Vegas Gang #72 - January 25th, 2012
Episode #72 is up!
Listen here: http://www.vegasgangpodcast.com/2012/01/vegas-gang-72-january-25th-2012/
Thank you all for voting for us in the Trippies. Thanks to you, we took home our first prize. Personally, it's something I've really wanted to win since we started the show. I know Jeff would have been really proud. I can't thank you all enough.
You know, we're still trying to find our way without Jeff. It's tough to find a rhythm. I hope you enjoy this interview, despite the fact that it was somewhat self-indulgent on my part, digging into technical topics that may be more interesting to me than others.
Still, gaming technology is fascinating... and will only become more important - so I recommend you listen.
This time on the show:
- An interview with Aron Ezra and Keith Michel from Bally Technologies.
** Sure Bets **
Chuck - Underpants
Dr. Dave - Fresh Beat Band
Hunter - Instacast
Vegas Mate 3.5 is on the App Store
Vegas Mate 3.5, the latest version of my award-winning iOS travel app, is now on the App Store. This update is free for all existing users.
New Features
We've added iCloud support. What that means is if you have both an iPhone and iPad, when you create a trip plan on one, it will be synced to the other automatically.
In addition to that, we've improved the search quite a bit for special terms like 'view', 'brunch', etc... It even works with the names of some of the famous chefs. Now that we have the mechanics for improved search, we'll be adding to this regularly so that no matter what you're searching for, you'll find it.
The 'Places' and 'Nearby' tabs have been combined - you can now sort places by name, distance, rating or cost easily.
For iPad users, there's a new feature that lets you view hotel prices, by date, on the map. So for instance, you can put in your dates and see a color-coded heat map of where the expensive hotels are. It's a fun way to get an idea of where you might want to stay as you're planning a trip.
Vegas Mate 3.5 has a new 'featured content' tab where you'll find special articles and from time to time, messages from other people that we want to highlight.
Also, the app is now more aggressive about updating certain bits of content in the background so you'll get some of that stuff, like restaurant hours, just as soon as we input it. We discovered that some people were not applying the content updates and didn't have the most recent data so we're doing some technical wizardry to help make that more automatic.
And on top of all of the above, we've got some bug fixes and other random improvements.
iTunes Reviews
If you have a minute, please go hit the App Store and leave a review. These are cleared out with each update and they make a big difference for us picking up new users.
The app has a constant stream of updates and new features. If you want to say thanks, this is the best way to do it.
This link will take you right into the iTunes page.
Featured Content
From time to time, we'll allow partners to bring messages to our users via the Featured tab. If you're interested in learning more about this, check out this page.
Thanks
I also need to take this opportunity to thank the testers.
This release took forever to get straight, mostly because iCloud sync was a lot of work. Thank you guys and gals... and special thanks to Pete and Paolo who both went above and beyond.
The December and January sales rush for Christmas and CES brought in ton of new users, plus a lot of usage from existing folks that were visiting the city. Your help is much appreciated by all of us.
NOTE: The original 3.5 release had a bug that could cause crashes for some users. Please grab the 3.5.1 update in the App Store.