Grokr has been live for two months now and we’ve been thrilled with the response so far. We know there have been specific requests for everything from more customization features to availability of Grokr in additional countries. With this in mind, we’re happy to announce the release of Grokr 1.1 which includes the following updates:
Customization
Remember how a lot of you wanted to move titles around and make some of them go away? Well, now you can! Swipe tiles to the left to make them temporarily disappear or go to the ‘Customize’ section in ‘Settings’ to remove them permanently or to move them around however you like!
Adding New Interests
We have also simplified adding new interests to Grokr. Now you can add your interests, favorite sports teams or topics you want to follow by going to ‘Customize > Interests’ and using the search box available on the screen. For interests that we recognize, we will show you a preview with an ‘Add” button, for interests that we do not recognize, we will send it to our servers to start collecting information.
Battery Life
We definitely heard you on the topic of battery life and we’ve added a fix to the background GPS and battery usage by changing our location algorithm from an always-on service to an on-demand one. Our ambient location tracking vision was too early. We went from taking as much as 65% of your battery while running in the background to now virtually nothing at all. We’ve also improved our battery-economy in the foreground, taking less than 1% for every 4 minutes of app usage, which is better than average for an app of this capability.
Improved Facebook integration
This release incorporates the latest SDK and with it comes single sign-on to Facebook. You will need to re-authenticate because of the new SDK and for extra permissions we require from you. You should start seeing some pretty cool Facebook specific tiles in the next version (v1.2).
This release was about acknowledging your awesome feedback, getting our stuff together, and making things right by you. We’re very thankful to hear your thoughts on how we can make Grokr even better, so keep it coming and stay tuned for new functionality in future versions that are on the way. And not to worry for those of you outside of the U.S. who can’t wait to get Grokr on your iPhone — we’re planning to make an announcement about new geographies soon. If you’re interested in being a beta tester, shoot us an email! (betaprogram@grokrlabs.com)
The knowledge you seek will find you,
–The Grokr Team
On dismissing cards: I understand the need to inform/educate the user on how to bring cards back or hide them completely. It would be nice if there were a “got it” or “don’t show this again” option, so that the dismissal of cards is quicker instead of leaving a gap hanging there for 1-2 seconds.
Hi Keith,
We have added this feature, it’ll be hitting the app store shortly.
Jeremy
For those of us overseas, how about letting us submit our email addresses (and locations) so you can notify us when you become available on our local iTunes store. We don’t want to forget about you in the meantime…
When will Grokr be available in Europe..?
Hi Chris,
I don’t have a date set yet. However, we’re currently preparing a beta launch for the UK/Canada. If you’d like to signup for the beta, email feedback@grokrlabs.com – Just let them know where you live and that you’d like to be a part of the beta process.
Thanks,
Jeremy