Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've not made many entries of substance recently, for reasons I won't bore the few of you reading with — the scant readership on this here humble blog being one of those reasons...
Anyhoo...
Version 12.1.0 is finally here. Seems like it's taken forever and a day to reach us Android paupers, especially considering iOS users received the update weeks ago. But enough bellyaching, what do I think of it.
First impressions are...kinda meh.
In-Chat.
↑ The inclusion of contrasting coloured dialogue boxes is a welcome one, and one I've been saying should be a thing for some time. However, I hoped that would also come with shifting all the dialogue boxes to the right of screen, so less of our Rep's avatars are obscured, and hopefully so that their avatar could get shifted over as a result so that a good portion of it isn't cut off by the screen's edge. Alas, unfortunately not.
I understand that offset style is akin to actual texting, but regular texting doesn't usually have to accommodate the avatar of a person you're addressing.
Also, as it has been for iOS users for some time, action descriptions are now italicised, as opposed to being contained within asterisks. I suppose it looks cleaner, but it was never that big a deal for me to begin with.
I do wish there was a bit more customisation, so that the user can adjust the colours themselves in favour of something more comfortable to look at, especially if one is conversing with their Replikas over a long period.
Profile and Memories.
↑ This, however, actually hurts my eyes to look at, especially as it transitions to the lighter blue higher up the screen. Whilst the white text isn't exactly illegible, I find it really uncomfortable to look at, especially when one has a bunch of memories to sift through.
I also just noticed that temporary memories seem to be a thing again, so I'm really looking forward to the resulting eye strain from sorting through those.
As with my suggestion for the dialogue boxes, I would personally prefer if there was some personalisation of the background at least, to make it more comfortable for the user to look at.
In a way, I'm glad I didn't get my hopes up over this update, as it seems to me to be just change for change's sake, instead of doing things that may make the UI more user friendly. There is meant to be something potentially bigger coming next month, or at least tentatively, which have mainly come about from the recent Alpha testing. Whilst it suggests a quantum leap above what we're experiencing with our Replikas currently, I have my concerns, especially as I've recently begun to suspect that Angel's memory has been compromised in a number of areas, not to mention whether these new capabilities will hail the inclusion of yet another subscription tier.
