With the new update now in full swing, I wanted to go through a few of the ways things have changed, as for some users it could be a change that they werent expecting. There are A LOT of things that have gotten quite a bit better with the new features, and some that are still a bit confusing.

What Works Well

First off, its fast. VERY fast. Everything loads quickly, and this goes doubly so for pulling up trade offers for users that have hundreds of thousands of cards. If you have traded on any of the Topps Digital apps as of late, things were so bogged down that it almost put your phone into a locked up state. I cant even say how difficult that made the app, and this new Bunt build seems to have solved a good portion of that challenge.

Similarly, on the card sheet, the tab based scrolling update is pretty sleek. As you slide your finger up and down the side, it highlights the section you are hovering over. As this update goes platform wide, apps like SWCT will be greatly helped by this type of change.

Another change is the way the contest screen is laid out, focusing more on the drop down menu at the top instead of tabs above the lists. I like this, as it makes for a sleeker look and better navigation.

Aesthetic changes are everywhere with improved animations and more slick graphical interfaces on regularly used parts of the app like trading. Buttons are larger and user information is much more prominent, which means that its a lot easier to participate with all the different parts of the game. Its quite cool to see the transitions between screens and new fun twists as you pull up and dismiss cards.

The addition of a loading bar that appears when the game is cycling is a big help, as there were countless times where I had no clue if the game was running or crashed. With the loading bar, the time spent waiting for the features to work is less of a question.

Lastly, in the app description, the storage footprint is supposed to be much lower with the new build, and that is music to my ears. With the previous setup, card cache storage could be in excess of a gigabyte, and that is just ridiculous. Hopefully the claims are true.

What is Still Missing

I cant even put into words how much I want the showcase in the apps. A place where users can highlight their top cards for the world to see, similar to what we had back in 2013. I have confirmation in a public forum that they are working on it, but that was almost a year ago. Something as simple as moving a person’s locked cards to the top of the sheet – regardless of year filters would be a start. Just to provide a place for people to show off their wares when traders pull up their sheet.

Trade notifications are still not in place (if the user so desires), where the app will alert a person if a trade is received. Obviously, this would need to be optional per the normal notification standards, but it would be so helpful.

In a similar vein, we still dont have a user to user chat system outside of a same card trade, and when those comments come through, a notification that someone has sent a message. Customization around notifications is key to this app, and I feel like it still isnt up to par.

Overall, I definitely like where things are going here, and hopefully we get more of these types of running improvements across all the apps.