On the web app you can now “Browse Groups,” and we’ve added the ability to view Groups the mobile web and Android from the menu.

After seeing how fun it can be to get started on Gliph and make new friends, we’ve decided to start featuring a selection of them. Some of the first groups we’re featuring are the ones that grew out of the Gliph Community. For example Bitcoin Discussion and Cat Appreciation.

One of the groups we’re excited about is Rick and Morty fans. Rick and Morty airs during Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network and online. The show chose the Gliph group as their official home for for real-time chat for fans.

We’re still exploring what can be done to make public groups great destinations on Gliph.

Here is a complete list of public groups available now, we’ll add more over time. If you have a group you’d like featured on the Groups page, please send a message to Support!

Featured Communities
Bitcoiners
Rick and Morty Fans
New Gliph Users Group
Cat Appreciation

Crypto and Tech
Bitcoin Gaming
Dogecoin
Apple Watch

Gaming
Classic Gaming
DOTA 2

Entertainment
Comics
Game of Thrones

General Interest
Burning Man
History, Power and Currency
Sports Talk
Electronic Dance Music

International
Japanese Gliph Users
Russian Gliph Users

When someone sends a message to a group you’re in, your smartphone will vibrate and play your chosen notification sound. However, after the initial messages, Gliph will enter a cooldown period until you’ve visited the conversation and left it again.

During the notification cooldown period, you’ll still get visual notifications but your phone will not vibrate or make noise. This cooldown period ends after five minutes. That way, if you just missed the first notification you’ll get another reminder about ongoing, unseen activity in your group.

In case you did not know, you can shut off notifications for a particular group or private conversation. This allows you to more carefully control what conversations are important enough to interrupt your day.

Notifications are important in letting you know something happened on Gliph. We know they need to be reliable, and useful. As a result we’ve done revisions to make them more helpful. We believe notifications are a critical part of Gliph’s platform and we will continue to iterate and improve their behavior over time

The new application is based on the new Gliph Mobile Web application, and joins the new Gliph Desktop Web and an updated Gliph iPhone application also released today.

Support for Secure Group Messaging
Gliph on Android now supports secure group messaging! You can use the app to assemble and manage your own groups from your existing contacts. You can also create a group and invite non-Gliph users to join at the time of creation. For more information about secure Group Messaging on Gliph please see this post.

Donate to the XKCD web comic.

Scan and Pay QR-code Bitcoin Wallet Addresses
The new Gliph Android app now allows you to transfer Bitcoin outside Gliph’s network. This means that you can pay with Bitcoin at any business that accepts Bitcoin. Dell, Expedia and Newegg are just a few of the many businesses around the world that accept Bitcoin.

As before, you must attach a Coinbase or Blockchain wallet to your Gliph account in order to use the feature. You’ll find it in the Bitcoin screen, which you access using the menu. Simply tap Scan in the top right corner and the Gliph Android app will guide you through completing the payment.

Profile and Group Photos
The Gliph Android app now allows you to add a Profile Photo facet and make it a part of your Gliph profile. The Profile Photo has the same privacy options as other Gliph facets, like your phone number or your name.

You can set your profile photo to Public, Private or Private and Shared with specific people or groups. If someone says they can’t see your profile photo, make sure it is Public or ensure you have specifically elected to share it with that person or group.

All new users are offered the ability to set a Profile Photo, but you can do this now by visiting the menu and choosing Profile.

Refreshed Activity View
The app has a refreshed Activity View that has a new message unread indicator and includes the display of Profile photos.

Emoji Support in Most Android Keyboards
People really like their Emoji, and in this version you can now access popular Emoji characters for your messages. In order to see them, have the keyboard showing in a conversation.

Tap and hold on the Return button to reveal the Emoji button. Tap that and you will see a full selection of Emoji.

Better and New Supporting Clients
Something awesome about Gliph is it works if you’re on Android, iPhone or don’t even have a smartphone. So more people are able to take advantage of private and secure connections and Bitcoin transfer.

We worked hard to also improve the iPhone and create a brand new Desktop web app. Feel free to check these out so you know all the options Gliph provides. It might help you in the future if you decide to change platforms, or if you want to convince a friend to try Gliph.

Gliph offers a fantastic Desktop Web experience when you visit the app from a tablet or desktop web browser: https://gli.ph/d

We’re excited about improving peer-to-peer transactions and providing a great platform for identity. In following this passion, we’ve iterated on Gliph by adding new features and changing the way the system works.

Some of the additions were in response to insights along the way. For example when we learned that  the majority of Craigslist deals were handled via email and lacked privacy, we built Cloaked Email to make that a better experience. Later, we realized Bitcoin would be a a fantastic way to close transactions and built in simple Bitcoin transfer into Gliph secure messaging.

We’ve learned a lot about email and believe communication can be faster and better than that. GliphMe‘s secure and private instant channel is the first of our efforts here.

Adding these capabilities over time caused a build-up of technical debt. And like any debt, it can not be ignored. But unlike some debt, it wasn’t the type of thing that could be paid off slowly over time. As a result, this re-factor was focused on two areas of the Gliph platform:

the backend application and the iOS application. On the backend, we re-worked the API which now allows us to build the Android, iPhone and web clients more consistently. On the iPhone client, we’ve changed how data flows internally. To get very specific, we’ve moved to reactive programming, making Gliph more event-driven and providing us a more responsive user experience to work with.

Because you can only make so many major changes at once, we did not focus on updating the Android app to leverage the new API during this project. However, now that the backend is completed, documented and working, we will be tackling this as well. We’ll announce the release of the iOS app as soon as it has been approved.

This release will have few outward facing changes on the web, Android or iPhone. However, it did involve a great deal of effort from our team and has set the Gliph platform for a solid march forward.

Please join me in congratulating the Gliph engineering group on completing this challenging and important development cycle. Say hello on Twitter.

What happens to Information We Put Online?
It is hard to understand what happens to data we store online. Every text we send, every picture that is transmitted, and every person we connect with is represented by data. This data is transmitted across the Internet and ultimately saved on one or many servers and sometimes multiple devices such as smartphones, desktop computers and laptops. What happens to this data?

Social platforms commonly offer “deletion” or “removal” features that make it appear that you can permanently remove stuff you have put online. Unfortunately, these services are often misrepresenting what actually happens with information.

For example, messaging services like GroupMe and Whatsapp offer to remove messages for you. But depending on the app, your unencrypted messages are saved in a database with a flag marked deleted. Services may be built in a way that they are unable to delete the message on the other person’s phone, instead only “hide” it from your end of the conversation.

For a long time, Facebook would not actually remove photos that you had deleted from your account. Now that Facebook has fixed their system, your photos actually be will be actually deleted within 30 days. Today, you can “Delete this Photo,” however Facebook’s platform may not actually delete it for weeks.

A lot of questions have been asked about how Snapchat handles removal of data. You send a photo to someone, and it is supposed to disappear within a short period of time. However, Snapchat has made it clear that images sent over the service will persist for up to 30 days or until all recipients of the image have opened the photo. More concerning to some is that snaps are not being removed properly from smartphones and can in fact be recovered.

Update (5/8/14): Snapchat settled charges from the FTC that it misrepresented how it was handling user data collection practices.

This is a pretty big problem, since if you don’t have a background in Computer Science, you must rely on what you’re being told in the interface. If it says “Delete,” does that mean right now, forever, from everywhere?

Behind the Scenes on Message Deletion on the Gliph Platform
When we first introduced message deletion on the Gliph platform, our focus was on clarifying why Gliph deletes from both sides rather than allowing complete archiving. (Please see “Our Thinking on Message Deletion“). What follows in this entry is a more general overview of what Gliph is doing with deleted messages.

When you send a message on Gliph, it originates from either the Gliph iPhone, Android or web applications. At that time, the message is stored in a “cache” (memory) of your device. The message is also stored encrypted on the server, and once it is received by the other Gliph user, it may be temporarily cached on their device as well.

If the same message is deleted, (by either the sender or the receiver), the Gliph app first removes the message visually and from the local cache and then tells the server, “remove this message right now!” The server responds by deleting the information from Gliph’s database. If the other person has the app open, and are looking at the conversation, they will not see the message removed immediately.

However, the next time they refresh the view, the app will realize that the data does not exist anymore. This causes their app to visually remove and also delete the message in the local cache. This completes deletion of a message or entire conversation of messages on the Gliph platform.

Nitty Gritty Details
There are a lot of details when it comes to how “cacheing” is handled, particularly around the security of data stored in a local cache. For example, what happens if you’ve deleted a message but the other person hasn’t opened up the app? Is the message still in the device cache and vulnerable?

The security of this area varies with the platform you’re using and what you’ve done to it. For example, iOS protects application data from being accessed using something called “sandboxing” but may be vulnerable if the device is rooted using “jailbreaking.” Android uses a similar sandbox to isolate application data. However, many Android users seek full control over their devices and “root” their phones.

Both jailbreaking on iOS and rooting on Android present important security implications, because these operations can allow apps to access data they otherwise should not be able to. Android users have access to a variety of tools that look for vulnerabilities in apps on rooted and non-rooted devices and attempt to collect data from these apps. 

Gliph regularly wipes and re-loads the local cache on iPhone and Android to help reduce the likelihood that a jailbroken or rooted phone would have persistent message data. However, we strongly advise people to be aware of the security implications of using Gliph on jailbroken or rooted devices.

How Message Deletion on Gliph Works
There are three ways messages are deleted by the Gliph platform today. All of them follow a process outlined in “Behind the Scenes on Message Deletion on the Gliph Platform” outlined above.

Individual Message Deletion
Gliph’s iOS and web apps allow of you to delete individual Gliph messages. This happens when you swipe a message on the Gliph iPhone app to the left and choose delete. In the web app, you tap the Edit button in the top right of any conversation.  On Android, Gliph does not currently offer individual message deletion.

Conversation Deletion
All of Gliph’s apps allow you to delete all messages in a conversation at the same time. On iPhone, you can delete messages by swiping a conversation from the activity view. We have an animated gif showing this behavior in this blog entry.

On Android, the process has a few steps:

1. Go into a conversation.
2. Tap the ( i ) button in the action bar to go into the Gliph view.
3. Tap the 3 dots icon in the action bar.
4. Choose “clear all messages.”

On the web and iOS you can delete all messages by:

1. Go into a conversation.
2. Tap the center part of the title bar on the web or the ( i ) in the title bar of iOS to get to the Gliph View.
3. Scroll down and choose “Clear Conversation.”

GliphMe
GliphMe (video demo) has its own special behavior in how it handles deletion of messages. Once someone starts a conversation with you using one of your links, Gliph keeps track of when the last message was sent. After 48 hours, Gliph automatically deletes the entire conversation and connection with the GliphMe link respondent.  Connection data is permanently removed from the Gliph database as well.

Gliphme acts like this for two reasons: One, to reduce the clutter from conversations that you probably have no interest in continuing, and two to reduce the amount of unwanted private conversation data that Gliph is storing.

It is possible for GliphMe conversations to avoid this automatic removal after 48 hours. If someone who is not a Gliph user clicks a GliphMe link and uses that page to sign up for Gliph, the conversation will persist just like a normal conversation. At this time, we’re calling this “claiming” a conversation by the respondent. After a conversation has been claimed, the messages can still be deleted from that point using the same procedures outlined in “How Message Deletion on Gliph Works” above.

One area where message deletion is not supported is in a GliphMe conversation that has not been claimed. For example, if you reply to an inbound GliphMe message and then wish to delete that message. You can not do so if the respondent has not claimed the conversation yet. We recognize that this may be in conflict with expectations for uniform deletion behavior across Gliph and are still considering how best to handle this with GliphMe.

Expiring Messages
In the Gliph iOS and web apps, it is possible to set messages to expire after a period of time. This is very similar to how Gliph handles user-directed deletion of messages. Except in this case the server has set a particular time, when it will remove the data from the Gliph database. The next time either the sender or receiver opens the app after the message has been removed from the database, any existing local cache of the message is removed and it will no longer be visible on either user’s devices.

Data Impermanence and Privacy
When other internet services store your conversations permanently, unencrypted, it creates the possibility that that information will be hacked or even misused in the future. This is particularly concerning for messaging services that use advertising-based monetization, or are entertaining acquisition by an advertising-based company. This doesn’t need to happen.

At Gliph, we are designing software to avoid these issues. For example, the new product we released recently, GliphMe, uses automatic deletion of conversations after 48 hours. Another way we demonstrate commitment to this is by honoring what is implied in the interface. As in, “Delete” should mean stuff actually is deleted everywhere Gliph can, as promptly as possible.

The entire Gliph team feels there is a strong connection between privacy and impermanent or ephemeral online activity. This includes not only messages you’ve sent but who you have connected with online in the past.

This issue is particularly important as Gliph extends past simple messaging and into the realm of peer-to-peer transactions. We continue to think deeply about how we can empower people who use Gliph with both user experience and technical implementations that deliver privacy through data impermanence and beyond.

We love feedback! If you have comments on this blog entry or unanswered questions about deletion on Gliph, please send a message to the Support Gliph or to support [at] gli dot ph.

New Feature for iOS and Android: GliphMe
GliphMe is a powerful little link for connecting privately with friends and strangers. When someone clicks a GliphMe contact link they are presented a chat box that lets them communicate with you.

You get push notifications of the new message on your iOS device and can reply directly from the app. Read the blog entry on the feature or learn more at the GliphMe home page.

Gliph for iOS 1.88
We’ve made a variety of improvements to the Gliph app for iOS in 1.88. They include:

• Multi-Invite capability – You can now invite multiple friends to Gliph using SMS and Email during signup or in the Connect View (Use the + button in the Activity View)
• Connect View improved – We’ve cleaned up the view you use to add friends on Gliph.
• iOS 7 swipe behavior – You can now swipe back from a conversation to the Activity View, which is how iOS 7 does things.
• Easier profile setup – You can now add a few profile facets during signup for Gliph.

We also worked to squash some bugs that folks had reported. Please keep the reports coming to the Support Gliph.

• Fixed Crasher when enabling LockDown Privacy Protection
• Fixed emoji being cut off when shown as last message in Activity View
• Fixed tap target area of Message Options button

Gliph for Android 1.35
Over the winter break, we completely rearchitected the Gliph Android app’s internals, allowing us to move forward with more improvements to the app. After a few bug fixes we made the following miscellaneous improvements to the app:

• Better naming – You can now see the tag or shared First Name facet of a connection that you’re talking with in the app. This way you you don’t have to remember people’s gliphs.
• Handle connections – We added a button in the title bar of the connections view to make it more obvious how to edit the connection.
• Help during signup – Commonly, people have a hard time signing up on Android because so many gliphs are already taken. We’re working to improve this, in the meantime we added some text that should help a bit.

As always, we welcome feedback on the apps, particularly bugs or crashes that you’re experiencing. Please reach out to the Support Gliph if you notice something.

Today, we’re pleased to announce initial Gliph support for Blockchain.info wallets. This means Blockchain.info wallet holders now get the same easy Bitcoin transfer as people who use Coinbase and BIPS.

Whether you trade Bitcoin with Blockchain.info, BIPS or Coinbase you don’t have to bother with Bitcoin wallet addresses or their representative QR codes. You just send them a connection request, and then attach Bitcoin like you would a picture message.

How to Connect your Blockchain.info Bitcoin Wallet to your Gliph account
You must first create a wallet on the Blockchain.info website.

1. Tap the Bitcoin option in the Menu, and choose Use a Different Wallet.
2. In the Choose Wallet Provider view, select the Blockchain.info logo.
3. Enter your Blockchain.info identifier and your password into the sign-in page.

Your Blockchain.info account is now connected to Gliph! You can now easily send Bitcoin with other Gliph users as shown in this video (video shows Coinbase, but works the same).

FAQ

Q. Can I create a new Blockchain.info account using Gliph?
A. At this time, Blockchain does not support new account creation over its API. You can create a Blockchain.info wallet on their website. Gliph still supports instant wallet creation on the Coinbase and BIPS wallet providers as shown in this video.

Q. I use two-factor authentication on Blockchain.info, how do I attach my wallet using Gliph?
A. Blockchain.info does not currently support 2-factor authentication over its API. You can work around this limitation by disabling 2-factor on your Blockchain.info wallet, and using Blockchain.info’s “double encryption” or second password on the account.

Regardless of whether you turn this on, we recommend using two wallets. One to keep your bitcoin in, and a second with a low Bitcoin balance for use as a daily wallet which you can more comfortably attach to Gliph.

Q. I’m trying to use my Alias and it isn’t working, what gives?
A. We’ve found that some Blockchain.info account configurations do not allow Alias-based login via the API. If you have trouble, we recommend you use your Blockchain.info GUID.

Q. Where can I learn more about Bitcoin?
A. You can visit Gliph’s Introduction to Bitcoin page.

As mentioned in our announcement about adding support for BIPS a few weeks ago, we’re excited to make transactions with people easier. We hope adding support for another one of Bitcoin’s most popular wallets will make Bitcoin more useful to people everywhere.

If you have questions, comments or just want to say hello, please don’t hesitate to email support | gli.ph or send a message the Support Gliph.

We want Gliph to be the best way to connect and transact no matter where you live. That’s why today we’re announcing support for the Copenhagen-based BIPS Bitcoin Wallet.

BIPS is well-known for its free Bitcoin merchant solutions, but it also offers a solid Bitcoin web-wallet for individuals.

BIPS’ Bitcoin wallet supports a variety of international options for funding your wallet including direct deposits from banks in Canada and Denmark. When you need to sell Bitcoin, BIPS lets you convert Bitcoin into an impressive 45 different fiat currencies:

Supported Fiat Currencies on BIPS

If you’re checking out Bitcoin for the first time, you can now use Gliph’s Instant Wallet Creation to get started with a wallet on BIPS. If you already have a Bitcoin wallet on BIPS, you can attach it to your Gliph account with a simple sign-in process.

No matter what Bitcoin Wallet provider you use on Gliph, you get the convenience of easily sending Bitcoin with other people using Gliph’s unique chat-based Bitcoin transfer system on iOS, Android and the Mobile Web.

We’ve had our eye on stronger international support in Gliph for some time, and are pleased extend Gliph’s Bitcoin support to BIPS’ userbase and its popularity in Europe. In July, we added a server in Ireland, so everyone in Europe should have a faster experience with Gliph overall too.

Our team has been planning to add multi-wallet since we first released Gliph with Bitcoin at the Bitcoin 2013 conference. We have some exciting ideas for deeper integration of Bitcoin into Gliph’s platform in the future and hope you start enjoying easier transactions with people across the globe today! 

In case you missed the links, you can learn about Bitcoin here, or try out Bitcoin via a BIPS wallet now on the Gliph for iPhone, Android or the Web. 

Update: Our cooperative press release with BIPS is now available here.

Gliph for Android 1.13

The last major release we did for Android included visual updates and the ability to send and receive Bitcoin. This new release, 1.13 is meant largely to fix bugs and behind the scenes updates:

• People wrote in that it was hard to send messages because the keyboard was displaying on top of text entry field on some Android devices, making it hard to see what the person was typing. This should be fixed now. Please tell the support gliph if you’re still having the problem. Update 7/19/13 11:19am: Galaxy Note owners are reporting this is still an issue. We are currently looking for a solution for those users.
• We added a library that helps us determine when the app is crashing and allows us to diagnose and fix that better.
• We changed out the code that displays the slide-in menu or “drawer” on the left side of the screen. This will prepare the app for improvements in the future.
• There was a bug where if you did not save a first name or pseudonym, the drawer would say null, null. Whoops. That’s fixed now.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Gliph Android App

Q. Why can’t I send picture messages or delete messages in the Android app? UPDATE: Gliph now has limited support for sending Picture Messages from Android!

A. Great question. We want to offer these features, badly. But right now, we are only able to dedicate a certain amount of resources to the Android app. We recognize that these should be in there, and are trying to move forward to get the fixes in as soon as possible.

We’re compensating for the time being by offering these features in the Gliph mobile web app.  Start by downloading and installing the Chrome Browser for Android. Then point the browser to the Gliph mobile web app at https://gli.ph/m. We simply can’t support all stock browsers, so please use Chrome.

When you’ve logged in, all Android devices will be able to delete messages using the instructions given our previous post “Introducing Gliph Message Deletion.”

Some, but not all Android devices support HTML 5 image uploads. This means you may be able to send picture messages from the Gliph web application using your Android. Give it a shot!

Q. Why doesn’t the Android app have the PIN lock like the iPhone app?

A. Another reasonable question. PIN is a wonderful feature and we do offer it on iOS right now. Again, we have to fall back on the fact that we have only limited resources at the moment and can not add this feature to the Android app at this time. We hope to add it in the future.

Q. Will you add emoticons to the Android app?

A. This surprisingly, is not a simple change. But we like the spirit of emoticons an hope to add them in the future.

Q. Do you guys not like Android or what?

A. We think Android is a totally legitimate choice for a mobile device. We simply have to work within our means, and frankly Android is harder to support than iOS. Check this out: when we submitted this last version to Google Play, we got this back:

We believe Google is saying that out of the 3,076 Android devices out there, Gliph runs on 1,771 of them.  On those devices Gliph runs on, all kinds of different weird bugs can occur that we can’t predict and just don’t have the time to find and debug at this stage in the startup.

Contrast this with iOS, where we need to make sure it runs on 5 devices. So it isn’t that we don’t like Android, it is just harder to make work great for the vast majority of its users than it is on iOS.

We have an iOS demo video up if you’re hungry to see how it works.  Also a step-by-step guide to setting it up for Android and for iOS. But this is more than just a new feature for us and we wanted to go into detail as to why we’re adding Bitcoin to the Gliph platform.

Over the past several months the Gliph team has been fascinated by Bitcoin. Bitcoin brings privacy to payments that is unavailable with traditional banking. The software behind Bitcoin is open source and has sustained great scrutiny. The currency itself is distributed, and transfers can take place with little or no fees at all. We love that no one company or government controls Bitcoin, and that even its creator(s) are shrouded in anonymity.

We believe Bitcoin and the ideas behind it have the power to change the world.

But when our team began using Bitcoin every day, we noticed some rough patches. Getting started can be confusing. If you were able to get a wallet set up, it was easy to get stuck asking “what next?” If you wanted to send Bitcoin to a friend, you had to awkwardly copy and paste long wallet addresses into tiny form fields. Existing solutions, even from biggest players, felt too technical and took the fun out of using this amazing new currency.

We began thinking about important questions around financial privacy. Who you give your money to and why is a some of the most private information you have. Although Bitcoin can be used to provide reasonable anonymity to the people transferring funds, folks still need a way to securely discuss their transactions. We noticed that using insecure channels like email to communicate about a Bitcoin transfer could lead to compromising the privacy of a transaction as a whole.

Finally, we noticed that Bitcoin offers very little in the way of an identity to associate with your wallet. One of Bitcoin’s strengths is that transfers are permanent. However, since anyone can have a Bitcoin account and there are no chargebacks, you need to be confident about who you are sending money to.

We realized the Gliph platform could play an important role in solving all of these problems. Today’s release is the start of some major steps from Gliph to improve the Bitcoin experience.

1. We are making it extremely easy to send Bitcoin with other Gliph users.
2. We are providing a secure environment to discuss transactions that end in Bitcoin payments.
3. We are pairing identity with Bitcoin wallet addresses.

These are our goals and today’s release marks the start of our journey toward accomplishing them. We are very excited and hope you’ll join us in making Gliph the best way to send Bitcoin online.

We’re proud to also announce today that Gliph has a new group of partners to help us achieve these goals. You can read about our new partnership with Boost VC in this blog entry.

As always, you can find Gliph on Twitter at @gli_ph and contact support at support@gli.ph.