PalmPay v1.3 is truly Epic
You asked for it, you got it. PalmPay v1.3 includes massive updates to the core. Everything from street-value currency api's and redundancy features to network efficiencies and additional input coins.
What's in this month's release?
Native support for Steem transactions
If you like Steem, you'll love PalmPay. PalmPay now supports Steem transactions just as fast as Bitshares transactions, so if you have a Steem mobile wallet that will properly read QR codes, well then now you can spend your Steem at your local PalmPay merchant. Just to be extra fancy, Steem QR codes are now dark blue (instead of black) for a little touch of branding for all the cool Steemians out there. NFC for Steem transactions coming soon too.
Detailed eReceipts, and "oops receipts"
We wanted crypto receipts to look just as good, even better than the old traditional paper receipts. So, in v1.3 we have expanded what the eReceipt shows you and made them look a LOT nicer.
Your customer didn't get a receipt? Oops, no problem. Just open the transaction and tap on the new Share icon on the eReceipt (top-right corner). eReceipts can now be sent to customers via Email, SMS, Telegram, Keybase, Whatsapp, Viber and other messaging platforms, or in-person if the user has our new Crystal multi-chain android wallet (v0.3 now in private alpha testing on google play).
New Search, Filter, and Export toolbar
Finding a specific transaction can become difficult, especially in high volume environments such as hotels and gas stations. So, a new toolbar has been added to the top of the Transactions screen which allows you to do real-time searching and filtering by multiple criteria to allow you to quickly find the transaction(s) that you need. All transactions and custom field data are stored in the local db now so searches use autocomplete as well as in real-time (no need to query the chain).
Transactions UX
Tax time sucks. PDF and CSV exporting is now included in the expanded Export Tool above. Also, the exact amount that the merchant has keyed in is displayed on each transaction. For high volume environments like grocery stores, it became difficult to spot which transaction in the list was yours, and which one was for the cashier on the other side of the store. Now, you can quickly see the coin that the customer paid with, the Pending status (for slower coins like ETH), and how much was paid. Some nice little animations were added on this screen too which better lead the eye to what is most important at the moment.
PalmPay integrates seamlessly with existing systems
Simplified Invoicing
Merchants can now send a payment request directly from the NFC/QR Code screen. The invoice includes the amount due, the asset that needs to be sent, a QR Code, the address to pay-to, and a 3 day expiration timer (editable). Invoices can be sent to customers via Email, SMS, Telegram, Keybase, Whatsapp, Viber and other messaging platforms. As soon as the remote customer pays, the merchant is notified on the Transactions screen in real-time (usually in 3 seconds or less). This is great for hotel reservations, tv, phone and catalog shopping.
Fail-safe Redundancy
PalmPay now tracks transactions from any blockchain so that when a PalmPay merchant requests a payment from a customer (whether in-person, or via remote invoicing), that request shouldn't get lost if an internet or other connection issue is encountered. PalmPay Ambassadors in Venezuela for example were not seeing pending transactions appear in the Transactions screen sometimes if network connectivity was lost. So now, each transaction (even if it is just keyed in and doesn't even reach the network) is logged in the local db so that it can watch for that transaction's status again after network connectivity is restored. It will retry for 3 days, but at that point it stops checking. We can increase that number, but we thought it to be a good start without bogging down the network.
Street-value api's
Sometimes the government reported values of a local fiat currency are not correct. Xe.com is one of the oldest currency tools on the internet, but they are only as accurate as the numbers they are fed. So, a couple of PalmPay Ambassadors brought this discrepancy to our attention. It was making the product pricing at PalmPay merchants in those areas very inaccurate. The new api's have been coded in and are now active in v1.3, fixing the fiat currency value discrepancies when determining how much crypto the customer has to pay.
PalmPay includes free Technical Support (and on-site in many areas)
104 languages
So much for the paltry 44. PalmPay is now in 104 human-corrected languages. If you would like to submit a translation suggestion, or if we have made any errors at all, feel free to submit your suggestion on our github:
https://github.com/Agorise/palmpay-languages
Updated Node-Hopping algo with latency verification
Our original NH algo would just work its way down a list of nodes to try. Now, PalmPay checks the network every few seconds and self-improves when it sees faster connection routes. Customers should never have to stand at a cash register for more than 8 seconds on average.
Network efficiencies
WAY less bandwidth used. New "single-connection mode" allows for every facet of PalmPay to use one piece of code to monitor, check latencies and hop to the fastest node every few seconds without the merchant being bothered with network issues. Self-healing network can also be verified in a new Troubleshooting modal, accessible from the app drawer on the left side of the screen (just tap on the connection icon).
More input currencies (Smartcoins) supported
PalmPay now supports more input currencies (coins/tokens that customers can pay with). Here is the updated list of supported inputs:
PalmPay is 100% free for businesses - No fees at all. Zero. Nada. None.
More input currencies (Bitcoin and Alts) supported
If you prefer to pay for your pizza with Dash, you're all set. PalmPay now supports Dash and many others (we'll start adding more very, very soon)
- BCH - Bitcoin Cash
- BTC - Bitcoin
- DASH - Dash
- DOGE - Dogecoin
- ETH - Ethereum
- LTC - Litecoin
- SBD - Steem Backed Dollar
- STEEM - Steem
- XMR - Monero
PalmPay Ambassadors (aka: "Ambs") can now support more than 1 city
Some cities are huge (like Athens, Greece) so more than 1 Amb was needed to assist so many merchants. Well, on the flipside, some cities (towns, villages, etc) are not big at all. In that case the PalmPay Amb's payout algorithm needed to allow 1 Amb to service more than one town. That many-to-many change required us to update the db and the webservice, so this is one of the reasons why this v1.3 is a required upgrade.
There is another reason why we had to upgrade the Ambpay algo in this way. Some governments are favorable to our BMC Initiative. The Blockchain My City Initiative pays a part of the fees to a government account at the same moment that the Amb gets paid, so, the government no longer needs to worry about collecting tax on crypto transactions since the app pays them a cut of the customer transaction fee at the same moment that the Amb gets paid. If government no longer has to try to collect, then less force is initiated and merchants have less stress. For more info on the BMC Initiative, please visit PalmPay.io.
To apply as an Amb, be sure to contact us on Telegram or Keybase
https://t.me/Agorise
https://keybase.io/team/Agorise
Support for currencies entering (or in) hyperinflationary scenarios
When your customer owes $1,886,302,977.50 for their groceries, the keypad screen in PalmPay was literally writing the numbers all over the place instead of in the designated area. So, with some code tweaks to data types and UX mods, the keypad, QR, success, transaction and eReceipt screens now all display the long numbers properly by scaling them with your screen size.
New screen saver
The PalmPay screensaver (where merchants can display their ads etc) has been updated with some new default images and timer settings.
Night Mode
Night Mode has been updated a bit so that eReceipts and Transactions are more legible.
What's coming in October?
Auto-Settle
- Of course "Settle Now" manual settlement will be available too, but automation is super cool..
- Merchants can have the crypto that they receive automatically sent-to and converted at their Fiat Gateway/Exchange account. No more manual settlement needed.. WAAAT?! Yep. Initially supported Gateways will be:
EasyDex
Quintric
RuDex
Spark
Advanced Invoicing
Add ability to apply an internally generated Invoice Number to select transactions so that crypto transactions can be matched up easier during import into accounting systems like Odoo, Quickbooks, and Sage.
Landscape Mode
Many tablet based Point-Of-Sale systems use landscape layout (like your tv) instead of portrait (vertical) layout. So, we are adding auto-rotate to PalmPay as well for those integrations.
Referral Rewards
Refer someone to PalmPay and the Bitshares network can reward your account (currently, $80.00) when that person upgrades to a LifeTime Membership. So, Steemians, Bloggers, Youtubers.. Pass your link around and you can earn some serious rewards.
PLEASE NOTE: This massive, mandatory upgrade requires a fresh install. It breaks old outdated algorithms and instead of building extra code to be backwards compatible with crap that will never be used again in the world, we felt it better to keep the app core clean, and wicked fast.
So, BACKUP YOUR BRAINKEY and .bin file somewhere safe offline NOW, and NEVER lose your password. If you lose either of these things, there is no human on earth that can help you to restore access to your account. Welcome to crypto. YOU are now the bank.
Ok, so that was the scary stuff.
NOW, go ahead and uninstall the old version of PalmPay and download the new one:
You'll be happy to know that PalmPay also pre-selects your localization now (currency, language, formatting, etc), and enables the most popular coins for you (based on data graciously provided by Blocktivity.info).
Once you install PalmPay, just Import an existing, or Register a new account on the blockchain (also free). If you are a new merchant and have not yet met your local PalmPay Ambassador, feel free to locate one on PalmPay.io/ambs or ping us on Telegram to apply as one. Ambs get paid every 3 seconds to teach crypto and support merchants in your city.
PalmPay support and Ambassador groups on telegram and keybase (there are many multi-lingual groups too):
https://t.me/Agorise
https://keybase.io/team/Agorise
PalmPay
FASTER AND SAFER THAN CASH
www.PalmPay.io