Beta 16 is Done!

Beta 16 is Done!

Blog
It's been a while since my last blog post was published here. Meanwhile, we have released seven updates for the app (two major releases and five bug fixes). With the app's recent update (version 0.21 beta), we eventually concluded the project's Beta 16 phase, which unexpectedly stretched a few months. In this post, I'm describing what we've been through during Beta 16. The Elephant Something happened in September 2022 (#MahsaAmini) that affected some of our Iranian team members. It has been rough, devastating, and disappointing. I'd written a relatively detailed story about what we went through as a team during the last few months. Still, I ended up removing it from this post. Maybe some other time. These events hugely interfered with the typical workflow in our team, hindered us,…
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Beta 15 is Done!

Beta 15 is Done!

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This phase of development completed one of the platform's exclusive features. I've already published a detailed post covering the changes we've made in the new version of the app (0.19 beta) and the new features we've rolled out. If you're an invited beta tester, please read it on the app's internal feed.Unfortunately, This is as much I can disclose here at this point. Alright, very informative! Until the next update, stay safe!Cheers!
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Beta 14 is Done!

Beta 14 is Done!

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We've pulled off Beta 14 by delivering many new features and sections to the platform. It was a refreshing and promising phase. Most of the tasks we've accomplished had visual and perceivable outcomes. We heard a lot of positive feedback from our beta testers that helped shore-up our stamina. In this post, I briefly update you on some notable events and decision making occurred during beta 14. Audio Version - Read by Author Funded for 2022! We managed to raise enough money to continue the development of the platform in 2022. Despite some lucrative offers, I decided not to go crazy by giving away lots of the company's equity at this point. I am so confident that we've created a solid platform. As a matter of fact, I personally, contributed…
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Beta 13 is Done!

Beta 13 is Done!

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We've completed Beta 13 with a massive fundamental process and UX (User Experience) changes. It brings the first batch of new features after almost a year that we constantly worked towards getting the offline features of the app to reach a reliable state. In this post, I'm presenting some highlights of our journey throughout Beta 13. Finally, I'm concluding it with a brief personal update. Audio Version - Read by Author Spotify First of all, I have to admit that I'm sick of not being able to write about the entire story and constantly thinking about whether I should mention a part or exclude it from the blog updates, essentially holding it until after releasing the public beta. I think there would be no points in the holistic approach we…
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Beta 12 is Done! We are over the hump!

Beta 12 is Done! We are over the hump!

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A hell of a phase! Much labor of love, dealing with numerous technical challenges, redesigning an entirely different architecture, API, and here we go! We made all pre-planned sections of the app offline accessible! We didn't cheat, didn't take any shortcuts, and stayed committed. Now we are really proud of ourselves.  In this post, I'll briefly cover the problem we faced before Beta 12, our solution to overcome it, and its implementation during beta 12. I also discuss the reasons behind why we accepted the challenge in the first place. Audio Version - Read by Author Spotify Video version is available on author's instagram: @yaashaar_com Beta 11 and 12's Philosophy Beta 11 and 12 were all about changing the beneath architecture of our platform for long-term benefits. But why did we…
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Beta 12 Third Quarter Update

Beta 12 Third Quarter Update

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I have been keeping a low profile during the last few months as I have been heavily occupied with completing my share of tasks in Beta 12. Now I thought it would be a proper time to give you a quick update on our progress and other affairs in the company. Lengthy Beta 12 First of all, we were facing numerous technical challenges that we had encountered in making some sections of the app offline accessible. Although we have managed to tackle them one by one, they made us complete many tasks of other phases ahead of us. They made us go out of the scope of the Beta 12 phase many times. Second, we were changing a lot of things under the hood, and applying any change requires us…
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Mid-Beta-12 Update

Mid-Beta-12 Update

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Alright, it's time for another quick mid-phase update. Beta 12 is getting lengthy or at least it can be expected to get somewhat similar to Beta 11 in which we made almost half of the iOS app offline accessible. We blame our high aspiration to support offline interactions while we are a relatively small team. No regrets though! It's bewildering to see how much you can expand your presumed limits. About We/Us More often I use "We/Us" in my updates. That's because in an alternate world we've been posting these updates in the company's blog at this point. However, thanks to COVID-19, last year we decided not to launch the platform and not to reveal the app/company's name. That's why I keep posting updates here.  So, by "We" I refer…
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Beta 11 is Done!

Beta 11 is Done!

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It’s been quite a while since I posted an update. Too many things happened in the company, in my personal life and frankly talking about them was my least priority. Without further ado, I’m gonna talk about the most important events: The iOS Offline version is out! Yep, it was the major change I was talking about in my last few blog posts. We have been working hard for the last 3 months or so to bring the offline experience to the platform so users can access their data and interact with the app while they are offline as well. Today we release our first offline version (0.14.0) for iOS users.  It includes a lot of fundamental changes in the app architecture and brings offline experience to almost half of…
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Mid-Beta-11 Update

Mid-Beta-11 Update

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As we dived into Beta 11, we realized it's going to keep us occupied for a while! Since we approached the end of 2020, we made some adjustments to the project timeline. Moreover, we had a meeting to re-evaluate the pandemic situation to decide whether to start the public beta test in early 2021 or not. Therefore, I decided to update you on these matters. Beta 11 The truth is we had heavily underestimated the amount of work and changes we need to do to meet Beta 11 requirements and achieve its objectives. We initially thought the Major Change we had planned to introduce would require something between 5% to 10% changes in our codebase. However, once we started, we quickly realized we are facing 20% to 30% changes. We…
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Beta 10 is Done!

Beta 10 is Done!

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The last couple of weeks was my so-called "off weeks". I was going to have that carefree calm time that I had dreamed of ever since we started beta phases. However, the fact that now you are reading this release post, completely indicates how that plan went on! Beta 10 We completed the Beta 10. The platform's help document was a bit outdated. We updated it so that it covers the new features we added during Beta 8 and 9. The rest of the phase was all about fixing bugs and resolving semantic issues of the platform features that were either identified by ourselves in the last few phases or reported by testers. Subsequently, we released two bugfix updates; one for the Android-, and one for the iOS app. A…
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