Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!

These are the release notes for the 4th beta release of iATN's mobile app for iOS, which will be going out to our 1,000 beta testers today. If you have an iOS device and are interested in beta testing, please sign up here: https://iatn.net/beta

You can read the previous build's release notes here: http://iatn.me/9Gy [iatn.me]

What's New

• Files: You can now attach photos and videos to messages. (The only exception currently is if replying to a TechHelp, though eventually you will be able to attach files there as well.)

• Improved Posting: Simplified the options, improved the layout, made changes to prevent accidentally closing a post you're writing or double-posting..

• Notifications: You should now receive a mobile notification if someone replies to one of your messages, in near realtime. And if you subscribed to notifications for a TechHelp, you should receive notifications now if the author updates or closes it. As with earlier builds, if you subscribe to a discussion, you'll also get notified of any new replies in the discussion, hourly.

• Several user experience improvements and bug fixes.

Thanks for your feedback reports, please keep them coming, using the in-app "App Feedback" option on the settings tab.

Release Notes

In this version of the app, the following should be working:

• Reading discussions in the Community tab, and filtering the view based on your preferences by tapping on the title bar (defaults to "All Messages").

• Posting new messages and replying to existing discussions, including the ability to attach vehicle data (vehicle tag, DTCs, symptoms), photos and videos. Rather than picking a forum to post in, you post by choosing a category.

• Receive mobile "push" notifications when any discussion you're interested in receives replies, or when someone replies directly to you on iATN. Just tap the Notify button in the mobile app when reading an interesting discussion. Direct replies to you receive notifications immediately, general interest notifications come hourly.

• Searching the Knowledge Base. Premium members only, as with the desktop version of iATN. However, in the near future, basic members will have the option to purchase a "Mobile Pass" directly in the app, providing short term access to search within the mobile app.

• VIN barcode scanning, which can be accessed in three different ways:

(1) Within the iATN app, tap on the Search tab, then tap the barcode button in the top/right corner, or the "Scan VIN Barcode" button in the middle of the page.

(2) From anywhere on your iPhone, slide down from the top of your screen to reveal the "Today View," where you can install the iATN widget. Once installed, tap on the "Scan VIN" button.

(3) For those with iPhone 6s or 6s Plus models which support 3D Touch, you can press firmly on the iATN app icon and choose "Scan VIN."

Both 1D and 2D barcodes should work. We've found that barcodes on the door jams typically provide the most reliable barcode scanning.

• Sharing/Printing. You should be able to share or print any message using the "action" button at the top/right of the message view. And for replies to forum messages, you can tap on the reply and you'll see Reply/Share buttons that are specific to that reply, allowing you to reply to that reply, or share it.

• Logging In. For those using iCloud Keychain or have saved iATN login credentials in mobile Safari, you should find it very easy to login to the mobile app, as it will automatically prompt you to login with your account..

• Joining iATN. Though you are all already members of iATN, it's important that new members can join via the mobile app. You might even have some colleagues that aren't on iATN yet that may want to try out this functionality. If you're already sign into the app, tap on the profile tab (the one with your name on it), and select Sign Out. You'll see the option to "Create Account" near the bottom/left of the login form. It should be relatively easy to fill out the form and quickly start using the app. (Note that new accounts are read-only until our staff processes them by hand and approves/rejects them.)

Known Issues

Rest assured we have much, much, much more planned for the mobile app. If you find that there's something you can do on iATN now that you can't do in the app, it's probably already on our list of features coming soon. :-)

• You can't rate messages up or down.

• You can't save things to My iATN, nor access previously saved items.

• You can't view your message/notifications inbox.

• We aren't currently showing file metadata when viewing files, such as title, author, description, vehicle data, related discussions, member comments, etc.

• iPad has some display issues on the Search tab.

• There are some issues with using Siri dictation for composing messages in certain situations.

We'll be getting to all of these issues in time. If you find any other issues, please let us know, using the in-app "App Feedback" option on the settings tab.

Thomas Winzig
Administrator
iATN
Brea, California, USA