Xavy Updated to 6.30.011713.1: Mobile Lync VoIP Client for #Lync Becoming Stable? (#Android #iPhone)

Xavy has continued to release new versions of their Android/Ios VoIP Lync in what has become a litany of “upgrade & test if it works yet” for those hoping for a full-featured mobile VoIP client for Lync.

In this last version of Xavy, I went through my quick battery of tests (make a EV call, call a Lync contact, video call) and…surprise…the basic feature test actually succeeded on my low end Android device. This means Damaka is making progress and means we can get on to test real-life scenarios like

• How will Xavy consume power?
• Will Xavy continue to run in the background gracefully?
• How will Xavy handle moving from different data networks? (wifi to 3G/4G for example)
• How will audio devices work with Xavy? (built in phone mic/speaker, blue tooth devices, etc)

Some might ask: Why does Xavy even matter if Lync 2013 Mobile client with VoIP support will soon be out? Below are some reason Xavy is still relevant:

• Lync 2010 and OCS are still without a VoIP client, since Lync 2013 depends on Lync Server 2013 components.
• The nearest thing to having a full Lync client on a mobile device at this point

Now that basic functions work we can start looking at usability, what did we notice in this last version of Xavy (for Android in my tests) 

Issues That I still See:

• I believe I’m seeing some work on UI: transitions
• Contact Photos sometimes wrong in contact list but correct in contact card
• contact list seems very slow on updating presence at times
• Doesn’t seem to be a way to setup to use phone ear piece so you will need a bluetooth headset to use this client
• Listening to Voicemail gets stuck on “Fetching…”
• If you change from WIFI to Mobile Data Xavy goes (sometime goes into a hung state with UI garbled. (a restart of Xavy will fix it) and sometimes just logs out. Not graceful.

Below is a quick video of this latest version:

In summary: Not quite a rock solid client yet, but….It’s getting there.