Mar 28 2026 APP 2.0.0-beta40 will be released in 7 days.
It did take a long time to have the work finished on this and it will have a major performance boost of 30-50% over 2.0.0-beta39 from calibration to integration. We extensively optimized many critical parts of APP. All has been tested to guarantee correct optimizations. Drizzle and image resampling is much faster for instance, those modules have been completely rewritten. Much less memory usage. LNC 2.0 will be released which works much better and faster than LNC in it's current state. And more, all will be added to the release notes in the coming weeks...
Update on the 2.0.0 release & the full manual
We are getting close to the 2.0.0 stable release and the full manual. The manual will soon become available on the website and also in PDF format. Both versions will be identical and once released, will start to follow the APP release cycle and thus will stay up-to-date to the latest APP version.
Once 2.0.0 is released, the price for APP will increase. Owner's license holders will not need to pay an upgrade fee to use 2.0.0, neither do Renter's license holders.
I'd like to use APP without connecting to my wireless Internet router due to processes that have interrupted stacks and data limitations in my rural area. I know I must be connected initially to verify my account, but can I disconnect after being verified?
Yes APP needs to be activated, but can start offline.
@vincent-mod Thank you, Vincent. I'm glad for that at least, but requiring Internet connectivity at all is very unfortunate from my perspective. I have to manage data usage closely because of my Internet data constraints. I won't be able to use APP for 1/2 month because I'm out of data. I'll have to use PixInsight to stack instead since it doesn't require a verification via Internet connectivity in order to stack.
It would be very nice if this validation requirement would be changed so we no longer require Internet connectivity to begin using APP.
At the start this is required, because of the unfortunate risk (we've seen this a lot) of illegal activity if we wouldn't do this. However, to be clear, this is required once. You can use APP offline and it uses very little data to do this.
Susan
I suspect there is some miscommunication here. Vincent has said "Yes APP needs to be activated, but can start offline." When Vincent says "activated" I believe he is referring to the one off process that is needed when APP is installed. It is not needed when starting or using APP. APP will start without an internet connection. I have verified this about 5 mins ago (version 1083.4).
However, if internet access is available at startup then APP will verify the licence each time, which I imagine would use very little data.
JC
