe what you mean with push notifications.. not sure)
when viewing a friend.. swipe left or swipe right to view the previous or next friends wall.
events screen should look forward more. and show upcoming birthdays underneath the current events.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.. a fantastic app.
glennbatten, for the question about how to search a frd within frd list on a Magic… you can long press the ‘menu’ button to call up the soft keyboard. Hope that’s gonna help!
Great work once again Dmitris. I was wondering if there will be fixes for the feeds area? Cause it’s still very slow loading. Other than that I love the app. Keep up the good work Dimitris. 🙂
Guys if the feed sometimes takes too long, ensure that if you go in the preferences you go and select the FEED OPTIMIZER option.
Thank you all for the comments, I have been reading them all.
You will not be disappointed with 1.3
Hey Dimitris, love this app, it’s great. Any chance you could create a home widget just for quickly updating status. That would be sweet.
In regards to my last post, the soft keyboard issue is not just Bloo, it’s my handset. Need to reinstall HTC IME i think.
Great work! would really love to see a “home” option when pressing the “menu” key. Will make a much easier navigation. Also, will chat be implemented anytime soon? just wonderin
GOOD WORK!
I’m experiencing a glitch with photo albums. When browsing through someone’s album, I press on a photo expecting that photo to be displayed on the screen. However, a different photo comes up. It is a photo from the album, but nonetheless, it’s a different photo. If I try the same on different photos, I get the same result.
Seems to be there is a glitch in the link between the thumbnail view, and the actual photo. Additionally, just now, earlier at the thumbnail view screen, I scrolled down with a finger swipe and all the pictures scrolled down and off the screen, but the never came back up! I had to hit back and click the album again.
By the way, I accessed the photo gallery from the feed using long-press and the “View all new photos” feature.
EXCELLENT work as usual.
The only bug im experiencing is force close when posting on someones wall, only happens sometimes.
hey I just though of something! How about a settings option to change the notifications sound/vivration. This app is amazing! I don’t know how I went without it for soo long!
The app does seem slower. I do like the work you are doing DC. Couple of remaining problems.
I still have Fbook on my phone even though it is no on the market any longer. With Fbook I can chat and check my Inbox. Inbox is a major thing missing. Please explain why it works with that app but not with Bloo.
Edmund, Thanks for that
Dimitrus, It is taking that long to load the feed on wifi connected to 8m adsl broadband. That should not need optimising.. The speed issue does seem to be something that is raising its head a bit.. I really think there is a problem.. Maybe it is getting stuck retrieving a particular thing from the feed… like if someone has a youtube post on their feed for instance..
Maybe it might help if anybody notices it is taking a particularly long time to load the feed on a fast connection they see what sort of items are in there feed. We might find a common issue..
New feed looks great, will it show all likes, or just the star for our likes?
the feed is looking great.. a suggestion for the notification is , can u use the facebook symbol?
never mind , i see why u used the one u did.. lol again, great work
Just a suggestion again…an option in the menu to return to the home screen. From any of the screens it would be nice to just press menu and home to return instead of pressing back numerous times to get back. This is a great program and I am glad I spent my money for it and not the others. GREAT JOB!!!
The new feed looks great, much improved! A couple of things I’d love to see:
Optimized uploading of photos – Not entirely sure but it looks like Bloo is uploading the original image from the gallery. As Facebook photos are small anyway surely resizing them beforehand would make uploading so much quicker?
Gallery viewing – being able to swipe left and right while viewing a picture to see the next in the gallery.
Dimitris,Do you add a notification page, reflecting http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php in this version or in a future¿?¿?
Thanks for your incredible work 😉
+1 Please!
I vote for adding support for Facebook Emails. It would be great to be able to handle those in a fast app like this.
Awesome app!
Just two things so far I wanted to mention.
1. Full “POKE” support, to poke people and be notified when someone pokes me.
2. As everyone else mentioned, messages! An inbox and the ability to send and recieve message notifications would make it almost perfect!
The new feed looks good. Hopefully the notifications will include all the notifications we’ve requested in Facebook.
If people post albums, would be good to see what they are called.
Add photo comments and I think I’ll be able to switch over permanently.
Good to see you constantly trying to improve this.
can’t view photos that i’ve been tagged in? Please implement this! thanks and good work!
yes, i can’t do that too.
I have a problem. i can view all of my friends pics, but i can not see my own.
One thing i’ve noticed is that after i’ve closed bloo, if i want to go back into it i have to click the bloo icon on the desktop twice, the first time it just jumps back to the home screen.
not a big problem just thought i’d mention it.
keep up the good work ;o)
Yeah, I’ve experienced the same thing as well. I don’t know if that is a glitch, or what…
the same thing happens if you
** the same thing happens if you try to switch back to the application by long pressing the home button. i guess it force closes/has an error after the session ends.
it needs a way to automatically go back to the loading screen when the session ends…
I get a smiliar thing to this but my App crashes “request failed” twice and then exits. Then I restart and Voila it works.
Actually the error is :
+————————————————+
|(v) Error |
+————————————————+
|An error occurred while processing your request |
+————————————————+
| Retry Exit |
+————————————————+
Then I get the “Bloo” title bar for a split second and then it slides over the “The Feed” title bar and reports exactly the same error. the app then exits.
Starting Bloo again works fine.
Hey Dimitris,
Awesome app, well worth the money. I have a few suggestions from me and my friend…
– a notification page so that I can see old and new notifications.
– viewing my inbox using any method
– gallery feature to allow swiping
– viewing and posting comments on photos
– a widget to post status updates and that shows how many notifications you have.
– I know you said you will be trying but thought id say it anyway, synching friend photos to contacts on the phone.
Not a suggestion, more a query, is there any way to view tagged photos? If not then it too is a suggestion
I obviously don’t mean for these to be included in the next update but would be great to see them overtime.
Thanks for the app and constant updates.
1.3 is looking and sounding great! Can’t wait to get it 🙂
Is it possible to add an “update profile picture” feature?
Will the feed load faster and the constant force close issue be fixed? I love your app and followed it from the beginning but I have to say that it can take up to 3minutes to load the feed in my area, Edge network full bars. Also everything causes a force close. I would hate to go back to Babbler but if i have no choice i have no choice. Hopefully these are fixed and it starts acting like it did when you first released it when it took maybe 10secs to load the feed.
thanks for the great app,
Adam.
Hi DC,
Great job! I think 1.3 is going to be a big jump from 1.2.2. Still, please consider including the quiz results in the feed as well because nowadays these have become my main updates.
Thanks and keep up the great work..
PS.
My suggestion would be to allow people to filter what they see in their feed. If someone want’s to view friends’ quiz results or relationship status changes, etc, then they should be able to see it in Bloo as long as they understand it will slow down their experience.
Sounds like the best idea as I don’t care about stuff like quizzes and all that. Think if what was all optional, it would suit everyone’s needs.
With the video upload feature on the status, will we be able to make a video right then and there, or can we only put a video up if we already have it pre-recorded on the phone? Or both?
woo updates! This app is really coming along it seems. Hey Dimitris, I have a question. You say this is your first app, but did you know Java programming before this? I’ve been looking into Android Development, any tips/sites/books that have helped you along the way? Thanks dude.
Jonathon, if you know Java then the google docs take you a hell of a way through.
There are a few concepts to learn and the correct way of doing things and building from the ground up but once you have that its just down to your skill in assembling the small and simple parts into a fully working app.
I develop for the iPhone but have recently completed 2 apps on Android and I have to say its easier to program for Android (and cheaper and no Objective C) although the render quality of the controls on iPhone is a little higher so its easier to make an iPhone application look nicer when you just slap something together.
An OK book is the Busy Coders Guide To Android Development by Mark L Murphy is OK, I got it for not much from Amazon second hand as its for the 1.0 SDK.
TBH there are a fair few tutorials out there and as long as you start small (ie not a facebook app) as your first one its quite simple to get something up and running.
Thanks Rocky, I’ll check Amazon, maybe they have an updated version of that book for 1.1/1.5. I have gone through the Hello World tutorials, but. I don’t know Java. I guess I’m looking for a combo Android/Java book or tutorial to save time, but I doubt that exists.
i can’t search for my friends on my magic. no text input under friends list…
Hold down the MENU key and the keyboard appears.
There might be a little buglet, i have had one or two times when the keyboard was there but I could not type but most of the time it works.
Dimitris:
1) Bloo still crashes intermittenly and gives two error reports before quitting. Selecting Bloo again works fine.
2) Theabove bug where KB input doesn’t always work.
3) Babbler have stepped up the pace on the releases unfortunately (for you, great for us), it may be worth a download and a peruse for you to see what you are up against.
Keep up the good work, I have a soft spot for Bloo and want it to replace babbler on my phone, no idea why, I just do.
matt
Well Dimitris…
I think I speak for the majority of people who have Bloo in saying you are an absolute GENIUS my friend!…
Dimitris:
Also FYI the latest version of Babbler just dropped its inbox feature and it appears the pre cached feed which means when you go in you get a blank feed until its refreshed.
actually it did not drop the inbox feature, just renamed that section to “requests” take a look. you can still check your inbox with babbler.
Personally i just wish for bloo dimitris would add an inbox button to the list and when you click it it would just bring up basically a popup window similar to the way the “people” search pop up window appears and its just a screen with inbox of the m.facebook.com (please not the iphone version it’s buggy)
because right now i have to leave the app and just go to the m.facebook.com in my browser anyway, so why not just implement a “workaround” into the app
Hey there.
So two things. First I did implement the feed optimizer as suggested but even with that on and in a 3g area, the feed is still very slow to load….not as slow as without the optimizer, but it is still slow. If you could look into the feed and find a way to speed it up, that would be a big plus.
Second thing, since the 1.2.2 update when I open Bloo for the first time, the blue android symbol for Bloo comes on the screen and then Bloo automatically shuts down. When I restart Bloo the second time, it works perfect.
Keep up the great work!
[quote]Great job! I think 1.3 is going to be a big jump from 1.2.2. Still, please consider including the quiz results in the feed as well because nowadays these have become my main updates.[/quote]
I agree, this is the only reason i stick with babbler right now. I wanna see the whole news feed.
Hi Dimitris, I want to congratulate you for making a great android app, which gets better and better after every update. I would love to see new locales in a future version, I could help you with spanish translations if you require it, just let me know.
The feed is still very slow… It is fatal and is a top priority – afterall Bloo is a handset application, we use it on the street. Not many people have patient to wait 30sec before the feed is loaded.
UPDATE TOMORROW! I’m so glad I have tomorrow off now, I’ll be able to test it out all day.
One thing though, a few people have been chatting about seeing the ‘quizzes etc’ in the feed. PLEASE PLEASE if you are going to add these in make them optional. I can’t stand the constant spam from these apps on Facebook, and if I hadn’t found Facebook Purity & Greasemonkey, I probably wouldn’t be using Facebook right now. Please, I beg of you, NO QUIZ SHIT ON BLOO! Thanks you.
+1
I really hate all those quizzes, so if added, please make it optional.
no quizzes please. I like the pure feeling of the feed. i don’t need spam posts.
+3
I don’t care about quizzes. Maybe Dimitris can add a filter in to the app to choose what to show on the feed?
Ideally it would be best to take the “hidden” settings from the Facebook account.
I always hide any quiz or other random crap from my feed. If Bloo could see what I’ve instructed Facebook to hide and also hide it from the Bloo feed it would be awesome.
Hi is there anyway to make it iPhone compatible? W/e i post up on bloo cannot be seen by people using the iphone app.. kinda sux have more than a few iPhone freinds.. loving the app great work
That might be caused by privacy settings in your Facebook account.
In Facebook check the Settings->Privacy Settings->Applications page and ensure the relevant check boxes are selected.
These control what information other people can see from their applications.
Have asked before but not had a response, can we have it so it automatically updates the feed every x seconds?
I am currently having to use Babble at work because my phone sits in a cradle with it on and it auto updates every 1.5 minutes as I’ve set it to.
Would really like Bloo to do this.
Maff, I should be able to do this in 1.3.1. For now the new feed only efreshes explicitly. You can keep scrolling for infinitely more though.
Could you make that optional though Dimitris?
Last thing I want is the feed to refresh when i’m in the middle of reading or typing something. I would personally prefer it not to refresh, but if it’s something that could be optional, that would be great.
Bloo is leaps and bounds better than anything else on android and I’m glad I got it. The only issues I have is that it crashes often and the notifications become annoying because of it. If there was a way to show what notifications I wanted that would be great, although this may be an option with FB itself. I too would like to see chat added as well. Fbabble doesn’t seem to keep me logged in all the time and having an addiotional app open means less battery time.
I have a really big problem! I cant view photos or post on friends walls. the first day everything was fine. Now when i try to post things it give me ” Permission required. in order to post you must enable” i did and when it redirects me to the page it say you already enabled this. and with photos it gives me no photos or users privacy settings restrict access” When im on face book and i go to privacy> applications i have all checked except the last 5… I really love this app and it was my first purchase. i just want it fixed.
hey everytime i run the app it tells me Session Expired and i have generated a new code about 10 times now
same here, happens to me every time I try to do a status update
Facebook have done something because Babbler is haveing the same problems, you cannot update your status with that either!!
yup, Facebook really messed something up
every application that uses publishing to feed stopped working
Me too please fix this!
Just happened to me today for the first time.
I got that error once. I refused to generate a new code. I rebooted my phone and problem solved. I hope everyone has as easy a time of it!
can’t wait to get the 1.3 release!
I think it’s obvious that Facebook’s streams are buggy. So some of the problems listed here are out of the control of the developer.
There is a rumor though that Facebook is developing an app for Android, so apps like Bloo better step it up… fast.
It’s not a rumour, it’s a fact. Whether or not it’ll be available for G1 users, that’s another story.
I’m also having the issue of Bloo requiring me to get a new code every time I try to post a status update.
So when was that “update tomorrow” post posted?
Think it was posted on Wednesday?
Dimitris said there were a few things that came up about the notifications on the Facebook group wall.
Personally, would rather wait a few more days for a more solid release than a rushed one. Don’t forget, it’s on Dimitris working on this app, all the rival apps have 2 or more developers working on them.
Every time I update my status I get the session is no longer valid error,and i have to go get another 6 digit code. Why is it doing this all of a sudden? Lets me view feeds and what not but not update status.
Hey man! Just wanted you to know that I am loving Bloo. Keep up the good work! I lvoe the idea of being able to post video live from my G1 so I am looking forward to 1.3!
As for features, the only thing I would like to see is a way to check my inbox and reply to messages in facebook but it isn’t all that big a deal, just something that would be nice. photo commenting would be nice also. If I can already do it I just havent found the menu item yet.
Anyway, great work. I love the app and it does what I need it to do on the road now!
Ray
Hey,
I’d love a contact photo sync option. I used to use FacebookSync but it was buggy and crashed and now seems to have gone from the market anyway