Reviewing New 2.2.0 version of Esteem application - Good and Bad

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Today I read an announcement from Esteem about the release of new version 2.2.0. I was pretty excited to check that out. I have been using esteem mobile application for a very long time. Recently after it had lots of bugs, I stopped using it. In spite of the bugs, I still continued to use it but after my articles disappeared a couple of times because of bugs in the app, it was quite frustrating to continue using Esteem.

Now that the app is back with the new version with lots of bug fixes, I really wanted to give it a try and try and find some bugs. 😁😉 I'm just planning to write what and all I find out and whatever I feel about the app. Kindly bare with me, if the article is bigger.

Features that excited me

Let's start with the good things first. I'll come to the bugs later in this article. Let's first talk about what is good in this new version of the app.

In the previous version of the app, I really hated some of the features. Some were called as a feature and some were actually bugs. I wanted to see a bug free application which I should say has happened. Compared to previous versions, this version is lot more stable and the bugs that I have found so far are just low priority cosmetic bugs. But the application is really good. I would like to talk about the features one by one.

Damn, it is pretty fast

The first and foremost thing that I noticed with the new version is the accessibility. I don't know what was improved by to my understanding, I think the application is very fast compared to the past. I'm typing this article just in my mobile and I don't feel any discomfort at all. Though there are faster applications out there, comparitively this version of the app is pretty fast.

Earlier the text editor used to react a bit slow and I will be very afraid to use it worrying if my article would disappear after the app crash. But so far the experience had been really great. The overall accessibility of the application is very fast.

Editor screen/ content writing screen

Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph the text editor is really amazing. I don't feel like I'm writing something inside an app. It gives me a feeling of writing just inside some notepad or something. This is awesome.

My hand usually goes to the save button when I draft something in the mobile app. The reason is because I have had experience in the past where the app suddenly crashes and all my work would have gone. All hard work in typing something would have got lost. But now the save option works pretty well. I'm also able to see that the icon changes to green color when I hit save.

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That's one good thing to have because in the previous version I will not know if the article got saved to draft or not. I used to hit it multiple times to make sure it got saved.

Disabling pin

This was my top most wanted feature. From the day one it was annoying for me because I didn't like to enter pin every time I wanted to open the app. And, entering pin and validation process also slowed down the usability. Now it is lot more convenient to use the app without a necessity to enter the pin. That's pretty fast as well. Thank you so much for that feature.

Purchasing ESTM with Google Pay

This is a feature that I really admired. Sometimes I get some rewards in my Google wallet by completing some of the tasks. I always wished to have an option where I can purchase some crypto using that money. Now that I have that option, it is easier to purchase ESTM with my local currency/credit card. And, technically the tokens can also be converted to Steem by using them on a post to get a vote. I've not given a thought about the ROI but from the looks of it, the idea looks really cool.

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Increase in the number of tags one could use

I'm able to see that we are now allowed to use more than 5 tags in our post. As the tribes are getting very popular, using more than 5 tags on a post has become a necessity. Good to see that feature introduced in Esteem. I guess currently we can use 7 tags in our post, if I'm not wrong. Maybe 10 would have been comfortable.

Bugs I found so far

Though I mentioned lots of great things about the application, I would like to say that there are also many bugs still available in the app. I have been using the app now for more than 2 hours and the application closed and crashed 2 times. I would like to highlight some bugs one by one.

  1. Unable to login using Wif directly

During login there were two options, direct login and Steem connect login. I was unable to do a direct login. The login button was grayed out after I entered my wif.

jm4e5vurhm.png

(It took me 15 mins to find a workaround to upload the above image using esteem directly. I now have second thoughts on all the praising that I did for the text editor. Lol)

  1. Notifications is always unread

I tried to visit the notifications section and tried to hit the tick mark to mark all the notifications as read. But it kept loading.

Screenshot_20190826-215436.png

A good difference between the previous version and this version is that if I hit that option, the application would crash.

  1. App crashes after I uploaded an image

I have seen this behavior in the previous version as well. After I upload an image to the editor and try to type something further the app crashes and closes. All thanks to the save as draft option. Or else my 2 hours effort to type this article would have gone waste.

I currently upload the article to steemit user interface and from there I copy and paste the markdown link here. I'm not going to use the internal upload option again until the issue is fixed.

  1. Unable to choose a different RPC node

I have used this option in the desktop surfer application but I don't know why but when I try to choose a different RPC node, there is no value in the drop-down.

Screenshot_20190826-215539.png

Of course this is not a high priority thing or a big bug as such but I wanted to highlight this as well.

  1. Incorrect description or post content in the draft page

I went to the drafts section to see if it looks good and if I'm able to see all my previously saved drafts. Good that they were all available. But I noticed that the same description of the first post was repeated for all the posts.

Screenshot_20190826-215810.png

I remember seeing this issue with the images. Previously, the images were repeated now I'm able to see images correctly but the text is repeated. But when I click and navigate inside, it looks fine.

I think other than these all others are just small small things. This article has now crossed over 1200 words. This is the first time I'm writing such a huge article via mobile esteem app. I'm able to see the editor is a bit laggy now but that's understandable.

Few things that I'm yet to check. In partiko app, if I click on a mobile push application it will directly take me to the notifications page to view the notification. If I click on that I will be navigated to the respective post. I'm not sure if that feature is already available but if you can introduce that, it will be great.

Last time I also had issues with post scheduling in esteem mobile app. The scheduling worked fine in surfer but not in mobile. I have to test that as well. But apart from that, I'm sure the app is a simply great and thanks @good-karma for all the efforts. I think this can definitely become the future robust mobile application for Steem.

Damn, 1400 words. I'm not going to make this article even longer. Let me stop right here. On a final note, I guess I can already continue using the mobile application. Except for the crashing issue after image upload, all other issues are manageable. I'll continue to use the app regularly and write a review again when I find time. Thanks one again for this wonderful app.



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3 comments
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(Edited)

Thank you @bala41288! It is great feedback and the one we really appreciate if everyone takes time to report issues and give feedback on things they like.
We have fixed those bugs you reported and they are pushed to PlayStore automatically. Please check PlayStore for updated version, it might take few hours to see update. Keep them coming! 🤗

Oh btw, in next version, we will change software engine app relies on and we are expecting 5x faster performance improvements. Stay tuned for that.

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Thanks for the heads up, btw you can use realityhub tag when reviewing products. :)

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Oh thanks I didn't know that. I will use it from next time onwards. Thanks for the heads up.

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