Changing of the Guard

[chaley]

Dear CC community,

As many of you have noticed, neither Steve nor I have been actively developing CC for quite some time. The reasons are diverse but can be summarized as "Life Happens". That said, neither of us want to leave CC unloved. For that reason we decided to pass the CC project to another developer, Sam Cohen (@samcohen). The transfer has started and will complete over the next few days.

Sam is very excited about taking over the projects and reviving active CC development on both iOS and Android.

Steve and I thank all of you for your encouragement and support over the last 7 years (has it really been that long?). We very much appreciate all the comments, complements, and criticisms you took the time to give us. We hope that you will be as supportive of Sam as you have been of us.

I will remain involved with calibre and will continue to hang out in this CC forum, commenting when I think I add value.

-- Charles & Steve

Edit: The mobileread user kaufman has agreed to work with Sam on Android CC. He has been using CC for many years, requesting many of the most-used CC features during that time. This is very good news for the app.

[serana]

Thank you for this fantastic app! I enjoy using it and it has proven very valuable to me . All the best to you, Charles and Steve!

Welcome, Sam! I wish you the best of luck for CC and am looking forward to seeing what you'll come up with .

[pwalker8]

Awesome. I had been worrying a bit about CC for iOS.

I really want to thank both you and Steve for the incredible job that y'all have done on CC. It's an integral part of my eBook infrastructure. I give both of you some major kudos for passing the torch on rather than just let CC die as an abandoned project.

I'm also looking forward to seeing what Sam does with CC.

[samcohen]

Hello Everyone,

I'm Sam the new developer for Calibre Companion. I want to start off by saying thank you to Steve and Charles for creating such fantastic applications. They have created a project that many of us use daily. In today's world, this is a serious feat.

I used Calibre for quite a few years and was not aware of Calibre Companion. I am making it my goal to make sure every Calibre user is exposed and has the opportunity to get a chance to use these great applications.

I can't promise to be as technically knowledgeable as Charles and Steve when it comes to the intricacies of the application. I have a lot of catching up to do. My background is in technical marketing so many of the updates I make will be focused around building an exceptional user experience. I plan to put in some optional surveys/polls within the app to help me better the apps to the best of my ability.

Thank you for the warm welcome and I'm excited to get the ball rolling.

Best,
Sam

[HarryT]

Welcome to MobileRead, Sam. Good to have you here! If you ever need any help, feel free to reach out to any member of the moderating team - we all have our usernames displayed in green.

[Incanus]

I wouldn't have dreamed of switching from traditional e-readers to Android based e-ink devices if CC wasn't available and also being such a wonderful mobile complement to Calibre.

It's good to know that the torch has been passed so CC's flre will continue to burn brightly.

Cheers,

[INCANUS]

[pdurrant]

Sam is now a moderator for the Calibre Companion forum.

[copyrite]

Thank you to Charles and Steve for all the work you've put into Calibre Companion and Welcome, Sam!

[kaufman]

Welcome aboard Sam.

Chaley, I can't thank you enough for all you have done over the last seven years. You have taken about a zillion of my crazy requests and bought the non-stupid ones to life.

CC on Android is the main reason why I will never switch to another phone OS.

[Glsparks2]

Thank you to all of the Developers past and present!

[Glsparks2]

SamCohen: I hope you are having a good new year! Can you please give an update on developer activities?

[samcohen]

Originally Posted by Glsparks2

SamCohen: I hope you are having a good new year! Can you please give an update on developer activities?

I have an IOS update on the way. I made a lot of mistakes my first time around and am determined to put out and update that the community deserves. I made a small preview video of the newest UI working on the app and am excited to get it out. We are also planning on putting out a proper iCloud integration which we are extremely excited about. This would eliminate the necessity for dropbox and other services since most people already use iCloud for everything else.

https://www.icloud.com/photos/#0KhCb...o8CFSzKwOEr3Dg

I have not gotten around to working on the android apps yet due to my lack of resources. The company doesn't make enough money yet. Luckily my marketing efforts are starting to pay off and am getting a lot of new eyes on the apps that haven't seen it before. I have 10xd the organic traffic to the website so this should help a lot.

It's hard to see the work in the community's eyes because a lot of the value I'm building for the company hasn't been put into the product yet. It will trickle down.

For anyone who cares about marketing at all here is a look at the organic traffic work I have done. We are looking to build an even bigger community! The more people I bring in the more resources I can dedicate directly toward exactly what the community wants.

[Deskisamess]

For anyone who cares about marketing at all here is a look at the organic traffic work I have done. We are looking to build an even bigger community!

Organic traffic? How does that help those of us who have a broken useless app? Why build a bigger community, whatever that even means, when the existing community already paid for an app we can't really use?

Marketing sound bites mean nothing.

[samcohen]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Organic traffic? How does that help those of us who have a broken useless app? Why build a bigger community, whatever that even means, when the existing community already paid for an app we can't really use?

Marketing sound bites mean nothing.

It helps you because the more money that is coming in the more money I can allocate to development.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by samcohen

I have an IOS update on the way. I made a lot of mistakes my first time around and am determined to put out and update that the community deserves. I made a small preview video of the newest UI working on the app and am excited to get it out. We are also planning on putting out a proper iCloud integration which we are extremely excited about. This would eliminate the necessity for dropbox and other services since most people already use iCloud for everything else.

https://www.icloud.com/photos/#0KhCb...o8CFSzKwOEr3Dg

I have not gotten around to working on the android apps yet due to my lack of resources. The company doesn't make enough money yet. Luckily my marketing efforts are starting to pay off and am getting a lot of new eyes on the apps that haven't seen it before. I have 10xd the organic traffic to the website so this should help a lot.

It's hard to see the work in the community's eyes because a lot of the value I'm building for the company hasn't been put into the product yet. It will trickle down.

For anyone who cares about marketing at all here is a look at the organic traffic work I have done. We are looking to build an even bigger community! The more people I bring in the more resources I can dedicate directly toward exactly what the community wants.

@samcohen - if you knew diddlysquat about marketing you would know the quoted post will likely go down like a dead balloon with a great many of your existing users.

You acquired a functioning operation with an existing customer base. Then, within a remarkably short period you managed to squander the considerable goodwill that the originator of Calibre Companion had established over almost a decade. Its reputation was created a) by building a superior product; b) using well established software QA processes, c) by responding to users functional needs in a timely manner, and d) by maintaining compliance with the latest versions of Google's Android and Apple's IOS. You seem to be running CC as if it were a startup - and without any funding.

By announcing you will be dropping support for Dropbox because "... most people already use iCloud for everything else" suggests to me that you're only really interested in the IOS incarnation of CC. I exchange data with many iPhone and iPad users - if they use iCloud at all its for 'personal' use. When they want to share most use Dropbox, a few even use OneDrive. Historically Apple software has been a PITA when used on non-Apple platforms; hence, many non-Apple users won't install Apple software on their computers or devices.

By your own admission you don't have any Android skills, I suspect it goes further than that - you don't have any interest in Android - period. Why don't you divest yourself of the Android app and let someone who has the skills and motivation take it forward. I have the impression that the Android and IOS apps don't have much in the way of a common code base, if that's true you wouldn't be losing much - except some ill-will.

FTR : I'm a disinterested bystander; I only keep texts I'm currently reading, and a few reference texts, on my devices; hence I don't need a device based library manager app.

BR