First look at the next big update for Poki. The refinement of an already beautiful app.
Ask me my favorite app on Windows Phone, and I might reply Poki. It's a third-party Pocket client for Windows Phone that I really like. Pocket is the service where you can save articles to read later and offline. They don't have an official app on Windows Phone yet, but that doesn't matter at all since we've got a healthy selection of apps for Pocket from the Windows Phone dev community. Poki just happens to be the one I use daily. It's also getting a big update in the near future. Here's a sneak preview of Poki 2.0 for Windows Phone.
Poki 2.0 is coming out to Windows Phone 8.1 in the near future. It's been completely rewritten from scratch for WinRT. That means we'll see Poki on Windows 8.1 sooner than later. The interface has been revamped, and the database engine is newer and faster. In short, Poki 2.0 is going to be awesome.
Here's the full changelog of that awesomeness coming your way soon with Poki 2.0:
- Rewritten from scratch for WinRT
- New and faster database engine
- Revamped interface
- Ability to update (add, edit, delete) items when offline
- Automatically sync in the background while Poki is closed
- "untagged" tag category
- Search input above tags
- Search results are not cleared when navigating away
- Ability to logout
- Share from other apps to Poki (using the new share contract)
- Replace custom parser with the official parser by Pocket (custom parser is used as fallback (e.g. wpcentral))
- Account + Achievements are saved and restored across installs
- A lot faster on startup and runtime for large lists (e.g. 10.000+)
- Tutorial for new users
- Removed "pin article" feature
- Promo code feature
- Favorites replaced with highlights view
- Improved layout for large screens
- Allow badge notification on lockscreen (shows newly added articles from background task
Those are just general changes coming to Poki 2.0. You'll also find many changes throughout the app. For example, lists have been improved by giving you the ability to scroll to the top by tapping the Poki logo. Or you can sort the entire list by reading time.
The reading view has also been improved. The entire display is occupied now when in reading view. Images will only load when they're in view, you can share the full text, and videos can be viewed directly in the reading view, through third-party apps or with Internet Explorer.
Achievements is a feature that I really liked in the first release of Poki. I'm really happy that achievements earned in Poki will now be saved and restored across installs. I'm also looking forward to viewing my overall reading time and overall progress.
There's a ton coming to Poki 2.0, and we can't wait to share more as the app gets closer to launch. There are about four weeks of beta testing left before you'll see Poki 2.0 in the Windows Phone Store. The beta is closed for now, but you can check out Poki 1.0 in the meantime.
Looking for articles to add to your Pocket? Don't forget to check out our weekly recap of the biggest articles – ICYMI.
