[APP] 3B Meteo, now with LIVE TILES ! -[R]- 07/05/2011 -[V]- 1.10.0.0

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andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Really nice app. Are you going to release also a paid version ad free?

Thanks. Well I thought that at the start, maybe adding some extra functionality, while keeping all the available data also in the free version.
A possible paid version could for example include:
- more save slots available
- possibility to enter your webcam links
- some extra live tiles

what do you think ?
 

keres7

Member
Jan 13, 2011
9
0
At the moment, if we do not consider the missing live tile (which in most cases doesn't work smoothly), this is the best weather app.
Your suggestion does make sense, a free version with some restrictions and a paid one with some additional features will gain, for sure, a 5 stars rating.
Thanks.
 
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andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
At the moment, if we do not consider the missing live tile (which in most cases doesn't work smoothly), this is the best weather app.
Your suggestion does make sense, a free version with some restrictions and a paid one with some additional features will gain, for sure, a 5 stars rating.
Thanks.

Thanks. Based on my intentions and what I've already established with the weather provider, you can be sure core functionality and all the available weather data will always be free.

My doubts on a paid app stem from the fact that since it's a 'browsable' app, you can easily make some money with ads support, especially if people start clicking on them (hint, hint, hehe).

As for the live tile, to be honest while I do want to implement it and I've already made quite a few tests, I'm still maintaining that it's far more important to provide as much weather information as possibile and present it in a nice way. Since 3B offers a whole lot of services (more to come, too), I'd be more interested in implementing them for the time being, while working in the spare time on the live tile. As you said, live tile should become more reliable with time (as well as a push notification for weather alerts) and right now it's a bit of a pain to make them work, or more importantly, can degrade the polish level of the application, when they don't work.

Thanks for the feedback, please keep sending ideas and opinions, especially on the interface.
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Live tile ready, but...

Live tile is ready.

Big problem: the live tile push stack here (and maybe not only with these mobile network operators) basically doesn't work.

On the emulator, the live tile works perfectly, while on the phone I keep getting TempDisconnected errors.
I thought the problem was solved with NoDo but that is not the case, so I've open a support ticket with Microsoft and will see what they say.
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Live Tiles ! for Worldwide Locations

Finally we pushed the Live Tiles update ! Please consider they're still in beta, an update has already been pushed that makes them more reliable (and won't crash the app).

You can choose between 3 Live Tiles types:

- Now (Weather at the moment)
- Forecast (6h step forecast)
- Webcam (only italian locations, sorry !)

In the meantime, please come back here and let us know how you find them and how they work for you !
 

keres7

Member
Jan 13, 2011
9
0
Hi andycted, I've updated the app but when I try to enable the live tile I get always the same error "Failed to open channel". Moreover, after that operation, it's no longer possible to open the app again since it crashes continuously.
Any suggestion?
Thks
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Hi andycted, I've updated the app but when I try to enable the live tile I get always the same error "Failed to open channel". Moreover, after that operation, it's no longer possible to open the app again since it crashes continuously.
Any suggestion?
Thks

This could be caused by a couple of reasons.
- Nodo that broke push for someone (hard reset or regedit to solve it)
- A glitch in the Microsoft push notification service, that keeps inexplicably some phones locked for a while

Either way, I'm sorry about the crash, which I tracked down and fixed in the next update coming tomorrow. For now, you can uninstall and reinstall the app !
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
I'm starting to see positive feedback on the marketplace and a few emails flew in with ok results from the live tile. Anybody else had problems ?

I had about 800 registrations to the live tile (yikes) in the last day, they're not all active as of now, of course, but the system seems to be stable enough.

Did you fix your live tile somehow ? I think you can do a few more things beside hard reset, like waiting a couple of hours, turn off, remove sim, turn on with wifi and see if it works...
 

keres7

Member
Jan 13, 2011
9
0
Till now I've not been able to make this app working properly. I didn't try the hard reset yet because I'd prefer to test the upcoming version first.
You mentioned a regedit method, is there a trick I could apply by changing some registry key?
However, it sounds strange to me, I've some other app with live tile that is working without problems at the moment, even though, sometimes, there is a delay in updating.
In any case, I want to thank you for your patience.
Cheers
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Till now I've not been able to make this app working properly. I didn't try the hard reset yet because I'd prefer to test the upcoming version first.
You mentioned a regedit method, is there a trick I could apply by changing some registry key?
However, it sounds strange to me, I've some other app with live tile that is working without problems at the moment, even though, sometimes, there is a delay in updating.
In any case, I want to thank you for your patience.
Cheers

the big problem with live tiles is that there are a ton of things that can go wrong, from the network, to the Microsoft service, to the app. The crash is a bad response to a very particular problem in the first two, it's a bug which is fixed in thethe upcoming update, but ultimately doesn't solve the connection issue. In other words the app won't crash but tiles won't update.

From the log of the first two days I can roughly say there's a 80% success rate, 15% without updates and 5% with the aforementioned crash too...

I have three devices. On one I was able to receive push notifications reliably only after deleting a couple of registry keys .
I'll give you the link as soon as I can, now I'm not arlt home . Hard resetting has the same result I think.

[EDIT]

here you go:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1027053&highlight=registry+nodo+push
 
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andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Till now I've not been able to make this app working properly. I didn't try the hard reset yet because I'd prefer to test the upcoming version first.
You mentioned a regedit method, is there a trick I could apply by changing some registry key?
However, it sounds strange to me, I've some other app with live tile that is working without problems at the moment, even though, sometimes, there is a delay in updating.
In any case, I want to thank you for your patience.
Cheers

Did you see the updated post with the link ? You have to unlock the phone first, not sure how it's done after nodo...
 

keres7

Member
Jan 13, 2011
9
0
Hi andycted, I've tried what you suggested and finally it works!
Fortunately, I've an Optimus 7 therefore, by entering in the MFG menu, I've able to unlock the phone and install "registry editor.xap" file and erase the two keys, as described in the topic you linked.
The live tile is really nice and it works like a charm.
I'd say that also the other live tiles seem to be faster now.. Microsoft should improve such a functionality since a lot of users like it!
What could I say..? Thank you for your great job and for your strong support. Carry on like this!
Ciao
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Excellent ! Did you update to v 1.6 first ? That should have solved the crash, although as I said it wouldn't make the live tile work.

Glad you're enjoying it, feel free to post a few suggestions if you have them.

Especially on the colour scheme and live tiles.
 

keres7

Member
Jan 13, 2011
9
0
No, I've updated to v1.6 after the registry modification.

I have a question regarding the update of the weather forecast Is it possible to get it automatic once entered in the application (instead of pushing the relevant button)?
I like the live tile and color scheme appearance, considering that now it is also possible to set soft colors.
What I would suggest is: add information about sunrise and sunset and change the icons accordingly (different icons for day and night).
It would be intersting to have also some indication about the moon phase, in a dedicated page, to avoid confusion.
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
No, I've updated to v1.6 after the registry modification.

I have a question regarding the update of the weather forecast Is it possible to get it automatic once entered in the application (instead of pushing the relevant button)?
I like the live tile and color scheme appearance, considering that now it is also possible to set soft colors.
What I would suggest is: add information about sunrise and sunset and change the icons accordingly (different icons for day and night).
It would be intersting to have also some indication about the moon phase, in a dedicated page, to avoid confusion.

Yeah, thanks those about sunrise/sundown are good ideas. I would have to calculate it though, since there is no such information in the feed that they're passing me.
Tell you the truth, the soft colours were put together hastly before pushing the live tile update, I haven't put much effort into it. It's more a 'what do you think' feature, that can be improved.

About refreshing the weather automatically, now it's possible only after 24h. At the start I set this limit because I thought that maybe we shouldn't waste server resources. Then again, the forecast server isn't mine (the Live Tile one is, and it's getting hit pretty bad ! I might have to upgrade it or start using my Azure server) and since it's quite a big weather provider, it shouldn't be a problem to lower that interval to maybe 3-4 hours. More often simply doesn't make much sense since they won't change the forecast so quickly most of the time.
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Live tiles

Update 1.6, with Live Tiles problems solver:
Anybody having trouble NOT receiving a single live tile update, please report the message that you can obtain like this, either here or by email:

- open the app
- enable live tiles
- close the app
- reopen the app
- go to the live tiles page
- wait 5 seconds
- press the '?' button

Thanks
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Live Tile status

Live Tiles seem to work better than first thought so far.

Success rate in sending the tile has risen above 80%, which means that on average, if I'm sending the tile 24 times a day, you will get it 20 times. This is actually very good and can account for those times when the phone is out of coverage.

On the other hand there are still a few cases which have problems, they can mostly be divided in two parts:

1. people who have their push notification blocked on the phone
2. very frequent, long, "temporary disconnection" problems

n.1 means that -because of bug in the push notification service- your phone is 'locked' out of push notifications, for the most part. Apparently it can be solved only by the registry edit method or hard reset. So far I'd say it's a very small % of users that get this problem, but since I can't get any communication on the server from them, I'm not too sure. I'm in contact with 3 users who have this situation and will try if we can find alternative solutions.

n.2 is the network carrier problem. Some carriers are worse than others at mantain an open connection required for push. Tre Italia is one of these. I'm on Tre and can see this problem happen quite frequently. It usually goes away after a couple of hours, but sometimes it can last longer.

Either way, there isn't a lot I can do about it I think, but I'm glad it works for most people.

Please keep the good feedback coming in the marketplace to encourage development.

PS: by the way, my webservice is getting hit pretty badly with all the tile requests. If by chance one day you won't see updates anymore, it means it's blown up and I'm upgrading to a bigger one, hehe
 
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andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
As predicted there are so many people using 3b now that it has live tiles that the server is now and then crashing.

First: thanks a lot fit choosing our app !

Second : I'm going to move it to azure briefly. If you miss a live tile now and then...don't worry it's going to be fixed !
 

andycted

Retired Recognized Developer
Aug 20, 2009
1,311
25
Update to 1.7

New update pushed:

- Sunrise and sunset times

- Better feedback on what is going on with the live tile. So you can understand (and report back) where the problem lies. Which usually is either:
1. Microsoft Push System doesn't work
2. Everything else is ok but your carrier closes connections too often

- 3B meteo is expanding their DB of locations

- a few improvements to the interface

- Fixed the national forecast page (without connection it crashed)
 

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    3B Meteo

    Marketplace description:
    Now with live tiles, for worldwide locations !

    News & Weather category rankings: N.2 in Italy, top 100 in Europe, top 200 in U.S.

    3B Meteo official application gives you access to weather forecasts, maps and other data for most locations worldwide. 3B Meteo is a feature-rich, Italian based weather forecast website, owned by MeteoSolutions srl.

    Available for all locations worldwide:
    - Location overview with day-by-day forecast for 40.000 locations, database growind daily
    - 6 hour period forecast over 7 days
    - Details for temperature, perception, precipitations, pressure, seas, humidity and wind
    - Regional maps
    - Live Tiles !

    Also available for Italian locations:
    - Detailed hourly forecast
    - Location details with snow information for mountain spots
    - Italy maps for weather, temperatures, winds and precipitations
    - Graph for Temperature/Precipitations and Humidity/Winds
    - Weather news, alerts and generic forecast (only in Italian)
    - Webcams

    Allows searching and caching for five locations in order to review them even without network connection

    Free with ad-support.

    ** Update 1.10 **

    - Day/Night in-app calculation
    - 12h auto-refresh setting
    ___________________

    Note: This application takes data from a italian national weather provider, but has most informations for 40.000 locations worldwide and maps of any region in the world. Currently adding more locations worldwide

    Source: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=11986947

    Market link: http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=5fa8b2bd-593b-e011-854c-00237de2db9e

    Homemade video:
    (application is available in english and italian, video was made using italian locale)

    1
    I've never been able to find Paris, France (!)

    - If I type "Paris, France" the city cannot be found...
    - If I type "Paris" it gives me Paris, Illinois, USA.
    - And GPS localization does not work either (!)

    WTH
    It's too complicated. I give up.

    Only weather app I had this problem. :(

    3B Meteo (the society, not the app) is currently working on enhancing support for foreign countries.

    Search 'Parigi' in italian. This is a limitation that it's being worked on by the weather provider, on which I can't do anything at the moment

    I haven't been able to test GPS localization outside Italy, but maybe they're implementing that as well, if it doesn't work yet.