26th January 2009
PureRSS has served us incredibly well as an initial forray into Android development and we have built up loyal band of users. Version 1.3 has just been released which clears up the last of the memory usage worries by tidying up the main database and shifting as much of the content storage as possible to the SD card, as well as adding a few new features.
At Pure Innovation we've been pondering the future of PureRSS as it is clear that there needs to be a major restructuring of the way the program works in order to incorporate some of the features that we'd like to see. We've also been considering ways to commercialise the application in as painless a way as possible so that we can continue to provide support and development time.
We have made the decision to end of line the PureRSS application, releasing only bug fixes in the future, with a view to creating a replacement app that marks a considerable upgrade to the facilities PureRSS can offer.
This as yet unnamed application (we're open to suggestions) will support folders and multiple data sources, from the usual RSS capabilities through facebook, twitter, discussion forums, polls and surveys. More data sources will be added over time.
We aim to make the application as customisable as possible, whilst taking full advantage of the SD card to minimise the impact on internal memory. There will be the much requested support of MP3 files, with video a possibility in the future.
We have also settled on the way in which we would like to commericalise the application, to fund its long term development and support. There will be two editions, one free the other available for a small fee. The only difference will be that the free edition will carry a single folder containing some compulsorary news feeds. This should be enough for us to generate some revenue without disrupting our users.
Finally we would like to make a product that genuinely reflects the needs of all our users. To accomplish this we'd like to welcome as many people as possible to feed back their ideas to us via email (android@pureinnovation.com) as well as the comments on this blog post. Once the application is released, hopefully in only a few weeks time, then there will be a permanent forum dedicated to collecting user feedback as well as regular polls for voting on development priorities.
Pure Innovation Ltd