Android App (TORN Feed)

Hi, everybody!

Allow me to introduce a simple Android app to monitor the stats of your TORN game and receive notifications for things like new messages, events, or bars being full. The app is can be found on Google's Play Store and its called "TORN Feed", alternatively you could just click on the link bellow:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aidanas.torn_feed

As this is the very first version of the app user's feedback would be highly appreciated. As I am quite new to the game there is bound to be something important not yet included in the app. Therefore feel free to provide your suggestions and, if possible, the features might be included in following releases.

The app is provided absolutely free with no strings attached. No Adds. No In-app purchases. No subscription. No charge. It was developed as a spare-time summer project by a small team of independent developers.

Please note: the app IS NOT an official TORN app but rather a third party helper tool for the convenience of players. It does, however use the official TORN API!

To login you need to provide your API key (found under "Preferences->API Key") and your player ID. The app never asks you any personal details such as passwords or emails.

Any questions, please feel free to PM me in the game or email to [email removed].

Enjoy.

"never asks you any personal details such as passwords or emails."

and suddenly my tiny rant has been turned off

Good luck on the app mate I'll wait till people pick it apart to see what it does

Very cool, nice job. I could see many people using this for the mobile notifications. Security is always a concern, and someone with more app development background would be able to provide more detail than me, but this should be no less "safe" than anything else you give your API key to.

R+ I'll check it out.

"No permissions required", even with Notifications on. Also being able to tap the event or message top open up torn.com in default browser would be nice, but switching to Chrome is easy enough.

Has anyone used this yet?

Edit: I'd like to hear peoples opinions after using this app.. I'm slightly hesitant to use a 3rd party app. Not questioning the integrity of the OP I'm just slightly cynical.

hahah I wanted to have a rant too :P

only android :( im iphone for life

"...being able to tap the event or message top open up torn.com in default browser would be nice". Done. :)
It will take tame for the update to propagate through the PlayStore but once it does the v1.1 of the app opens the default web browser to view the message when you click on a message in the app. This however requires you to be logged in with your browser at that time. The official API does not provide means to read the content of the messages for data privacy reasons so app simply asks your browser to open a URL with the link to your message.

Thank you for your input. Much appreciated.

Oh yeah that's great, I appreciate the simplicity ;)
As long as people don't expect "immediate" events like from CityWatch, this is a great addition for any Android user.

installed, open, fill data on login screen and I press on login button and nothing happens

If login is unsuccessful there should be a toast notification with a message such as "Could not login" or "Connection error". Also please make sure you type in correct API key and your player ID. With API keys, some "O" look as "0".
If absolutely nothing happens, this means input field validation is preventing from connecting. Validation simply checks that API key is 8 characters long and the player ID is 7 digits long.

Do note that older players have player IDs that can be shorter than 7 digits. (6 or sometimes even 5, if ancient)

my API key was 5 characters long now after I reset API key its 8 characters long and now I get the message "Could not login"

I was not aware that API keys can be of variable length thanks for pointing that out. We will modify the validation process for the entry box.

As for the "Could not login" message. As far as I know the only way to get that message is when your API key and your player ID do not belong to the same player. E.g. if I enter my API key and someone's else player ID, or if i simply make a mistake in the player ID number.

I woke up to 10 separate notifications I had to dismiss ... any way to make it one notification that says combines them? Like "You have 10 new events" or "You have 5 new events and 2 new Messages and Your energy is Full" ... etc?

Again, thanks for pointing this out. The app was now modified (v1.2) to accept API key lengths of sizes 5 to 8 characters long. As always it will take a few hours for the PlayStore updates to propagate but it should be there eventually. Thanks.

Another drop in the ocean of (questionably safe) apps which just die when developer eventually walks away.

Besides, I simply cannot see a point of this given the fact mobile version of Torn is nice, shiny and fast. So why to install 3rd party apps when everything is already there when I tap my browser? And setting an alarm (when the travel is over, bars are full etc.) works superb.

For notification of Events & Messages. Can't get that in your browser. Perhaps your Torn life is too boring and you don't get many of either?

Ched has said that an official mobile app is eventually coming, so this one will probably have a limited lifetime, yes. But for a spare-time summer project it fills a niche quite nicely, and is exactly what Torn had in mind when they released the API.

That is a valid point you're making. However this may also be a personal preference case where some would prefer more detailed approach of receiving one notification per event while others would prefer a single notification with just a count of new events. The only way to satisfy both sides is to implement this feature as a settings option where users could opt in or out of compound notifications. I think it would be a nice to have feature so I'll look into the possibility to implement it in terms of complexity and involvement so we could include it in our next minor or major release.
Great idea, thanks.