PlaceWhisper 2.2 update

Over the weekend PlaceWhisper 2.2 quietly slipped into the app store. It’s a sort of mixed bag releases, with a number of small changes to different aspects of PlaceWhisper, so we thought we’d quickly run through them with you.

The most important tweak in the 2.2 update is to do with subscriptions. PlaceWhisper has a basic access level, which lets you collect as many Whispers as you want (or can!), and create a limited amount of content that you can only share to your followers; and a subscription level where you can both collect and create as many Whispers as you can. In 2.2 we’ve changed the following:

• At the basic level the cap on the number of Whispers you can create resets each month
• We’ve dropped the price of the monthly subscription to £0.69 a month
• We’ve introduced an annual subscription level, priced at £6.99 a year

So now, if you don’t want to subscribe but want to create more content, you just need to wait until the start of the next month and you’ll be good to go again. But if you do want to subscribe, or already have, then these changes also make it easier to manage your subscription, thanks to the annual subscription option, and make subscribing to PlaceWhisper better value than before! If you’ve already subscripted, iTunes will automatically update to reflect the new price when your next billing period expires. If you want to switch from monthly to annual subscription, then you should cancel your current subscription, and when the current period expires, resubscribe.

Moving on from the subscriptions, another nice change in the 2.2 release is we’ve made it easier to try and find your friends. Not only can you still search for users based on user name or by comparison with your address book, you can now also find out who other people follow or are followed by, which is often a convenient way to find friends who are already signed up without having to search for each one. Finally, we adjusted the map to show more footpaths and fields, making it better for hunting down things in rural areas.

We said when we launched PlaceWhisper 2.0 back in August, it wasn’t finished but rather the start of a journey, and the 2.2 release is a great example of the steps we’re taking to helps us get PlaceWhisper to where we want it. And we’re particularly pleased we managed to make the subscription model more workable for users. We’re also trying to work in as much feedback as we can in each update, and we’re always very grateful when you let us know how PlaceWhisper works for you. So if you have anything to share, or just want to say hello, why not drop us a line.