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.
In order to reduce clutter, Reverse Lookup has never listed duplicate calls from the same number. This was great for keeping a tidy list, but we’ve come to discover that identifying nuisance calls is easier when you can see how many times a number is calling. The app will still only list each caller once, but now you’ll see an indicator that shows the number of times their number is listed in your call log. This will be displayed next to the call date(if applicable).
