Along with the updated and relaunched web site, today we have also released a new version of our venerable (or just plain old) app Thunder and Lightning.

T&L had been out on the App Store for about eight years, and it has been showing its age for a chunk of that. But it still mostly worked, and it never really did all that much to begin with. But crashes were occurring on some devices in some situations, and it was simply getting too old to run reliably on modern devices. The original plan was to simply pull it from the App Store and let it pass gently into the Great Beyond. That's actually been the plan for a couple of years, but there was never a compelling need to pull it (although it appeared that iOS 10 might finally do it in).

However, when it came time to pull the plug, we had second thoughts. It occurred to us that it was such a simple app to begin with — how hard could it be to update it to current app norms (more or less)? Turns out, not so much. There was still some (rather big) questions as to whether the Powers That Be at Apple would approve it now, since their standards have changed somewhat over the years. But we rolled the dice anyway, and it turned out to be worthwhile. Well, as worthwhile as an app like this can be.

So now we can proudly announce the release of Thunder and Lightning 2.0 out upon the world. Sadly, it is a bit late for the 4th of July, but hopefully this version will hold up well for at least another eight years to come.