Safaricom’s My OneApp rollout has been rough from the start, and that is putting it politely. What was supposed to simplify life by merging M-PESA and MySafaricom apps into one platform instead launched into a storm of login failures, lag, broken mini apps, and user frustration so loud that Safaricom had to publicly admit the app was having problems. A few days later, the company followed that up with an apology that seemed too late, promising fixes through future updates.
Now, those updates are coming in faster, and for the first time, there is a clearer sign that Safaricom is finally tackling one of My OneApp’s worst problems. On iPhone, the app launched as version 5.1.0, then moved to v5.1.1, and is now on v5.1.3.
According to the official changelog, the latest release improves the login experience and “reduces instances where you are signed out and have to sign back in,” alongside other bug fixes and performance improvements.
Soon after launch, random sign-outs quickly became one of the most annoying parts of using My OneApp. In my own testing, I only ran into it once, but it was enough to understand why people were angry. The app would kick users out and force them to log in again. Worse off is that it pushes users toward using Safaricom data with the Safaricom line in SIM slot 1. This has been a nightmare for people in the diaspora, but that’s now been fixed in the latest versions.
Android, meanwhile, has been updated more aggressively, but with far less transparency. After launching as v5.1.0, My OneApp on Android picked up v5.1.1, v5.1.2, v5.1.4, and now v5.1.5. The problem is that Safaricom has not published meaningful changelogs for those Android releases, which means most of us have had to guess what changed from one update to the next. But since Android users have newer versions of the app, these fixes are likely live in the latest v5.1.5.
And then there’s this:
Still, from what I am seeing, the complaints about random logouts are no longer showing up as heavily on my timelines as they were during the first week of this rollout. That does not mean My OneApp is suddenly problem-free, because it clearly is not. But if the latest builds are indeed reducing forced sign-outs and improving login stability, then Safaricom may finally be fixing the bug that made the whole experience feel broken for so many of us, including those on Android.
