Is GroupMe this bad for everyone on WP?

My wife's family does a lot of GroupMe for chatting... the implementation on Windows Phone seems really poor.

On Lumia 920 / Windows Phone 8, here are some of the issues I see:

(1) Doesn't seem to update very well. I'll see a number on the Live Tile indicating that there are new messages. Enter the app. Don't see the messages. Hit Refresh. Then they are there. Why did I have to hit refresh when it already knew about them?

(2) No counter on the small Live Tile? This is confusing to me... I could swear that I have seen a counter on the small version of the Live Tile, but it seems very rare and usually doesn't work. After switching to the medium tile, the counter seems to work fine.

(3) Often it seems to be in an infinite refresh loop... just keeps saying "refreshing" at the top of the screen and doing the animation, but it seems like all the activity is already there.

I am using a pin of the specific group... maybe if I just use a pin of the main GroupMe app some of these issues would be better? But it would be annoying to have to always hit twice to get into the group when I have only one group.

Does anyone know if there is an update in the pipeline to fix these issues (provided others see the same issues I do)? My wife and her family all use the Android version and it seems perfectly solid. I don't understand why these Microsoft products seem to have the worst implementation on Windows Phone... it's just bizarre.

Hi there,

We're sorry to hear you're having problems with the GroupMe app for Windows Phone.

Rest assured that we've fixed #1 and #3 in an update that you should see soon.

#2 is also fixed, and you should see that in an update early January.

We're constantly striving to make our apps better, and appreciate the candid feedback.

Are you in the New York area? We run usability studies frequently - let us know if you'd like an invite to the next one.

Thanks again, and let us know if you have any other feedback.

Thanks!

Ajay
wp7 (at) groupme.com

Ajay,

Terrific to see a response from the dev team here!

I mentioned a couple issues via the help/issues dialog on groupme.com:

1) please allow for full-size images instead of cropping to a square. Sometimes I'm taking pictures of something that really needs the whole frame. Like a group shot :)
2) please improve the ability to scroll back through the discussion. I can only go back a few sentences before it goes into "refresh" mode. This would be particularly helpful for when I can't get to the thread right away and am trying to "catch up" on the conversation.
3) status indicators would be great, as they are on Android. What I mean is, read receipt. or "John Doe is typing."

Just to make you aware! Thanks for your help.

Riz

Just got the new update, and indeed 1 and 3 from my list seem to be fixed! Thanks so much for the heads up! Also good to hear that small live tile notifications will be fixed soon as well.

I also agree with all of Riz's suggestions, though they are certainly less important than the original list of bugs. But please implement them as well to bring us parity with features on Android.

Thanks!

+1 on both requests!

Full image size would be great as well as ability to scroll through chat history. I also want to say thanks dev for responding on this forum!

Looks like the image size issue has been fixed in the latest update too. Awesome.

Wow, a proactive developer! I am impressed!

Love the app and am very happy with the photo size update. It does still seem to show refresh and nothing happens after the update I just installed, but since the refresh button works just fine, not a big concern for me.

Instead, I'd like to see groupme work with the lockscreen and either get a message count of unread messages or detailed info. The options exist for lock screen settings, but they don't seem to actually work.

Thanks for the updates!

Thanks for this last update, some great fixes included. I like Robert's ideas too. Hopefully some battery improvements will come. Standby is ok, but when you use the app it drinks battery like a drunken sailor. It would also be nice to be able to post pictures from text messages to the group.

The app still refreshing after the update to v.4.2

Why cant we got location sharing like iphone and android?

Ugh, GroupMe imploded! Of all times to do this, I am seriously thinking of switching to another IM client now. Just tired of the buggyness of the whole system. :(

I have to say that while it appeared to refresh correctly after the update, it is now back to the constant "Refreshing..." message. It does at least update when you manually refresh, but there still appear to be a lot of bugs in here...