Want the Bing daily Image on your band automatically each day? Now you can with Bing my Band

[Dan Harris]

Hi,

Not sure if it's generally done to post about your own apps on the WC forum, but I thought Band owners might be interested in the beta I just launched in the store a few days ago.

It allows you to automatically have the Bing image of the day sent to your Band or Band 2.

As far as I know, this is a unique feature as other apps require you to send the image to your band manually each day.

It's FREE with an optional 79p purchase available if you want to offer support

The app is 79p in the UK (Lowest pricing tier), however the trial never expires and there are no feature restrictions at all ? The purchase option is literally there for if people really like the app and want to support it. People can download the trial and enjoy using it as long as they want, essentially making it free if you want.

It is currently in an early Beta stage (Described in the apps description; It has a very basic UI and hasn?t had testing on lower end devices yet and at the moment just has this one feature - Two if you count the ability to manually send the image to your band).

This code for this has been sitting around for months now as I've been busy with work. I?ve had it running side loaded on my own phone and found it to be reliable, so I figured I may as well release it as a Beta and see what feedback I can get.

The little feedback I?ve had so far is good and people have been able to get the image to their Band each day without any problems, which matches up to my personal testing with my Lumia 950. Based on feedback the app could be restricted to appropriately spec?d phones in the future, but I?d like it to keep it available to as many people as possible.

The problem with lower spec devices is they may not be able to run the background task which will prevent the auto update - I'd really love to hear if anybody does find it to work on a lower end device though - I've got a Lumia 435 to test it on soon.

If you are on the latest fast ring build you might find the "Send Feedback" button doesn't work - Seems to be a bug in some of the Insider builds that also affects PC, so you can just email bingmyband (at) danieltharris dot co dot uk manually if you like.

Where to get it

http://bit.ly/bingmyband

To get started with it just download the app, open it up, toggle the "Auto" mode to On and make sure to accept the initial connection to your band - This ensures future connections will succeed. After that you should find the Bing image comes down to the Band each day.

If you like the app please leave a review in the store, and if you have issues please consider sending feedback first before a negative review, as it could be phone related or just a problem with the early code.

Sleep Tracking Mode

It's mentioned inside the app itself, but if you are using sleep tracking the image won't update until you wake up and turn that off. Usually this happens rather quickly, but do give it some time before assuming it hasn't worked.

 

[Dan Harris]

Just a quick update on the progress with this app and an issue Band 2 users will possibly have noticed.

The current version of the app live in the store supports Band 1 well. There were some bugs with Band 2 where it got the Band 1 image (so had a letterboxing effect).

I've got a little Fast Ring going for this app and feedback from Band 2 owners has been positive, so the fix for Band 2 should be out tomorrow.

It will be version 0.1.5.0 if the current build of the app passes one more test around Auto Update.

 

[PepperdotNet]

http://bit.ly/bingmyband => your device is not compatible (950XL, 14342, probably this is a bug in Edge browser)

search in store => installed fine

 

[Dan Harris]

Thanks I'll keep an eye on that. Does seem to be fine in the store listing so maybe just a bug in the browser as you say.

The update to fix Band 2 isn't released publically to the store yet, but feel free to DM me your Microsoft Account email address and I can have it push the update out to you (Loving the app flights in the dev Centre for Windows 10)

I may just go ahead and push the fix out, but waiting to see if the Auto Update works correctly without black bars on the image for Band 2 tomorrow morning (Manually sending the background is confirmed working in the pending update, the version live right now will have black bars at the top and bottom)

 

[Dan Harris]

Version 0.1.5.0 should finally be in the store after a couple of issues getting app published.

If you already had an earlier version of the app and use a Band 2 be sure to go into the app and either:

• Click the button to "Send current image to my band"
• Toggle Auto Update off, wait a couple of seconds and then toggle it back on

This is only necessary if you had a previous version of the app, as it will force the app to recognise that you have a Band 2 which gives you the correct images.

I'm testing this later this week on a Lumia 435, but if anybody has tried the app on anything lower than a Lumia 950 I'd love to hear if it worked. There are limitations when it comes to background tasks on all devices but they are more pronounced on the lower end models.

Features to be added at some point include being able to set the tile colour from within the app (and then further down the line the option to have the app pick one automatically) as well as being able to view the title of the image.

 

[Dan Harris]

I've had to temporarily remove the app from the store.

Microsoft (or the company who they use to check for and enforce any trademark infringements etc.) reported the app due to the word "Bing" in the name.

I thought this might come up as an issue, but on other services like Azure they don't even let you use restricted names so I thought it MAY have been okay.

I need to come up with another name for the app and then re-release it on the store.

 

[anthonyng]

ooo that sucks, how else do you make it relate to bing?

Or maybe relate it by keyword to the phone wallpaper.... hmmmm

 

[PepperdotNet]

This is a special case of "fair use"[SUP]*[/SUP] - the only reason the trademark is part of the name is because that's exactly the only thing it works with. You should appeal their decision.

[SUP]*[/SUP] I'm not a lawyer

 

[jsooney]

Well that's stupid. You'd think they would like it because it promotes their search engine, especially if it worked cross-platform one day. Suppose you like an image on your band, you might think, "hmm, I'd like to see that on a bigger screen" and visit Bing on your PC. Then maybe even search for something.

How about Bang My Band? Or B*ng My Band.

 

[Dan Harris]

Well that's stupid. You'd think they would like it because it promotes their search engine, especially if it worked cross-platform one day. Suppose you like an image on your band, you might think, "hmm, I'd like to see that on a bigger screen" and visit Bing on your PC. Then maybe even search for something.

How about Bang My Band? Or B*ng My Band.

Well the app is finally back in the store but under the name "Band Daily Wallpaper". Not my first choice but they won't even entertain a dispute where a trademark is involved unless the developer is the trademark holder.

Took quite a bit of back and forth to get them to re-enable settings for the app so I could change the name so further improved went on hold.

I've got a better UI and a couple new features in dev at the moment and anybody using the app can feel free to DM me here to go into an early release ring. I just need the Microsoft Account email you use to add you to the list in dev centre.

 

[erichyde43]

Any plan to bring this to iOS? I'd love it...

 

[Dan Harris]

It's very tempting. I am planning on working on a Windows 10 UWP version of my previous Band app called Backup My Band, which lets you save your background and tile colour to the app, so you can easily restore and switch between your favourite combinations, and my intention with that was to build it cross platform from the ground up - It's a Windows Phone 8.1 app at the moment but works on W10M fine.

As "Bing My Band" as it's no longer called is in the earlier stages, it may actually be worth me looking at making it cross platform whilst I'm in the process of refining it as there's less code involved and I think 90% of what I have is probably re-usable with minimal effort.

I'll post her and try to DM you if the forum will let me when I have news about taking it cross platform to make sure you hear about it. I'll start experimenting with an iOS version over the next couple of weeks and I'll also have updates out for W10M.