Today’s Shadow news is brought to you by your dear community managers, Luc the bearded (community lead), Ryan (That Ryan guy, US CM), and Malte the fabulous (German CM).

It will give you the latest updates on COVID-19 impact on Shadow (activations, US and Europe, additional storage, Shadow Ghost) and some US specific items: Shadow makers and the VR exploration program. A Q&A section will then follow.

Luc and the gang

I) COVID-19 and its impact on Shadow

1) Activations

a) Europe

  • Shadow Boost
    Sooner this week, there was a batch of boost that was activated. The main reason is that Shadow, through its thorough monitoring, deemed possible for it to happen without having an impact on current users.

    The overall improvement of the situation made that possible, and Shadow will keep monitoring Shadow’s usage daily to make sure everything keeps getting better. Activations will not continue as per usual but more on a day to day basis. Meaning that they will only activate Shadow Boost bit by bit if the situation allows it.
  • The temporary Shadow Boost:
    Shadow sent a newsletter yesterday to keep in touch with users waiting for their temporary Shadow Boost and to tell them about the updated delivery dates. They will be kept up to date about this as soon as there is more information to deliver. But, remember, they will be activated!
  • Ultra & Infinite
    Everyone that should have been activated in March got their Shadow Ultra & Infinite on time!

b) USA

  • Activations
    The situation is pretty similar to the one in Europe. Activations will be done on a day to day basis, depending on the result of Shadow’s monitoring.

    The last major push should have cleared up most of the people waiting for their Boost (New York, Texas, and California Data centers).

    Chicago data center is the most impacted in terms of activation time: the delivery date is may if you subscribe today ( where it’s April for other data centers)
  • Migrations of the original offer to the Boost offer
    If you originally signed up on the special offers, then your plan has automatically converted to the Boost offer. So if you have the special offer, it has already changed, the difference is that your price will be at 11,99$, taking effect on your next billing cycle starting in April.

    If you were an active user (but not on the special offer) before March 12th, Shadow now has given the functionality in your account page. So all you need to do is go to your account page on shadow.tech and then select whether you want to migrate to the annual boost price or the monthly plan. Please note that it is a new yearly commitment with the boost price point, but you can also access the monthly plan if you’d rather go with that.
  • Issues with the payment processing
    If you were impacted by this issue on March 12th (or around that time), you have to contact the support team. They will provide the account corrections, refunds, etc. requested once they are done working on the fix.

2) Additional storage

a) Europe

Shadow is still on track to deliver the extra storage in mid-April. Users will get what they bought with their preorder. They will also be able to add or remove additional storage on the go (except for Amsterdam data center).

More details about it to come very soon (FAQ on discord, email, etc.)

b) USA

As seen in the latest newsletter, Shadow is still on track for April (most likely mid-April). More information to come very soon.

3) Shadow Ghost

No fresh news compared to last week. Shadow is still waiting for the factories to be up and running at 100%. Until then, the shadow ghosts will remain in China.

II) Shadow maker’s & VR exploration’s program

1) Shadow maker’s program

It’s a program that originally started in France. Shadow’s goal is to first identify content creators on Shadow (musicians, video editors, a streamer, etc. Then, ultimately, to find ways to build them up :

  • See what Shadow can do to help them out
  • Providing a group, within the community, for the creators: allowing better collaboration, sharing tips, networking, etc.
  • Promoting and spotlighting the creators within the community.

All of the applications are currently under review and things are everything is being set up, more news to follow. A new wave of applications will be coming soon!

2) VR exploration program

Shadow did two waves of application review mainly to get an idea of just technical requirements and a little bit of a profile behind the people that are participating in the program.

If you got the email that you’re in the program and you’re a little bit lost and don’t know where the Discord channels are, please DM Ryan ( RyanFromShadow#1234 on discord) with a proof of the email invite. Although, everyone involved is almost done being setup with the program.

Shadow will be sharing your story about everything that relates to the VR exploration program (on the shadow news stream, Reddit, the blog and discord). That way, everyone in the community will be able to follow what’s going on!

This program will help hugely to monitor how VR can work on Shadow (seeing what works and what does not, improving the overall performance, etc.) as it is not currently officially supported. The dedicated devs will be working and monitoring on it very closely.

To get the latest news about COVID-19 and it’s impact on Shadow, plz check their blog article about it : here. It is updated everyday and contains everything there is to know about the subject !

Q & A

Q: Have the subscription numbers been increased due to people being home for COVID-19?
A :

It’s a good question, and they actually have.

However, we’re being very cautious with onboarding new people because we want to ensure a high quality of service for all current users, and we don’t want to overload our system.

It’s been nice to see a beautiful peak in terms of the increase in users. But right now, we’re onboarding people very gradually to ensure you all have a working shadow because that is our priority. It’s not only about getting users, but it’s also about providing excellent service

Q: Any update on the iOS situation?
A: So far, we don’t have any update to give as we still are in talks with Apple about it.

Q: What about second monitor support?
A: So far it is still under development and can only be found in Alpha!

Q: When can non-preorders add extra storage in the Amsterdam data center?
A: So far, only pre-ordered storage will be activated. As of now, no timeline for when users will be able to add or reduce extra storage on the go.