Safari to Go Android App Update
UPDATE: The Android app is now available.
By far the most requested feature from our customers is for an Android version of the hugely popular Safari to Go iPad app.
Android use has been rapidly growing among our users, and about six months ago we began the process of designing and engineering an Android user experience from scratch. We knew from our iOS users that access for tablet devices was going to be as important (if not more so) as phones, so we planned for a simultaneous release for both.
There has been a huge effort ongoing at Safari to get these apps right from launch – and for us that means focusing on the mobile reading experience above all.
The apps will provide two new reading features that we are particularly excited about, and which also feature highly in requests from you. First of all, the offline bookbag – the ability to read without a data connection – will be increased to three titles per device. And secondly your reading location will be synchronised across devices, supporting a much more mobile experience.
The flip side of this of course is that as many of you will know, making Android apps comes with a lot of choices. There are an increasing number of devices running Android, and supporting and testing even the top devices is a significant effort.
Last week we had planned to release Safari To Go for Android along with the all-new iOS version, which has also been re-engineered from scratch and universalised to provide support for iPhone as well as iPad.
The iOS apps were released as an update to Safari To Go last week, but unfortunately in the very late stages of testing the Android release candidate, we found a couple of major last-minute bugs which had to be fixed before release. We are in the process of fixing them right now – and hope to have an app for you in the coming days.
We also broke Murphy’s Law of software development and announced an internal release date for the apps in an email to many of you. Whilst it shows how hugely excited we are to get these apps live, that was still a real mistake, and we are sorry to have disappointed some of you.
Many of our customers are software developers who understand the ups and downs of releasing new products. We hope you understand that in this case a very major update that will help make Safari even better is just around the corner. Thanks for your patience!
This page will be updated with news of the apps launch.
Safari To Go for iPad / iPhone
Peter Collingridge
VP, Product Development
@gunzalis
With this and V 3.0 released for iOS is it usable by Academic Licensees yet?
Hi Chris,
Any of our academic library customers that have accounts including logins for individual users will have access. Those that rely on straight IP authentication won’t (yet) have access to the apps. Once these new iOS and Android versions of our app are live, we’ll be revisiting whether and when to add support for the remaining academic accounts.
This is excellent news! Hurry, before I exploed! Finally you are showing us (Android users) some love
Does the Android app support watching videos? Tried using the Safari website with my Nexus 7 and it doesn’t display any of the videos because they are Flash.
Yes, it sure will.
Thank you for the update! I have been wondering and can’t wait to try the android app!
I saw the email about the upcoming android version and am eagerly looking forward to it but I am a bit perplexed about what I understood as the “removal of the token system”. I use safari mainly for reference and buy (using both monthly tokens and bought tokens) the books I want to read (as I have a very offline Sony reader device on which I read). Now I am unsure if I will be able to continue buy books and how that will work after these changes?
I can’t wait for the release either. I just replaced my iPad with Nexus 7.
It has been relased!!
Yay, but how do I put it on the Kindle Fire?
We have taken the necessary steps to develop, test and submit the app to Amazon for their App Store and the Kindle Fire app store. Their approval process is slightly longer for the Kindle Fire, but we hope to have some news there soon.
Woohoo! Thanks! I would greatly prefer reading on my Fire to my phone.
This is fantastic icing on a really great cake!
Great work guys. Much thanks!!
LOVE my Safari Library even more – if that’s really possible
On the Android app you can’t highlight or add notes and tags.. Please adds these features soon, cause they are essentials to me, for using your service at best.
The iOS version already has these task..
Please update!