Category Archives: Gliph Messaging

New Gliph for iOS 7 Changes Bitcoin Support, Overhauls Design and More

We’re launching a new version of Gliph for iOS 7 today with a raft of updates that make Gliph more useful and easier to use. But first, some important news about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Updates

  • We were asked by Apple to remove the ability to send Bitcoin from the iOS app. We fought to keep it in but it was not possible. You can read more about what happened in a special blog entry we wrote about mobile apps in the App Store and Google Play.You can still create wallets, view balances and receive Bitcoin in the Gliph app for iOS send Bitcoin using Gliph on iPhone, using the same interface as before. Just visit https://gli.ph/m when you need to send Bitcoin, and continue using the app for normal push notifications and messaging.
  • We removed the option to create or attach a wallet from european wallet provider BIPS, which has decided to shutter its consumer-facing Bitcoin wallet service in the wake of a security breach.
  • Usually, there is cool news about Bitcoin and Gliph but not in this release. Hang with us, we are in it to win it with Bitcoin. This is just the pre-season. Gliph’s implementation of Bitcoin will come back harder, faster and stronger no matter the platform.

Miscellaneous Updates

We’ve made a raft of improvements across the Gliph iOS app:

  • gliph delete conversation IM text security privacyYou can now log into Gliph for iOS using your email address on your account. (Previously you were required to log in using your Gliph username)
  • You can now delete all messages in a conversation from the activity view. That’s right, just swipe a conversation to the right and choose Delete Messages. Learn more about permanent message deletion on Gliph.
  • You now tap the information button in the title bar to view connection settings and choose a tag for a connection.

Design Updates for iOS 7

Apple made bold choices with design themes in iOS 7. In the new Gliph app for iOS, we’ve sought to embrace them. Design geeks read on! Continue reading →

Instant Bitcoin Wallet Creation in Gliph for iPhone

Create a Bitcoin Wallet Instantly with Gliph for iPhoneToday we’re releasing version 1.5 of Gliph for iOS, which makes it easier than ever to get started and offers the world’s first instant Bitcoin wallet creation via Coinbase. Update: Gliph now also supports BIPS wallet.

In this new release we’ve made Gliph account creation and Bitcoin wallet creation an amazingly near-instantaneous experience.

Changes to Signup
We now streamline the Gliph signup process. The app automatically selects a gliph (username) for you, yet allows you to customize your gliph as an option if you want.

Previously, we forced every new person to immediately choose the Artifacts (symbols) for their gliph. While some folks picked up on the idea of building a gliph out of Artifacts, some found it confusing. Gliph has a lot of new ideas in it. This change represents a step toward streamlining the process of getting started using the Gliph identity platform.

Instant Bitcoin Wallet Creation
Another big change in 1.5 is the “instant” creation of Coinbase accounts. If you’ve never used Bitcoin before, you will be prepared to receive Bitcoin immediately after accepting Coinbase’s Terms of Service.

Gliph magically creates a Coinbase account using a free Gliph Cloaked Email address, offering you a strong level of privacy in your Bitcoin transactions.

We believe signing up for Gliph on iOS is now the fastest and easiest way to get started with a Bitcoin wallet on the planet earth.

We continue to believe that Bitcoin is a very important part of Gliph’s future and are making changes to pave the way for this now. The team is excited about the further integration of Bitcoin into Gliph’s core experience. Continue reading →

Gliph for Android Update and FAQ

We released an update to the Gliph app for Android today. Our Android users are usually pretty tech savvy, and they seem to be more interested in details than iOS users. So we thought now would be a good time to check in and answer some frequently asked questions we receive on the Support Gliph.

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! Continue reading →

Bitcoin Enhancements in Gliph for iPhone v1.48

Today, we’ve released a new version of Gliph for iOS that includes a variety of enhancements related to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is still fairly new, if you aren’t familiar with it at all, you may want to watch this. If you haven’t heard about Gliph’s recent addition of Bitcoin, you can read about it here, and watch a video of the iPhone app here.

Here are the new Bitcoin-related updates in v1.48:

  • The Bitcoin option in the menu now shows to all new users. We had a bug that was causing this to not be displayed without restarting the app.
  • You can now view the current exchange rate in the Send Bitcoin popover. It is based on the 24-hour MtGox weighted average.
  • Bitcoin payments now have a small Bitcoin symbol next to them. You can also tap on a Bitcoin payment in a conversation view and see it listed in the wallet view.
  • You can now detach a Coinbase wallet from Gliph. If you want to remove your Coinbase Bitcoin wallet from Gliph, use the trash can button in title bar of wallet view. Please note: if you intend to completely remove the connection we recommend you also visit Coinbase and remove Gliph’s access to the Wallet.
  • Wallet view now shows Gliphs of users from prior transactions. Previously Gliph showed Bitcoin transaction IDs.

We made a few other non-Bitcoin enhancements as well: Continue reading →

Announcing Simple Bitcoin Payments with Gliph

Bitcoin P2P payments on GliphWe are proud to announce that Gliph now supports simple peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payments using Bitcoin digital currency. You can now send Bitcoin with other Gliph users using updated versions of our iPhone, Android and web applications.

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. Continue reading →

Using Bitcoin on Gliph’s Updated Android App

Today we’ve released version 1.1 of the Gliph Android application to Google Play. Our Android users have been very patient in waiting for updates, and today marks solid progress. This entry covers both the updates and how to use the new Bitcoin functionality in the app. You may enjoy the demo video of how awesome Bitcoin can be on Gliph available here.

What’s New: Visual Updates
Gliph Android Bitcoin Update Screenshot appGliph for Android 1.1 catches up with the mobile web and iPhone application in a number of areas. First, we’ve updated the Activity View to show the actual tags of the connections you’re talking with instead of the Gliphs themselves. The conversation view has been touched up, also bringing connection tag, first name or pseudonym facets into view, rather than the Gliph.

While we love the Gliphs, and know some people use them as their central identifier for other people, we have also gotten feedback that it is hard to keep track of who is who when you have many contacts. So now there is more consistent styling across iOS, Android and the web.

What’s New: Image Viewing
While we weren’t able to get image attach into this update, you can at least now view image thumbnails sent by your web using and iOS using connections. We hope to get uploading into an upcoming update. Continue reading →

Introducing Selective Push, Privacy Protection for Push Notifications

Have you ever felt the need to turn your phone upside down so people won’t read a message in a push notification?

Today, in an update for iPhone and Android, we’re allowing you to choose which conversations you want to show up in push and which should stay locked up for viewing in the app.

So far, Gliph has only allowed push notifications to say “Someone sent you a message.” With this update, you can now choose to show the tag of who is sending you a message, and if you want, the content of the message as well.

Unique to Gliph, you can make these changes on a per-contact basis, meaning for one contact in Gliph you can show message content or tag in the push notifications, and for another show nothing at all.

Let’s look at an example, where another Gliph user you’re connected with and have tagged “Erin” sends you the message “Hey, what are you up to tonight?” The following three examples show how a Gliph Message push notification will appear using different settings:

 

How to Enable Message Content in Push Notifications on Gliph
Turning on message content in push notifications is just two taps from any conversation. We made a short video explanation of how to set up message content to show in push notifications. Here are written instructions:  Continue reading →

The Official Company Gliphs: Support and Product Updates Gliph

The first thing you notice after signing up for Gliph is that you are connected to the Support Gliph and have an open inbound connection request from the Product Updates Gliph. This entry sheds a bit of light on what these Gliphs are.

The Support Gliph
The Support GliphThe Support Gliph is the primary channel for you to ask questions, make suggestions and communicate with the company.

This account is watched by a few of our team members, and we try to reply as soon as possible. Often we answer questions posed to the Support Gliph within minutes of receiving them.

The Product Updates Gliph
Product Updates GliphWe are often releasing improvements to the Gliph platform, sometimes the changes are rather small and don’t warrant an immediate email newsletter. The Product Updates Gliph is intended as a way for us to announce minor improvements and changes to the Gliph platform.

Company newsletters, and the Gliph Twitter feed continue to be good ways to stay up-to-date on changes, but if you connect with the Product Updates Gliph, you’ll be the first to know. These updates will come in the form of Gliph Messages, and if you have Push enabled, you’ll get them right away.

Gliph Messaging for iOS gets Speed, New Delete Option and More in v1.41

Happy Holidays! We’ve got some merry improvements to the Gliph iOS app to share today, along with a brief retrospective on Gliph’s iOS mobile releases in 2012.

What’s New in Gliph for iOS 1.41
This new version of Gliph focuses on improving the overall experience in Gliph secure messaging:

  • Speed improvements in messaging. Messages send faster and conversations load more quickly.
  • Button to delete conversation all at once. You can now permanently delete an entire Gliph conversation using a single button. In a conversation view, tap on the other person’s Gliph in the title bar to see the Connection View. Scroll to the bottom and tap Clear Conversation. You’ll be asked for confirmation. NOTE: Use caution, this will permanently delete the conversation from both sides.
We also added some other improvements throughout the app: Continue reading →