Pistonheads iPhone app?

[Joe911]

RacingPete said:

Joe911 said:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps, plus they work across all platforms, including future ones. This means that we'd prefer to spend our (limited) dev time this way, rather than investing in something specific which may become obsolete.

That simply isn't true - have you done much iPhone app and iPhone web app development?

There are many benefits to having an iPhone app (or Android/Blackberry app): the inbuilt features of the operating system which helps with uploads, web page links etc; common site furniture provided locally; and the biggest advantage - a presence in the app stores of the appropriate phone, thus creating free advertising and the ability to snowball growth of the app.

But as Will says, developing these apps is something that is currently outside the scope of the development budget - and the mobile solution we currently have in place gets nearly 6 million hits a month, so it is not doing too badly.

Though we are not ruling out developing apps for PistonHeads, but I can't see it happening within the next year.

I fully understand and accept the business decisions around choosing not to invest in developing an app. - I can easily see why PH would not do it.

What I was refuting was this:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps

which is not true, for a number of reasons.

[LDN]

Joe911 said:

What I was refuting was this:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps

which is not true, for a number of reasons.

It's true. APPs are generally far superior. Like I said before, use the Rightmove or Autotrader iPhone APP then go back to their mobile sites. The APPs are so good that I never bother with browsing on an actual computer anymore. They harness actual features of the iPhone and controls.

[Engineer1]

An APP will always have the potential of being better than a general site as it can make allowances for any idiosyncrasies of the machine it is running on, rather than requiring a work around.

[ZOLLAR]

Famous Graham said:

ZOLLAR said:

Engineer1 said:

That and replying to a set of nested quotes gets very difficult, unless someone can tell me how to scroll to the bottom of the quotes.

When you quote someone it obviously opens a reply box with the persons
post, if its a long one and the quote goes beyond the box simply put 2 fingers onto the screen but inside the box, this will let you scroll within the box but wont move the whole like it would with 1 finger.
Hope that makes sense .

Edit to add a screen from iphone secrets that may explain better.

Edited by ZOLLAR on Tuesday 31st August 10:53

I love you and I want to have your babies.

why your welcome good sir!, with regards to the fornicating i must decline as bottom babies are quite ugly!.

[Hornybird07]

Hi I've just uploaded an avert through my iPhone but it won't let me upload pics does any one no why?

[Mr Will]

Joe911 said:

What I was refuting was this:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps

which is not true, for a number of reasons.

Out of interest, what would you want a PH app to do which couldn't be done via the mobile site. The obvious one (which has already been mentioned) is a photo uploader, but are there any others?

[ZOLLAR]

Mr Will said:

Joe911 said:

What I was refuting was this:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps

which is not true, for a number of reasons.

Out of interest, what would you want a PH app to do which couldn't be done via the mobile site. The obvious one (which has already been mentioned) is a photo uploader, but are there any others?

I must say the photo uploader was the main reason i wanted a PH app however i was advised to download the photobucket app and its brilliant for posting pics from the iphone.
As far as i can see the mobile ph is fine for now , although i wouldnt mind a search feature the mobile even if it dosnt work also a search feature for members.

[Mr Will]

Hornybird07 said:

Hi I've just uploaded an avert through my iPhone but it won't let me upload pics does any one no why?

The iPhone browser does not support photo uploads, you will need to add them via a computer.

[Engineer1]

Ideally a way to force the cursor to the bottom of a quoted reply, I assume an app would be able to do this in some way.

[Joe911]

Mr Will said:

Joe911 said:

What I was refuting was this:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps

which is not true, for a number of reasons.

Out of interest, what would you want a PH app to do which couldn't be done via the mobile site. The obvious one (which has already been mentioned) is a photo uploader, but are there any others?

There is no one thing - it is a question of an app providing a slicker faster user interface as frankly the current mobile site is (IMHO) more frustrating than it is useful. The mobile site is built to a lowest common denominator mobile - rather than being tuned for specific devices - and because of that offers an unsatisfactory compromise (IMHO). I actually prefer the full site on an iphone to the mobile site - though it's a close call. I accept why it's LCD, but it is annoying when you have a device that has an advanced browser and a decent screen (iphone/ipad).
A well written app could make the experience faster (because only the actual data is downloaded, and not the page structure HTML/JS/etc. bloat as well) and slicker (because it can use the user interface of the device more effectively) - but as has been said, it would be a big investment for PH and because of the nature of the smart-phone market you'd have to implement 2, 3 or 4 different apps to cover the majority of phone types.


Also, BTW, I've had problems on my iphone where the mobile site doesn't remember my login and even when I log back in with the correct details I am left logged out! The full site does remember my login correctly.

[Mr Will]

Joe911 said:

Mr Will said:

Joe911 said:

What I was refuting was this:

Mr Will said:

There is no reason why mobile sites cannot be just as good as apps

which is not true, for a number of reasons.

Out of interest, what would you want a PH app to do which couldn't be done via the mobile site. The obvious one (which has already been mentioned) is a photo uploader, but are there any others?

There is no one thing - it is a question of an app providing a slicker faster user interface as frankly the current mobile site is (IMHO) more frustrating than it is useful. The mobile site is built to a lowest common denominator mobile - rather than being tuned for specific devices - and because of that offers an unsatisfactory compromise (IMHO). I actually prefer the full site on an iphone to the mobile site - though it's a close call. I accept why it's LCD, but it is annoying when you have a device that has an advanced browser and a decent screen (iphone/ipad).
A well written app could make the experience faster (because only the actual data is downloaded, and not the page structure HTML/JS/etc. bloat as well) and slicker (because it can use the user interface of the device more effectively) - but as has been said, it would be a big investment for PH and because of the nature of the smart-phone market you'd have to implement 2, 3 or 4 different apps to cover the majority of phone types.


Also, BTW, I've had problems on my iphone where the mobile site doesn't remember my login and even when I log back in with the correct details I am left logged out! The full site does remember my login correctly.

There are problems with the mobile site, but the majority of them are not insurmountable. There is nothing preventing the mobile site from being customised for different devices (apart from dev time). The speed problems should vanish as we get the full site back up to speed, but I would dearly like to make a more touch friendly version of the mobile site to be served to touchscreen devices, as the current version has too many links in close proximity to each other.

But first I think we need to iron the bugs out, one of the key ones being that logging in via the forums doesn't always work, forcing you to go to the homepage and the click "members" to get back into the site.

[rene7val]

The magic could be building different "themes" / different "outputs" for the mobile page depending on device and browsertype ... "touch web app" is a magic "buzzword" in this context... touch web apps are basically mobile web pages but with these pages adopt / use the "look and feel" of the platforms/devices/browsers the sites are viewed. This could be a nice and quite efficient way to fullfill the whishes of the iphone and android users for bit more of "touch addiction" with an "app" that runs in the browser.

[Aberdeenloon]

Firstly, a big thank you to Zollar for the 2 finger scrolling in the quote box!!!

Secondly, when I surf the mobile site on the iPhone, there is no "quote all" option. Is that common for everybody? Driving me nuts!

[andy_s]

^ Same here. Although it doesn't drive me nuts though

[Aberdeenloon]

andy_s said:

^ Same here. Although it doesn't drive me nuts though

[ZOLLAR]

Aberdeenloon said:

Firstly, a big thank you to Zollar for the 2 finger scrolling in the quote box!!!

Secondly, when I surf the mobile site on the iPhone, there is no "quote all" option. Is that common for everybody? Driving me nuts!

, Same with me on the iphone although IIRC Mr Will did say it may change eventually one there.
There is also no "report" button either!.

[Mr Will]

That's odd, the "Quote" button on the mobile site should function exactly the same as "Quote All" on the main site. I'll add it to the bugs list and try to get it sorted as soon as possible.

[andy_s]

Mr Will said:

That's odd, the "Quote" button on the mobile site should function exactly the same as "Quote All" on the main site. I'll add it to the bugs list and try to get it sorted as soon as possible.

I think it does, but I thought aberdeenloon was talking generally in that there was only one option 'quote' (which 'quotes all' rather than 'quote' and 'quote all' which does as they say); a 'quote' that just quotes the last is handy on the iPhone as then you don't have to resort to the two fingered scroll and finickety editing if you just want to quote the last comment.

I am possibly completely wrong, so don't quote me on that.

[Aberdeenloon]

andy_s said:

Mr Will said:

That's odd, the "Quote" button on the mobile site should function exactly the same as "Quote All" on the main site. I'll add it to the bugs list and try to get it sorted as soon as possible.

I think it does, but I thought aberdeenloon was talking generally in that there was only one option 'quote' (which 'quotes all' rather than 'quote' and 'quote all' which does as they say); a 'quote' that just quotes the last is handy on the iPhone as then you don't have to resort to the two fingered scroll and finickety editing if you just want to quote the last comment.

I am possibly completely wrong, so don't quote me on that.

I'm pretty sure the quote button on the mobile site just quotes the last post - hang on, I'm going to try it now...

[Mr Will]

Aberdeenloon said:

I'm pretty sure the quote button on the mobile site just quotes the last post - hang on, I'm going to try it now...

It is, but it shouldn't. This was pointed out originally when we first changed the quoting mechanism, but we put some code in place which should have fixed it so I need to investigate why that isn't working.