What's New?
Although the app looks the same, Breth v0.0.5 is a major update to the code that makes Breth function. From Breth 0.0.5 on, you'll be able to send Ether without having to be synced to the Ethereum Network. This means that, as soon as you open the app, you'll be ready to send money to a friend, with zero waiting! You'll also be able to use all of the app's functionality with the local client turned off (the 'Stop Client' button in the settings menu). Although the client is 'On' by default (and it's important to keep it on), sometimes you're low on battery (or data for the month) and you'd really appreciate it, if Breth didn't drain the remaining battery you have, stopping the client can help reduce the load on your phone and extend your battery life.
How?
New Framework Brethereum
We separated out all of the code that deals with interacting with the Ethereum Network and placed it into it's own framework, Brethereum. This separation lets us focus on either the User Interface (UI) or the core functionality without having to worry about the other. It'll hopefully make for quicker, and safer, updates in the future.
In short, Brethereum gives us multiple ways to communicate with the Ethereum Network. While our preferred method (the GETH light client) is getting ready, we can ask a 3rd party (Infura) for help with our task. This gives us instant availability and the eventual decentralization of our Geth Light Client.
Check out this post on Brethereum for a detailed overview of the new framework.
What's Next?
The Alpha version of Breth is reaching it's end. We're continuing testing until the end of the year while we work on a completely new (and hopefully more intuitive) User Interface. At which point we'll open-source the Brethereum Framework, graduate the app to Beta and open up testing to a few hundred anonymous public testers on Apple's TestFlight.
