Release notes, key changes and deprecation notices
Release Notes: Ocelot
11 August 2022
In iOS SDK,
Realm version is updated to 10.28.3
AmityMessageReactor class has been deprecated. Readmore.
iOS and Android SDKs are enhanced with Live Collections for reactions and follower/following collection. Newly created reactions/followers/following items will now be automatically reflected in the Live Collection.
In TypeScript,
SDK is enhanced with Live Collections for comments. Newly created comments will be automatically collected in the Live Collection
queryReactions pagination parameters in TypeScript have been changed to {limit: number; before: string}Readmore.
Flutter SDK users can now report posts and comments by flagging and unflagging them.
iOS 12 & Objective-C Deprecation Notice
From 31 December 2022 onwards, Amity iOS SDK will end support for iOS version 12 and Objective-C.
Versions that will no longer be supported:
iOS 12 will no longer be supported. The minimum target that SDK supports will be iOS 13 and above
Objective-C will no longer be used
Reason for deprecation
We have planned to upgrade the SDK to become compatible with iOS 13+, and we are migrating to pure Swift.
Deadline to make any changes
It is highly recommended to plan the upgrade around Q4, 2022 or before 31 December 2022.
Impact to users who are using iOS 12 and Objective-C:
You will not be able to build an app using Amity iOS SDK version 12 starting January 1, 2023.
What’s in store with iOS13+ upgrade:
There are many new enhancements coming along with this upgrade, such as, async/await API that helps you to work easier with asynchronous programming, migrating to swift comes as a cost-effective method in developing and maintaining your project. It’s a great opportunity to give your users a new powerful way to share their stories. Let’s gear up to experience the new technology from Apple ecosystem.
Release Notes: Numbat
29 July 2022
iOS and Android SDKs are enhanced with Live Collections for comment collection. Newly created comments will now be automatically reflected in the Live Collection. Our users don’t have to hassle with refreshing every time to get the new items.
Flutter SDK is enhanced with Poll Post feature, where the users can create, vote and close polls.
TypeScript SDK has quite a few new features added,
1.
Introduced Post Review feature for community admins. Admins will now have the ability to approve or decline posts that will be published on the private/public community feed.
2.
Introduced the ability to flag and unflag users.
3.
Automatic Live Collection is enhanced for User/Community Post Collections.
In Web Portal, as per our client's request, PAYG invoices will now display a complete set of billing information with customer’s VAT number and billing address.
Managed UI Kit Deprecation Announcement
21 June 2022
Amity Social Cloud will be deprecating all managed versions of the UI Kits (IOS, Android and Web J.S.) on 31 August 2022 as requests to be able to further customize their look and feel have increased. Our UI Kits were built to enable even faster integration of our social and chat features. In January this year, we open sourced all our UI Kits to provide our customers with more flexibility and greater customization options. Since then, we have seen a shift towards the open source version as it gives complete control over the visual style while keeping the integration time as short as possible.
To ensure that you continue to receive the latest updates and improvements, we encourage you to migrate over to the open source version. We’ve written instruction guides to help you migrate to the open source version, get the latest updates, and contribute to the project all available below.
What happens once the managed version UI Kit is deprecated?
Once the managed version is deprecated, we will transition our support to the open source UI Kit for any bug requests and releases of new features. You will still be able to use the managed UI Kit, however it will no longer be receiving further updates. All documentation relating to the managed UI Kit version will be moved to the deprecation notice section. Any ongoing improvements will be made to the open source version under the Lesser General Public License (GNU).
Amity Social Cloud can now support GDPRdata erasure requests from customers via the Amity Help Center. Once the data is deleted there is no way to retrieve the data as it will be permanently deleted. We will be working to make this available to our customer directly in the near future.
What happens if a User is deleted?
The User cannot be reactivated.
Once a user is deleted from the system the account can not be reactivated in any case. To protect the user account data the permission are not provided to any other user to reactivate the account after its deleted by the user.
The User's System ID is still saved but the username will be deleted and replaced with "Deleted user'.
The user's system ID is still saved in the database but to protect the user identity the username of the account is replaced with the text "Deleted User". All deleted accounts will be marked as "Deleted Account".
All conversation channels that the user created will be deleted.
When the user account is deleted then the all conversation channels created by that user will be deleted immediately and no other user can access to those channels afterwards.
All messages, channel display name, and file attachments that the User created will be deleted.
After the account is deleted the all messages for all channels and all attachments that user has created will be deleted and will not be retrievable.
Channel member count will be updated.
As a user is deleted the members of the channels will be updated in all the channels that user was joined in, so that only active user are counted in the channels.
The profile, photos, videos, images, files, and everything else the user has added will be permanently deleted and can’t be retrieved.
All the data including text, audio, video, attachments, files and anything else the user add to the system as a user will be deleted from the system.
Posts, Comments, and their corresponding IDs as well as child posts, child comments made by the User will be marked as deleted.
All post made/shared by the deleted user will be deleted and also all comments added by the deleted user will be removed from all of the posts. No comment or sub posts will be available anymore after the account is deleted by the user.
Reaction and comment count will be updated.
All reactions given and all comments posted by the deleted user will be detected from the posts and will be updated.
User will be marked as deleted when queried.
The status of the user account will be marked as "deleted" when it is queried and on user will be not able to access it any more.
From 09 Dec 2021 onwards, Amity iOS SDK will no longer maintain versions which were built with Xcode version prior to 13. and SDK v5.8 will be the first version that is built with Xcode 13 and the iOS 15 SDK.
What drove the change?
According to Apple’s announcement here, "Starting April 2022, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 13 and the iOS 15 SDK."
When is the deadline I need to make the change?
From now to April 2022, you will be able to submit an app to App Store with Amity iOS SDK version prior to v5.8. but it’s highly recommended to plan the upgrade.
From April 2022 onwards, you will NOT be able to submit an app to App Store with Amity iOS SDK version prior to v5.8
What’s the impact to my users who are currently using the app with Amity iOS SDK version prior to v5.8?
There is no impact from the functionality wise for the users who are using your App under old Amity iOS SDK. However beginning form April 2022, developers can only submit an app to App Store with the following requirement.
Built with Xcode 13
Built with iOS 15 SDK
Built with Amity iOS SDK v5.8
Maintenance Strategy for Breaking Changes
27 April 2021
​EkoSDK 4.8 and UIKit 1.12 will be the last version to contain the prefix Eko. New features WILL NOT be added to these older versions any longer.
We will only maintain these older versions for critical issues and bug fixes. Whenever a hot-fix is made available, it will be rerouted back to historical ASC SDK & UIKit, respectively, regardless of the current latest versioning.
Amity Social Cloud's SDK 5.0 and UIKit 2.0 will be introduced as a modularized category of changes and advancement. New features will only be added to these versions and those to come, above i.e. v5.1, v5.2 and so on and so forth.
EkoSDK 4.8 and UIKit 1.12 will be supported for critical issues for a period of 6 months. After which the window period will expire and EkoSDK 4.8 and UIKit 1.12 will be officially discontinued and no longer supported moving forward.
You can find more information about these changes in the respective changes for each platform, which you can access using the links below.
After the launch of our Amity Social features that allow customers around the world to build their own social network and grow their own community of users within the safety net of their own brands, our customers and the community they have built has grown much quicker than we originally anticipated - from building a community of travelers to engaging sports-fans around the world.
In order to handle the massive spike in workloads from the growing number of customers while making sure our system always perform at the highest standard from both data latency and scalability aspects, we have decided to revert Follow and Unfollow features into Limited Availability release.
The feature will be temporarily unavailable to all new customers while we work on upgrading our infrastructure and underlying deployment architecture. Starting from 26 April 2021, new SDK downloads will no longer contain follow/unfollow function and newly-generated API key will not be able to use the features. User profile, groups and feed features will remain unaffected. Existing customers who are already using the feature should also remain unaffected.
Our priority is to ensure we scale our system architecture to meet the increasing demand from our existing customers who are using the system to actively grow their community. Our engineering team is working to bring these features back to General Availability release by June 2021. Thank you for your understanding and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our onboarding customers.
iOS SDK Breaking Changes
08 December 2020
From 1st Feb 2021 onwards, Amity iOS SDK will no longer maintain versions which were built with Xcode version prior to 12, and v4.2 will be the first version with Xcode 12 support. Please kindly plan ahead and upgrade your iOS SDK version if you are using the versions prior to v4.2
What drove the change?
According to Apple’s announcement here, "Starting April 2021, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 12 and the iOS 14 SDK."
When is the deadline I need to make the change?
From now to 31st Jan, no impact but it’s highly recommended to plan the upgrade.
From 1st Feb onwards, Amity will no longer provide customer support regarding iOS SDK versions prior to v4.2
From 1st Feb to 31st Mar, you will still be able to submit an updated version to App Store with Amity iOS SDK version prior to v4.2
From April onwards, you will NOT be able to submit an updated version to App Store with Amity iOS SDK version prior to v4.2
What’s the impact to my users who are currently using the app with Amity iOS SDK version prior to v4.2?
There is no impact from the functionality wise for the users who are using your App under old Amity iOS SDK, but they will NOT be able to get any further updated version from App Store unless you submit a new version which is :
Built with Xcode 12
Built with iOS 14 SDK
Built with Amity iOS SDK v4.2
I want to upgrade Amity SDK but how do I know the changes between my current SDK version and the latest version?
Please refer to this announcement section for details.