Timeline
Every release since the app was started, what each one added, and the store and App Review steps in between. What is still to come is on the status page; what the app does today is on the features page.
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Work starts, as APRS One
Work on the app began four days before the repository existed, under the name APRS One.
It was built around messaging. Most APRS clients treat messages as secondary to position reporting and show them as individual packets rather than conversations; this one keeps a thread per station, with a delivery state on each message.
By the time the code moved into its own repository it already ran: message threads, a map with stations, objects and trails, the packet log, and the first of the service screens.
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The code moves to its own repository, as APRS Connect
APRS One is renamed APRS Connect and moved into a repository of its own. The first commit is 513 files and 63,000 lines, because the app was already working; the commit is a move, not a starting point. Everything below this entry is public history.
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Google Play approves the first upload
Version code 1 clears review two days after the repository was created. Nothing was on sale yet. The listing was submitted early because store review takes days that cannot be recovered later.
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APRSOTA lists the app as recommended software
The APRS OTA handbook lists APRS Connect under software with APRS OTA specific features: hosting an operation, every chaser on one screen, and the countdown timer.
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The site gains documentation and a blog
aprsconnect.com had been a single page since 20 August. It gains a documentation section written against the app as built, with every label checked against the screen it describes, and a blog published from the same deploy.
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The first iOS build is submitted
Built and uploaded the same day as 1.5.0. The three entries below are the App Review rejections that followed.
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Build 1 rejected under guideline 3.1.2
The App Store description has to link to the Terms of Use for an app that sells a subscription, not only link to them inside the app. Fixed in the listing.
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Build 2 rejected under guideline 2.5.4
App Review could not reach the functionality behind the app's two declared background modes. Both are real — one restores a Bluetooth connection to a TNC, the other keeps the audio modem running — but neither starts until a radio is connected, and the review never got that far. The submission now carries review notes explaining how to reach them.
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F8BDX writes it up in French
The French amateur radio news site f8bdx.free.fr covers the app under "une nouvelle application APRS pour Android", describing station tracking, use with a transceiver, IGate and digipeater, and Android Auto.
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Build 3 rejected under guideline 2.1
Three requests at once: a "callsign code" to get past first run, a demo video recorded on a physical device, and the steps to reach the in-app purchases. There is no callsign code — any callsign is accepted — which indicates the setup step was read as a barrier.
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1.10.2 goes to App Review
The iOS build carrying everything Android had through 1.9.0: IGate and the digipeater, the coverage map, pinned stations, grid squares, the arrangeable tab bar, the audio modem's decoding pass and ISS support. It goes up with review notes and a demo video recorded on a physical device, which is what the previous rejection asked for.
The Android app is on Google Play. iOS has not been released; the entries above cover its submissions so far. Get the app.