Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on April 23, 2010
First the good news: Easy WiFi is back in the Apple App Store. Yay! Now the bad news: Easy WiFi is out of Nokia Ovi Huh?! Yes, it’s been quite interesting recently with these App Stores. In the case of Apple, we’ve been out of the store for a while, reworking the app and resubmitting to conform to their every changing policies. Still, we’re very happy to be back and looking forward to getting some real development done that adds value in a future release. For Ovi, distribution was halted because of a policy change for products containing encryption. Quite draconian. We’re not alone in being impacted, and it’s probably going to take a month or two to sort out. Meanwhile, Nokia users can download the app directly from us at www.easywifi.com/download. Although we’ve been quiet for a while, there lot’s of new development activity at Devicescape. There will be a bunch of new releases coming soon, and you’ll see them first on Android. See if you can guess why!
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on March 5, 2010
You might notice that the main Easy WiFi application is not currently available in Apple’s app store. We actually removed availability of the app a few days back because the behavior wasn’t quite right on some devices and networks and we wanted to ready a new version. Ironically, we got hit in the much reported “WiFi scanner” purge that Apple did yesterday, so Apple removed our already unavailable app! Now, the Network version of Easy WiFi isn’t a WiFi scanner, although it does try to do smart stuff with WiFi on the iPhone OS, and this may have triggered Apple’s action. Nonetheless, we’re working on a new version which should calm their concerns and it should be in process within the next few hours. All being well, we’ll have a new app approved and available soon. Watch this space.
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on February 25, 2010
As part of our continuing goal to improve Easy WiFi we’re running a survey. If you’re a user of the Easy WiFi app on your device, or the web portal at easywifi.com, this is a good chance to tell us what you think! The survey is brief and should take 5 minutes or less to complete. We’ll post the results here in early March, but you can be assured we’ll take your input to heart. Click here to access the survey! Many thanks in advance, Dave
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on November 6, 2009
It’s been a busy few weeks here at Devicescape and we haven’t had the chance to write until now. On October 20th we announced our own hotspot network called, simply, the Easy WiFi Network. We launched a brand new web portal at easywifi.com to eventually replace my.devicescape.com and released a new version of the iPhone OS app via Apple’s App Store. This week we followed up with upgraded apps for Nokia devices via Ovi, and a brand new platform – Android – on the Android Marketplace. And, we produced new versions of the PC app for Windows 7 and a new version of the Mac app for Snow Leopard. Whew! This new version is a HUGE change for Devicescape. For the last two years we’ve built a loyal following of users who use Easy WiFi to connect to their hotspot accounts. We now support over 1200 different hotspot providers, ranging from commercial providers like AT&T to university campuses (go AirBears!) Right now we’re managing around 400,000 connections per day with our little utility. Pretty cool. But, of course, we’re always thinking of ways to improve our products, so we decided to take it to the next level by going beyond…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on October 3, 2009
The Easy Wi-Fi multi network application (white icon) is temporarily unavailable in the Apple App Store. It will be restored on or around October 20th. So, why is it unavailable? Well, we’re working on a big new release, version 4. Due to the odd behavior of the App Store we can’t have the old version available while we also have a newer version with restricted availability. We’re not quite ready for prime time on the new app so we want to get it out to our partners and friends who will check it out and give us great suggestions. This forces us to halt broad availability and control access via Apple’s “promo codes.” Sorry for the delay. Meantime you could use another version of Easy Wi-Fi (they’re all extensible to any hotspot provider). What does version 4 contain? Well, it’s a secret! But we’re quite excited as it adds a revolutionary capability that many of you have asked for. Here’s a graphic from the app to tickle your imagination. Can you guess? Want to be among the select reviewers of the new app? Send us an email request. We have 10 promo codes available and we’ll allocate them based on…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on September 14, 2009
We’re happy to announce that Easy Wi-Fi works fine in the latest 3.1 firmware for the iPhone and iPod touch. Yay! Thanks to our friends at Apple for helping accommodate us. Having got that out the way, there are a couple of things you might need to know. First of all, Apple’s special support only applies to the original Easy Wi-Fi multi-network application (the one with the white icon). If you’re using any of the other Easy Wi-Fi apps, like the AT&T or T-Mobile version, you’ll need to install the original version too. It’s free in the AppStore. You don’t need to use it: just the act of installing it has the effect of telling the iPhone OS not to do “smart” stuff with your Wi-Fi connection in hotspots. Finally, if you’re one of the many iPod touch users who never upgraded from 2.x firmware, ignore all of this. You’re fine. The issue only occurs with iPhone OS 3.0, and if you upgrade you’ll be jumping past that version from now on. We’re relieved to be back working better on the iPhone and iPod, although it’s clear that Apple hotspot support is still a work in progress. They did a…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on September 9, 2009
Devicescape is currently hiring for two new positions. The first is a manager of mobile products engineering. This is a key position which owns our client apps, so you need to meld great leadership with a passion for consumer centric mobile products. A track record which shows you’re way better than any of us will be expected! You’ll have a small but very talented team to help and a strong partnership with our server people. The second position is for a build and test engineer, to help ensure our products work well and can be produced efficiently. You’ll need a good grasp of technology, but also a strong sense for how users perceive usability issues with products. More information on these can be found on our careers page. Come make Devicescape and Easy Wi-Fi better!
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on July 14, 2009
In my post a few weeks back I announced that we intended to begin charging for our Nokia S60 application. On further reflection we’ve decided to revisit this decision and instead make all of our consumer clients free. Part of this decision was based on our challenge with iPhone OS 3.0, documented by John in the posts below, and leading us to make Easy Wi-Fi free in Apple’s AppStore. I also have to admit that Ovi seems like a much less effective vehicle for paid application distribution than we hoped, so the benefits of frictionless (ie free) distribution outweighed any consumer revenues. So, effective immediately, all our apps on the various platforms are free of charge, with the notable exception of those distributed via Nokia Download which will still get the $4.99 “try-before-you-buy” version. Thanks for all your support in the past and we hope you continue to enjoy using Easy Wi-Fi.
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on June 18, 2009
We’re finding out a little more now, especially the reason why some people are not seeing any problem running the Easy Wi-Fi apps under iPhone OS 3.0. [Check out the MacWorld article about the new login capabilities of iPhone OS 3.0.] We’ve also found a case where the app can still be useful even without that workaround, so several of the Easy Wi-Fi apps will be returning to the store today as free apps! We’ll try to keep this blog updated with what we learn, as we learn it (within the limitations of any non-disclosure agreements). Re-authentication On the AT&T network we have noticed that depending on what you do once connected, you can be pretty quickly timed-out. In that case, when you try to access the web you’ll get the regular login form, and, of course, other apps like email just fail. You can make the built-in authentication work again by turning Wi-Fi off and back on, but you can also just launch Easy Wi-Fi to handle the re-authentication for you. We’re assuming that this will also be true on other networks where the access controller times out the client devices when they’re idle without actually forcing them to…
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on June 17, 2009
The Good News Today’s release of the iPhone OS 3.0 has added what is really two new features that will benefit public Wi-Fi users: Automated login to any carrier provided Wi-Fi networks (e.g. all of AT&T’s Wi-Fi locations here in the US); An integrated mechanism for logging in to other public Wi-Fi networks via a web form. Obviously, iPod touch users don’t benefit from the carrier network feature (they don’t have a carrier!), but they do get the integrated web form login mechanism. The Bad News As with the good news above, there are two bits of bad news here too: The integrated mechanism, at least for me, does not remember what I entered, forcing me to retype the information each time. The new autofill button is always unavailable even though I have the feature turned on in the Safari settings. When this form fails, or when you tap cancel to skip it, rather than leaving you connected the OS disconnects from the Wi-Fi network. That prevents you from using a third party smart-client like Devicescape’s Easy Wi-Fi. Disappointed Given that our apps are unable to serve their purpose in this new version of the OS, we took the difficult…
