This fall has been a bit crazy for us as we’ve implemented new activation methods for SAM Animation, in addition to backend re-scaffolding to accomodate new operating systems and hardware that seem to keep popping up! As many of our longtime customers know, SAM grew out of a research project at a university level over 5-years ago. Since the commercialization and transfer of IP to iCreate, we’ve been trying to build a business while simultaneously making improvements to a product — oh, and did I mention bootstrapping all the while? Well, we appreciate your patience through this process, and are looking forward to growing the company (and software) to the next level in 2013.

The first small step to our “big moves” is SAM Animation version 1.5, released just today! For those of us who aren’t developers, many of the improvements are quite uninteresting and deal only with infrastructure that improve SAM’s potential in the future, but don’t really change operation now. However, you will notice a cleaner and sharper UI.

What else is new and fixed? We have fixed the activation issues that many were experiencing this fall that much to the fault of our oversight required one to be connected to the internet at all times (yikes!) — so thankfully that has been fixed, along with the audio tab on the Mac side intermittently not working. I would say these are the two major bug fixes now, in addition to smaller ones that just make for a smoother operation on both the PC and Mac.

Thanks for bearing with us as we continue to make improvements and we’re looking forward to even newer looks, features, and integration with our apps in the new year.