Gains! (in efficiency)

Our current work in all areas has revolved around efficiency gains, an area in which we have made huge improvements with the new platform. (If you're wondering why Arnie is accompanying this article, 'Gains' is a bodybuilding term for muscle growth or strength).

Web and mobile app gains

The new web app runs extremely well in mobile browsers, especially on devices running Android 4.4+ or iOS8. The default browser in Android 4.3 below uses a less efficient rendering engine, so I’ve spent a lot of my time recently optimising the experience on those devices, with great results. My personal phone is using Android 4.3 (a Samsung S3 – I really should upgrade) and it runs well on there.

That performance didn’t come without a lot of hard work, though. There are so many quirks to making a website run well in older mobile browsers. It reminds me of the days when websites had to be built to run in Internet Explorer 6 on desktops (website developers will know what I mean). Supporting a wide range of devices with different screen sizes, operating systems and rendering engines is a challenge, but one we are relishing in developing the new web app and mobile app.

Pings and loading times

In the spirit of motorsport, we’ve been working to shave every millisecond off of loading times. As a result, on desktops pages load without delay. We've rewritten the networking code behind the service to reduce instances of lag to a minimum. After successful patches for preventing downtime several months ago, these new updates will improve pings across the service and reduce the chances of experiencing any lag during a live race. We’ve also improved the CPU / RAM performance of the service behind iGP Manager by 20% in the last few weeks alone (which means we’ll be able to support more live races).

Service changes

What will be most noticeable though, are the major gameplay changes coming in these updates. We are still targeting the release of the web app on igpmanager.com by October, followed by a mobile app release later in the year. There will also be some dramatic changes to the gameplay experience in these updates, particularly for free users. This will make it much easier to introduce friends, family and colleagues to iGP and keep them engaged.

More will be published on that and the coming gameplay changes nearer to launch. I appreciate that most people will want more details on gameplay changes now. But we’ve learned from experience that it is best not to go making announcements too far in advance of finalising everything. We also would like these updates to be a nice surprise for everyone who has supported us over the years. Feel free to speculate in the comments!