iPhone App: Warcraft Chest 1.1

Sedna Logic Limited released the latest update to Warcraft Chest [iTunes link]. Warcraft Chest is an offline browser for item drops from raid and instance bosses, as well as items from reputation and PvP vendors.  This update brings Warcraft Chest to version 1.1 but it DOES NOT include content from the Wrath of the Lich King.  Apprently this release was submitted to Apple before Wrath and just made it through their approval process.

Though it doesn't include any Wrath content, it's still a significant update and includes the following changes:

• Update item data to WOW 3.0.x
• Smaller App Size (14Mb)
• Faster download and installation
• Improved Startup time
• Now display long English text correctly
• Improved application stability & memory usage.
• Bug fixes and more ...

The functionality of the program remains the same as the original release, however the bug fixes and performance improvements are significant.  It looks like the developers put a lot of effort into reducing the application's memory footprint and improving it's performance.

In my original review, one major issue with the program was the application's startup time (14 seconds).  This new version now starts up in only a few seconds, and it's size has been reduced from 31.1 MB to 14.1 MB.  It's interesting that the developers noted "Faster download and installation" of the program.  The reason this is significant is because the original version took a painful amount of time to upload from iTunes to the iPhone/Touch.  I retested this several times with the original version and it took 10 minutes each time!  I have no idea why a 31.1 MB program would take so long especially since other programs of similar size would easily take less than a minute.  The good news is that this new version took less than a minute to transfer.  Though that's a small issue that only arises when uploading the program to the iPhone/Touch, it's was important enough and a large enough improvement to make it noteworthy.

One thing I still noticed is that they still don't have the Frostsaber Trainers in the "Classic" Reputation Rewards. Again not a big deal but I did mention it in my original review and even sent the developers an email, but never got a response from them.  Maybe in the next release?

The improvements in performance are huge and make this program a lot more useable.  It is very nice to have an offline tool to browse instance and raid drops, but if you're working through WotLK right now this doesn't have the new content yet.  I'm sure the next release will be updated to include the WotLK instances, raids, and reputation rewards. 

So if you're using this program now for pre-Wrath content definitely give it an update, the performance improvements are well worth it.  If you're waiting for WotLK content, then you'll have to wait a little longer. 

Related:
     iPhone App: Warcraft Chest (30 October 2008)