Elastos

New Release: Elastos Essentials 2.1 Lands on Android and iOS

The Trinity Tech team has officially released Elastos Essentials Version 2.1 on Android, with an arrival on iOS scheduled for the next few weeks. After completing a new strategic plan in March, the Trinity Tech team has been hard at work building out the flagship application of the Elastos ecosystem, augmenting new features, integrating core technologies in the Elastos tech stack, and enhancing and polishing every nuance of user experience. Here’s what users can get their hands on in Version 2.1:

Wallet

  • Migration to RPC

The wallet has been fully reworked to use RPC APIs instead of SPV, enabling instant balance updates, transaction listings, and transaction publishing, and doing away with time-consuming synchronization requirements that take away from user experience.

  • Basic NFT Support

NFTs stored by users on the Elastos Smart Contract Chain (ESC) are now listed in the wallet with previews. Trinity tech will be releasing features to support NFT transfers in upcoming versions of Elastos Essentials.

  • WalletConnect connection improvement

In order to allow for communication with third party websites and apps, Essentials 2.1 draws on a web socket-based protocol called WalletConnect. The concept is simple: users scan a QR code on websites from Essentials and get linked to them. Following this, websites can get credentials, send ETH transactions, and conduct a number of other operations almost instantly.

DID 2.0

  • DID Plugin Upgrades

The DID Plugin has been upgraded for DID 2.0 on the brand new EID (DID 2.0) Sidechain. In Version 2.1, users benefit from DID 2.0’s accelerated DID publication times. In later versions, Elastos Essentials will begin integrating more advanced DID 2.0 features such as customized DID strings and DID transferability.

  • New DID Onboarding

With DID 2.0 supporting real-time DID publications, the new-user onboarding process was ready to be reworked. Here’s what the new onboarding flow for new users entering Elastos Essentials looks like:

  • Click the “New DID” button
  • Read welcome screen
  • Enter name
  • Then, the following automatic flow activates:
    • User DID is created locally
    • User DID is published on DID 2.0 (20 second wait time)
    • Hive Vault is set up
    • A default wallet is created with the same mnemonic as the user DID
    • Process complete. The user is ready to use his/her Elastos DID in external apps.
  • Users are no longer blocked by mnemonic verification processes. Instead, users are reminded later when viewing the home screen that they need to backup their identity data.

 

User Experience

  • New Home Screen Design & Widgets

The homescreen has been redesigned to epitomize simplicity and optimize user experience – especially for new users. Simple Widgets are already starting to appear for a number of applications, including ELA balance and Hive Storage Usage, and more Widgets will be added in future releases. Stay tuned.

  • Improved DID Operations Screens and UX for External Projects (CreDA)

Identity-related displays for features such as “Import Credentials” have been and are continuing to be tweaked for subtle UX improvements, including automatic DID publication directly following the completion of DID modifications. Trinity Tech will be dialed into every process flow, and adjustments will be ongoing in the months ahead in order to create the best possible experience for users as they navigate between third party applications and Elastos Essentials.

  • Community Voting Features

With the release of Version 2.1, Elastos Essentials is now the official wallet of the Elastos ecosystem, voting applications have been finalized to include all the voting procedures supported by ELA Wallet. On Essentials, users can now register as both a DPoS Supernode and a CR Council Candidate, and participate in CR proposal processes as either a CR Council member or community member.

Elastos Essentials: What’s Ahead

For upcoming releases of Elastos Essentials, the Trinity Tech team already has a list of features and upgrades in the works:

→ Continuous UX improvements for external identity and wallet operations.

→ Improved in-Wallet NFT Support: Assets will be cached for superior performance, users will be able to transfer NFTs to other wallets, and additional support will be provided for several different NFT formats.

→ Hive Vault backup and transfer.

→ In-Wallet Support for Additional EVM Chains (HECO, BSC): Trinity Tech is investing significant resources to conduct a major rework of the wallet source code in order to expand support to a wider range of EVM chains and digital assets. Once support for additional EVM Chains is completed, built-in cross-chain bridges will be developed for seamless asset transfers, so that users can easily send assets from other EVM chains onto Elastos.

→ Performance improvements launch, external operations: Along with new and improved features, the amount of code and boot time required to open Essentials is increasing in lockstep. As user experience is paramount to Trinity Tech’s vision, the team will be taking measures to reduce boot time as well as the “time to readiness” required for various features with Essentials.

→ New Home Screen Widgets: Widgets will provide a more interactive user experience, presenting information regarding voting status, recently received transactions, and more.

→ In-Wallet Improvements for Passphrase Comprehension: Some users have reported experiencing difficulties with the current wallet backup and restore flow due to mnemonic passphrases being confused with wallet passwords. Trinity Tech will be rolling out more intuitive process flows to eliminate potential misunderstandings and enhance user experience.

To keep in touch with the Trinity Tech team as they continue to develop the reimagined Elastos Essentials Super-Wallet application, augment new features, and integrate core ecosystem technologies, stay up to date here on the official Elastos Foundation blog.