It’s been two years since our last major upgrade to the ScreenTag platform. Businesses and professionals are starting to adapt to the new post CoViD-19 reality, and so we do.

We started developing this new version – the fifth major one – about 7 months ago, starting (once again) from scratch. Today, is the day we are ready to release this new version, as a public beta, before the full launch planned for September 30.

A public beta release, doesn’t mean there are bugs or malfunctions. It only means we need to tweak a few things, based on user interactions, and finalize the development of our mobile application.

New features

As with all major version upgrades, this v. 5.0 introduces many new innovations:

• Video background to promote your business or practice
• Integration with calendaring platforms, such as Calendly and Facebook Calendar, so your recipients can arrange bookings and meetings straight from your contact in their address book application
• Recipient sharing option (Professional Edition only), so your recipients can share your contact with their friends and family members
• White label option (Business Edition only), so your recipients never see the ScreenTag brand
• Step-by-step ordering process, so you don’t have to pay for features you will not be using
• Bring your own design, and have your ScreenTag looks exactly the way you want
• Live design preview, through our integration with Canva
• Design briefing (Professional and Business Editions only), to offer guidance to our design team regarding your ScreenTag look and feel
• Customer accounts, so you have full control over your orders
• Customer rewards (Personal and Professional Editions only)
• Hand-holding service, to help you set up your ScreenTag effortlessly

Major upgrades

Besides our newly introduced features, we upgraded many of our existing ones:

• Enhanced social media integration
• Enhanced CRM and e-mail ListBuilder
• Upgraded customer service ticketing system
• Upgraded security and privacy
• Added crypto-payments option
• Added Facebook Messenger integration
• Completed transition to Microsoft SharePoint

What about the app?

Native apps are an integral part of the ScreenTag experience, since version 4.0. Unfortunately, Apple actively forces developers, to either offer in-app purchases, or display ads in their apps. This leaves us very little room for negotiations with them. In the Android front, with the ‘Made in China’ device ban, the app ecosystem is now more fragmented than ever. Many of our users discovered that their device had no access to the Play Store, leaving us with only one other option to distribute our Android app; direct download of the APK – that triggers security warnings.

This doesn’t mean though we are giving up on development of our app. It only means we need some time to either offer alternative options to Apple for our iOS app and secure distribution for our Android app with the multitude of device manufacturer operated app marketplaces, or deploy an alternative technology solution that will be offering the app experience, without going through the app marketplaces. Our deadline to deploy one of the two solutions is September 30 – hence the pre-launch period.

To celebrate our new version, during pre-launch, many of our new features, including our hand-holding service and our app option, will be offered for free, or at deeply discounted pricing.