We are releasing the new wallet tomorrow. For exchanges and mining pools technically you would not have to update, but it is advisable.
Wallet 3.0 is a rewrite for stability purposes, nothing is changed in the back ground but will be used going forward as default branch for Flappycoin.
To answer some questions:Will this break compatibility with wallet 2.0.0.1?No, the wallet is mostly cosmetic and stability rewrites. All things considered and tests done show full compatibility between wallet 2.0.0.1 with 3.0. That said 3.0 is advisable to be on for new users and for people to upgrade.
What has been changed?Wallet 3.0 has been rebuilt from litecoin source for stability purposes. Changes include checkpoints for block chain quality and integrity, new unit prefixes such as kFlap and MFlap, and changing of backend from "Satoshi" to "Flaptoshi", and changes to fee's paid out to nodes.
Mandatory TX Fees? Why?With the reduction in miner pay out and to ensure we have a quality network and miners that stay as they are the back bone of the network we have decided the enforce TX Fees within the wallet. The TX Fee's are based upon the size of the transaction you are sending. "Free transactions" roughly cost about 5 flaps within the blocks, and higher transactions may cost as much as 30 to 40 flaps or higher. These fees will be adjusted in the future, as transactions increase and market increases transaction fees will be lowered.
Are the fees truly mandatory?Yes and no. Using any official compiled version of the wallet they are mandatory. We would like to let people know if you truly detest TX Fees you would be able to recompile removing the fees. However it is suggested you don't, we allow this scenario to occur for services that may want to not pay fees but you are going to have to do that yourself and compile the source. As transactions increase however the block chain will always favour a transaction with a fee as opposed to transactions without fees. With the majority of transactions beginning to have fees, you will be put to the back of the line. If you don't mind transactions taking longer to process then you are free to remove the fees from source and recompile. Not very nice to our miners though.
Any other questions let us know, this is more of a soft-launch for the wallet then anything else, and isn't a huge deal. Normally a full launch is only required if a wallet or daemon is going to cause issues or a fork. This won't.