android

Happy Holidays from Nomadic Ratio!

Another year has come and gone, and we here at Nomadic Ratio want to extend the warmest holiday wishes to you and yours! We hope everyone had a wonderful year and that 2024 is set to be even better.

As we close out this final week of 2023, we’ve just completed one final update for Christmas Word Search, our seasonal favorite casual game! The update is now live on the Play Store, and you can view the full change log over there. There are some significant fixes so if you don’t have auto updates turned on, we highly recommend swinging over to grab it.

Speaking of Christmas Word Search, we’ve seen a lot of new players come on this year, and if you’re one of them, thank you! We hope you’ve been enjoying the game and continue to enjoy it year round, but even if you only pop back around next Christmas, you can look forward to many more improvements and new puzzles coming in 2024! 

As for us, we’ll be taking a much needed break until after New Years day, and then we’ll be back to work on our ever evolving roadmap for Reverse Lookup and Reverse Lookup PLUS. As always, we’ll also be updating the rest of our library later in the year, and we may even squeeze in a new release or two. Be sure to follow us here or on one of our social media accounts to stay up to date on all the news.

As always, we want to extend a huge thank you to all of you who have supported us this year and for many years. Without you, none of what we do would be possible. We are truly grateful for you!

Until next time!

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Reverse Lookup 3.4.5

A few hours after this post goes live, Reverse Lookup 3.4.5 will begin rolling out on the Play Store and Amazon Appstore. The update should make it to all users over the course of the next two weeks. The PLUS version of this update will follow within the next 5-7 days.

In addition to the usual minor bug fixes, this release adds support for spam call detection. This is a feature that we’ve been preparing behind the scenes for a while, and we hope our users find it to be useful. Whenever you search for a call within Reverse Lookup, our systems will now use historical data to determine whether or not the caller has exhibited spam-like activity, and if so, will make a note of that on the search results screen.

This has worked well in testing, and we’ll be closely monitoring the system to make sure it’s catching as many spammers as possible.

As usual, thanks again and please let us know if you have any issues or questions.

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New Free Android Game: Christmas Word Search

We’re happy to announce the release of our latest free Android game, Christmas Word Search!

christmas word search android game

The game is just what you’d expect – a perfect “coffee” game to relax with, whether you want to kill a few minutes or a few hours. In addition to cozy Christmas visuals, you’ll also be treated to a nice selection of traditional Christmas music.

We’re launching this Christmas with just over 50 puzzles right off the bat – no in-app purchases, nothing to unlock. Just download and hop into any puzzle of your choice!

You can grab the game right now at the Google Play Store.

Please enjoy, and feel free to let us know if you have any issues, questions, or other feedback.

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Reverse Lookup 3.3.4 Released

Reverse Lookup and Reverse Lookup PLUS v3.3.4 is now going live in the Google Play Store

This release addresses an issue that caused incoming call notifications to fail for some pre-Oreo users. In addition to this, the app received various background optimizations and a slightly smaller overall file size. This version should be fully rolled out by early next week.

The PLUS version of the app receives these same optimizations as well as the newer runtime permissions model that the free version received a couple weeks ago. Like the free version, the PLUS version now requires a device running Android 4.0 or higher. This version is rolling out to 100% of users today.

We would also like to alert users to a known issue we recently became aware of: Android Oreo devices are currently not receiving notifications of incoming calls from the app. We are working to resolve the issue and will release a fix as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.

As always thank you again and please let us know if you have any questions.

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Reverse Lookup 3.3.2 – Important bugfix

Hey all – just a quick note.. after releasing version 3.3.1 over the weekend, we noticed a bug that was causing crashes at launch for a lot of users.

We’ve just pushed out version 3.3.2 on the Google Play Store which should solve this issue, so please be sure to grab the latest version if you’re having trouble.

Thank you and as always, please reach out if you have any comments or questions.

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Reverse Lookup v3.3.x Going Live

Hi! Today we’re beginning to launch Reverse Lookup 3.3 on the Google Play Store. All users should start receiving this update today. Although the update is fairly substantial, most of the changes are behind the scenes and most existing users won’t see a difference in their day to day use.

So what did change?

New permissions request model We’re now building the app against the latest Android APIs, something we had previously planned to do as we moved through the second half of the year. What this brings for our users is the realtime permissions request model that was implemented when Android 6.0 launched a few years back. Existing users won’t see a change – you’ve already accepted the needed permissions when you downloaded the app prior to today. New users on devices using Android 6.0 and up will now be asked to grant permissions as they are needed for the first time. The permission requested at app launch is used to build the main screen from your device’s call log. If you don’t grant this permission, you’ll only be able to search for calls by entering phone numbers by hand. The other permission you may be prompted to grant is for writing contacts, which is used when you use the app to block a number.

Permissions cleanup – Prior to this release, we needed to request the permission for writing to external storage as a requirement of the Google Maps API which is used on the location tab in search results. Google Maps no longer requires this permission, so we’ve removed the request from the app.

As always, we’ll be monitoring the launch and quickly releasing fixes for any issues that arise, so you may receive the app with a different minor version number.

Legacy Android Support dropped – Some of these changes have required us to drop support for devices running versions of Android under 4.0, which was released over 6 years ago as of this writing. According to our data, less than 500 users were still on these versions, and while the app version they have will continue to work for now, they will no longer receive updates or support.

As always, thank you for using the app and please reach out if you have any issues or questions.

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Christmas Catch Updated For 2015

santa christmas catch
Just in time for the big day, we’ve published an update to our little Christmas game, Christmas Catch, to Google Play and the Amazon Appstore.

The game features simple gameplay that’s perfect for kids or anyone that just has a few minutes to kill here and there. It also features a countdown to Christmas to help build anticipation.

The game is completely free with no in-app purchases, so download it today and enjoy it while you wait for Santa to arrive later this month!

 

 

Get it on Google Play 

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Merry Christmas! Have a free Android game!

From all of us, to all of you who celebrate, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Heck, for that matter, happy whatever-you-celebrate this time of year!

If you or your kids are brimming with spirit, we want you to try this little game we threw together to celebrate.

Christmas Catch on Google Play

Next year we’ll refocus on it to add lots of new content including new scenes, achievements, leaderboards, and more.. so start practicing now!

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A word on Android permissions

As you may know, this weekend we published the most significant update to Reverse Lookup ever. Unfortunately, it seems there has been some confusion about the permissions that the app requests, and Android permissions in general.

So please take a moment to read this blog post, and we’ll teach you a few important things to keep in mind when you are reviewing permissions –

1. Permission requests are not generated automatically.

Whenever we see or hear a discussion about Android permissions, it seems there are always people who assume that the permissions list presented during install is generated based on what the app tries to do.

This is actually false. The permissions that you are asked to approve during install are specifically requested by the developer. If the developer fails to request a needed permission, the app will simply crash when that code attempts to run.

With that being said, it’s generally bad practice for a developer to request unneeded permissions, but they can if they want. In some cases it’s difficult to avoid – some apps are written using third party frameworks that simply request everything(or at least more than what is needed). In this case, the developer may not be able to reduce the list to just what’s needed.

2. Don’t judge a permission by it’s group

When you install an Android app in the latest versions of the Play Store, you are shown a summarized list of permission groups. 

In the image below, it looks like we want access to your whole phone, and that’s understandably creepy. Calendar access? Photos? What?permission groups

But if you expand each section(image below), you can see the actual permissions we are asking for, and things start to make much more sense. You should do this for any app you install rather than just assuming it’s asking for complete access to each group.

expanded permissions

In the case of Reverse Lookup specifically, here’s what the permissions are actually used for:

  • Find Accounts – used when creating contacts so they can be attached to your Google account
  • Read Contacts – used so that we can omit people you already know from the main screen of the app
  • Modify Contacts – self explanatory – so the app can create a contact from found results if you choose that option
  • Read Call Log – used to generate the call list on the main screen – this permission wasn’t necessary in the past, but the method we used to query the call log has long been deprecated and has begun causing problems on some newer devices.
  • Directly dial phone numbers – The app contains a function to dial a number directly from the results screen
  • test access to protected storage/modify contents of USB storage – required by embedded Google maps to store temporary cache files on your SD card in order to improve performance
  • Read Phone Status – required for the ability to show a notification when receiving a phone call from an unknown number
  • Network access – needed to reach the call databases
  • View Network Connections – needed to check for internet connectivity

Recently removed permissions:

  • Location access – inadvertently requested in the past but was never used
  • Vibration – vibration functions were tested in some early test versions but never in a production release. Permission was left in until recently.

We know permissions are a scary issue for many users, and we always want to be as transparent as possible about the ones we use. We hope that this explanation has shined some light on how permissions work and specifically how and why we are using them.

If you have any further questions, as always, feel free to shoot us an email.

 

 

 

 

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Beta for Reverse Lookup 2.6 Now Available

The next update to Reverse Lookup contains a lot of changes, and we wanted to be sure we test it a little more thoroughly than usual before releasing it to the Play Store.

..So we’re happy to announce that the first Beta will be available within the next few hours.

Want to try it out early? All you have to do is join our beta tester Google Group and then follow this link to opt-in: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.esmobile.reverselookupfree

Keep in mind that the point of this test is to see what works and what doesn’t, and while we’re already pretty happy with the stability of the app, there’s always the possibility to encounter bugs. So please bear with us and let us know if something in the app breaks so we can fix it before launch.

We’re expecting to move forward rapidly from this point, so expect another update or two in the beta channel before we launch. We’re primarily working on aesthetics and general UX from here on out, but of course we’ll be trying to eliminate any bugs we discover as well.

Oh, one last thing.. this is a completely open beta so please feel free to share those links with anyone who may be interested.

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