Emergency Chat for Windows 1.3 and 2.2 released

I’ve just released an (admittedly technically overdue) update to Emergency Chat for Windows.

This update adds a new feature to both the Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 versions, but more importantly it will be the last update to the Windows Phone 8.1 version, as on July 1, 2019, Microsoft will no longer be distributing app updates to Windows Phone 8.1 devices.

Yes… that’s today. If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you can probably guess that I really haven’t had the energy to do pretty much anything, be it updating the main site, updating the LEGO Room, updating Emergency Chat, or blogging about Talk.CSS, UWP development (that post I mentioned previously? Yeah) or last Saturday’s Insider Dev Tour that I made it to this time around (praise God!).

To be clear, that date had been on my mind all week and I just could not get around to it. But thanks to this tweet by Rudy Huyn I finally got the kick I so desperately needed to put together the update for both apps, from nothing, and ship it — all in less than 10 hours (and even though I’m not sure Windows Phone 8.1 users would actually be able to obtain the update now that it’s the last day, I went ahead with it if for nothing else than my own closure):

Windows Phone developers, today is your last chance to submit an update for your apps and add a banner/message explaining to wp8/wp8.1 users that you won't be able to update the app anymore starting Monday. We had a lot of fun altogether. #wpdev #rip pic.twitter.com/Vpen0srRPK

— Rudy Huyn (@RudyHuyn) June 29, 2019

If you’ve been using my app on Windows Phone 8.1 over the years, thank you for supporting it, and be sure to check out the Windows 10 version (which will continue to receive updates) on your PC, tablet or phone!

Here is the changelog for both versions:

Updated the acknowledgements.
You can now use the app in light or dark mode independently of your system settings.
Performance and reliability improvements.

As always, if Emergency Chat has helped you during a time of need, or if there’s something that you think can be improved, we’d love to hear from you! Please rate and review our app (you can do this from within the app by going to Settings > About, or if you’re reading this on Windows 10 you can use this handy direct link!).