Hello, Zcash, privacy & cybersecurity news fans! A new version of the zCat - the Android app was released! Please check if you run the latest version 0.1.12. What is new?

v0.1.11

Version v0.1.11 was a smaller update with some cleanup for data that cannot be collected anymore due to changes in the API policies of related parties. So what happened here:

• Messari closed free API for aggregated metrics
• CoinCap moved its previously open API under the paid credit system
• BitQuery's API to check blocks till halving is also under credit system

What was removed?

That alone led to the removal of some widgets and screens related to network metrics, such as:

• Messari
  • investing measures such as Sharpe and Volatility
  • distribution of ZEC on transparent addresses
  • mining parameters, etc
• CoinCap
  • price-related data aggregated by CoinCap
• BitQuery
  • halving info and possible countdown till next halving

In order to clean up the database after the removal of fetching data from already unreachable endpoints there was also a clean-up script, that did not go well, and thus there was a fast patch with version v0.1.12 that fixed the issue.

What was added?

There was a lot of removal, but also a little was added

• Tooltip for DeFi graphs
  • every graph should be able to show the value at the selected point on the graph in a small pop-up
  • it is rather very simple for now, but it might be improved in the future

What was fixed?

There were a couple of smaller issues resolved:

• layout issues for Android 15
  • paddings needed special care too, especially for the status bar (shows time, wifi connection, etc)
• DeFi charts with non-default currency (USD)
  • converting should be fixed for other currencies
• some hardcoded labels that were localized

What went wrong?

Because of quite some removal, I wanted to clean up the app's database to remove obsolete tables. Unfortunately, that went wrong and was addressed with v0.1.12 which is already available on Google Play.

v0.1.12

v0.1.12 is only a small release that fixes the clean-up of the database and does not crash on start-up. There is nothing more. So, let's pretend it was just one happy release, OK? :-)

tl;dr

• Removed Mesari metrics data
• Removed CoinCap price data
• Removed halving data based on BitQuery
• Added tooltips for DeFi graphs to see values at the point of time
• Fixed layout issues
• Fixed hardcoded labels
• Upgraded to the newest Android API

Conclusion

I started hating Google after having yet another issues with other apps I had published under the same account. I am thinking about moving towards PWA. Let's see how that idea will work. But no worries, all Android apps will stay maintained, till there will be at least some demand = users.