A little history
It comes as no surprise to anyone who’s followed the blog and forum that Smartlaunch 5.0 has been in development for a couple of years now. And while we haven’t officially announced a release date, we have speculated and mentioned possible release dates here and there that unfortunately have been exceeded every time. This is obviously a fault of ours and in hindsight we shouldn’t have mentioned any release date before it was final.
So where are we now?
We’ve put Smartlaunch 5.0 on hold.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s been in development for a couple of years and now you’re scrapping it!? No, we’re not scrapping SL5, but we have to be honest – it’s not coming along like we wanted. We wanted to release version 5 as a successor to version 4.1. More stable, more features and just generally better all-round.
However, we’ve taken a long hard look at the project and have come to the conclusion that this would not be the case. At least not if we release any time soon. There’s a lot of the 4.1 features in SL5 now, but there’s still a lot missing, and let’s be honest – with a new codebase built from the ground up, there’s bound to be a lot of bugs in the beginning. And probably a lot of bugs that are not in version 4.1 right now. And we don’t want to release a new version that’s inferior to the current version – even if it’s free for existing customers. That would just be wrong.
The future
So we’ve put the current version 5.0 on hold, but like I said, we’re not scrapping it. Instead, we’re re-thinking our strategy and will be focusing on other aspects of Smartlaunch that have been lacking for a while.
And as for the new SL5 skin from the design contest – well that may have a role to play yet. Stay tuned 
March 16, 2010 at 4:24 am
Why dont you just make SL4 able to do WiFi billing first coz come on WiFi for icafe is compulsory nowdays…..
February 9, 2010 at 8:38 am
I appreciate the candid feedback and update. It is nice seeing this basic change in philosophy. We operate SL4.1 not because it is good, but because it is the best of the junk. I do not mean that in a bad fashion, but in the simple matter that the program is built badly (reminds me of college student project) and lacks some very core functionality, basic business considerations and stability that is required for operating a business of this calibur.
The LAN center business has evolved considerably since SL conception and it needs to to be built to allow this industry to succeed. It is my hope that the new SL, whenever it comes to fruition, will be stable and allow the core functionality and extensability (I cannot overemphasis this enough) that allows all of the unique approaches to this industry to be explored. This is truely the best way to make SL and our GCs more profitable and a true center of entertainment. We need a good application that allows us to break ‘out of the box’ and provide success for both SL and our centers.
December 13, 2009 at 11:52 pm
OK. You told me in mail, when i was asking about fixing bugs and not working features, that all this will be solved in new version of SL. In past you told me, that new version will be available 1.1.2008. Now it’s end of 2009 and you just told us, that development of new version is frozen.
Now i have only question, are you now planing at least fix bugs in SL 4.1?
December 14, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I’m not aware of which bugs you’re referring to, but yes, we are planning of spending the extra time on SL4 development. That includes bugs and new features. We will however still prioritize features based on need so the SL4 and SL5 feature request sites are still very much used for this.
December 10, 2009 at 1:53 pm
It isn’t fair, you promised for free and now this? I hope that this is just a joke.
December 10, 2009 at 3:22 pm
We’re not scrapping version 5.0 as such, we’ve just put it on hold to focus our development on other things that we feel will benefit you as a customer much more than an endless wait for a perfect version 5.0. More will be released on the matter as soon as we have something to share
December 6, 2009 at 11:41 pm
So whats happening right now?
November 30, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Thanks for the update. I was getting a little worried that you guys had just dropped out… Smartlaunch is very important to our independently owned cafe computers.
November 24, 2009 at 12:05 am
Didn’t you guys think about all of this before you started developing? Software Development Life Cycle is all I am going to say, /uninstall SL
November 23, 2009 at 5:15 am
So….. your going to try and fix v4.1 up more till you guys can come up with a better plan? O_o
Good luck, I’m always here to help if I can.
November 23, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Something like that, yes