Chris Rivers

Android – Request for Testers

By Chris Rivers | 2 years ago | 29 Comments

One of the main projects we’re working on these days is our Android app. We know a lot of you have requested it (especially after the release of the iOS app) and we’ve made some pretty good progress on it over the past few weeks. We wanted to announce that it’s now available for beta testing!

The app can be downloaded from http://downloads.hipchat.com/android-beta/hipchat_dev.apk and installed directly to your phone. The app includes C2DM notifications, which requires a phone with at least version 2.2 of the OS (Froyo). It also includes some automatic crash reporting built in, which should trigger a notification if your app stops unexpectedly.

Most of the functionality for our first version is implemented, save a few minor things. Please give it a download and see what you think. If you encounter any problems, please let us know by emailing us at support@hipchat.com. Development is progressing pretty quickly and we plan to have a relatively short beta for the app, so barring any major roadblocks, you should be able to download the official app from the Market fairly soon.

Thanks! We look forward to hearing your feedback.

UPDATE: The app is now on the Market! (v. 1.0.6) – Please uninstall the beta app before installing the app from the Market

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  • Cody Robertson

    Giving this a whirl now :)

  • Anonymous

     Installing now!

  • Anonymous

    And sending in a bug report. :) Great start though! 

  • Anonymous

    Just installed it on my Xoom.  Its obviously a phone only app, but it would be nice to have tabs at the top for chat rooms/ongoing conversations open (wishful thinking I know).  So far its working well, with no crashes to report :)

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

     We just posted an updated version of the app at the URL. If you’re experiencing issues after downloading the original, please update the app. Several crashing issues that were reported should be fixed.

    The new version of the app is 1.0.1 (you can view your current version under Home Screen -> Manage Apps -> HipChat)

  • http://www.facebook.com/ryan.moore Ryan Moore

    Or http://bit.ly/hc_beta_apk for anyone trying to download on their phone after seeing this on the web. =)

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

     Nice! Looks like /me is broken and there were a couple of crashes on initial connect, but seems to work well otherwise! Some sort of better tab/conversation management would be nice though.

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

     BTW, I’m using an HTC Vision (aka TMO G2) running CM7.0.3 (Android 2.3.3)

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

     Just updated the build to include our latest updates (5/20 @ 2:50 PDT)

    It should fix the issue that many people have been seeing with blank chat windows. Let us know if you have any problems. Icons are still generic (app and status bar) but that will be fixed in the next update.

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

    The android app has just been updated to build 1.0.3

    A couple crashing issues were fixed. We also added proper launcher and status bar icons, so you don’t have to deal with generic app icon or ugly green dot :)

    The app should be more stable in general. We also added some extra notification preferences to help avoid people having too many buzzes when connected to rooms.

    The connection logic has also been updated to require the current version in order to connect.

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

    Looking a lot better now! =)

  • http://beerpla.net Artem Russakovskii

    Testing the new version.

  • Anonymous

    Looks like 1.0.4 came out a little while ago.

    I just reinstalled and so far am seeing great improvements.

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

    Yep – sorry about that. Released 1.0.4 a couple hours ago. Includes a fix for one of the crashes that was getting reported as well as some better handling for dropped connections.

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

    Any chance you guys can put this up on Market yet? Looks stable enough to use, better than a lot of the apps on Market. It’s kind of annoying to have to grab the APK everytime. At least have a web link option that links to the APK from the app and launches Browser so I can download it and run Package Installer myself?

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

    We hope to get it out onto the Market very soon. There are still some crashing issues getting reported, but the general functionality is where we want it for the first version. Once we fix the incoming crashers, we’ll be submitting it.

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

    Updated to version 1.0.5 fixing a few crashing issues that we were seeing. We plan to release the app to the Market soon, so you won’t have to keep coming back to check a blog post to get the latest updates :)

  • Anonymous

    It seems like 1.0.5 is much more stable.

    I’m curious though about the intended operation when signed out our not connected.  It seems like there is no way to completely exit the app.  HipChats continue to come through and sometimes come through to both the app and SMS.  Can you elaborate on the intent?

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

    If you manually sign out of HipChat, you should see the ongoing notification icon removed from the status bar (and it should appear in the status bar if you sign in again). HipChat will attempt to remain connected until you manually sign out.

    If you receive a message while HipChat is disconnected, it is through c2dm functionality – we send c2dm/push notifications according to your preferences at https://www.hipchat.com/account/notifications.

    We hope to release the app to Market this week and it will include an option to disconnect HipChat if the app is inactive for a period of time. This should help save battery, especially when you don’t have a reliable connection.

  • Anonymous

    Ah, I hadn’t noticed the ‘Android’ notification options previously.

    Can I assume that if I have both SMS and Android notifications enabled and I’m connected to HipChat in the Android app that it will not send the SMS notification, but if disconnected I would get the SMS notifications?  (It seems that I often get both, but that may have been during the earlier beta builds)

    Basically my intent would be to get most traffic through the App but SMS as a backup if the connection is gone.

  • http://www.hipchat.com/ Chris Rivers

    We just published the app on Market (see http://blog.hipchat.com/2011/06/02/introducing-hipchat-for-android/). Any further updates will be done to the official app.

    You will need to uninstall the beta version of the app before downloading it from the Market.

  • Bob

    tried install in 1.0.6 on xoom. Getting error message about app being out of date when trying to log in.

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

    Did you uninstall the beta first?

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

    1.0.6 is working great for me, managed to install from Market just fine! However a colleague says he can’t find it via Market right now and when I try https://market.android.com/details?id=com.hipchat I get an error.

  • http://beerpla.net Artem Russakovskii

    Misha, some shit hit the fan with the Market. See `http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/06/02/happening-now-its-not-just-you-android-market-throwing-server-errors-en-masse/

  • https://profiles.google.com/mishan Misha Nasledov

    @archon810:disqus Ah, interesting. I did find it worked a few hours later. Thanks!

  • http://douglaswebb.yolasite.com/ Gary Lam

    This is a really good read for me. Must agree that you are one of the coolest blogger I ever saw. Thanks for posting this useful information. This was just what I was on looking for.

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    Thanks for the information this is really beneficial and amazing also. Android app is now a days very popular among the people, the application is easy to download which include C2DM notifications. Really a great application and I am also going to uninstall the beta version.

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    Now a day’s the demand of android phones are increasing day by day, Android phones have various application which provide best service to the people. A part from that android provide best chat service.