The app was optimised for the newly released mobile operating systems by Google and Apple, while also being updated with a variety of new features. In addition, existing features were reworked to make them even more intuitive and user-friendly. Furthermore, the entire analytics integration was moved to Google Firebase in order to continuously provide our customers with the optimal evaluation of feature usage and app performance data.
The new app is being released for several customers at the same time and will improve the everyday Internet life of thousands of end users.
Support for new operating systems
There were big changes for both Android and iOS this autumn. Among other things, Android 10 and iOS 13 extended the management options for app permissions, giving users the option for more individualised settings. Also, a dark mode was introduced for both operating systems. It is supposed to conserve battery life by using less energy for lighting up the display. Apple even released a dedicated operating system for tablets, iPadOS. This change now allows for working with several apps in parallel or connecting external storage media, for example.
The maintenance release of m2suite mobile makes our app ready for the changed requirements of those new operating systems. This way, even the users with the very latest systems are guaranteed to have a trouble-free experience using our products.
Analytics
Not only did this autumn change things for mobile operating systems, but it also had innovations for analytics in store. At the end of October, Google moved the analytics management for mobile apps to the app service platform Firebase. This meant a complete change of the analytics integration in m2suite mobile. After intense planning, implementation and testing phases there now is no doubt: not only was the change to Firebase successful, but our customers will directly profit from the new advantages the platform brings with regards to logging and processing analytics data.
New features
The popular feature “Connect to Wi-Fi” already proved itself under Android. With the new version of m2suite mobile, it also becomes available under iOS. Users can enter their Wi-Fi data, scan a QR code or use the OCR scan to scan the Wi-Fi data that’s printed on their modem. This way, it’s not necessary anymore to switch to the device settings under iOS, as both establishing and managing a Wi-Fi connection can be taken care of in the app. This new function also improves the comfort of already existing features. For example, the connection during Internet setup can now be established with the new feature.
The OCR scan is a new feature under both Android and iOS. It simplifies connecting to the personal Wi-Fi even further. Instead of entering the Wi-Fi data by hand, you can just hover the smartphone camera over the sticker on the modem that has the Wi-Fi data printed on. m2suite mobile automatically recognises the printed Wi-Fi information (e.g. SSID and PSK) and establishes a connection. This way, users don’t have to enter the long Wi-Fi passwords that are usually preset on new modems.
Rework of existing features
As part of the maintenance release, several existing features received major rework. The feature “Measure Wi-Fi signal strength” and the multi-room analysis in the feature “Optimise Wi-Fi channel” were updated with new graphics. This way, the measured data can be displayed more user-friendly, which in turn makes the results more communicable. At the same time, the general design of the features was aligned with the rest of the app to form a more coherent overall picture.
In addition, the “Wi-Fi tips and tricks” and the FAQ of the “Speedtest” were reworked. The aim of both features is to provide users with explanations of commonly used terms and additional information. In order to process these even more clearly, the covered topics were grouped by relation and the layout of both features was made uniform. Users can now also search for terms and directly jump to the desired topic.
The tutorial of the app was extended as well. There is now an additional slide with information about the function “pull-to-refresh” that can be used for updating information in many parts of the app.
Last but not least, there were technical changes in the background of m2suite mobile. Code efficiency is always being improved (e.g. when searching the modem) while there’s continuous integration of new technologies too. Because of that, the maintenance release also offers a significant speed boost of m2suite mobile.