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Would you like a MacRumors iPhone App?

  • Yes, that would be great!

    Votes: 130 82.8%
  • No, what's the point/I like mobile Safari better

    Votes: 27 17.2%

  • Total voters
    157

RobertD63

macrumors 6502
Feb 17, 2008
403
42
A place
It might not seem like it at all but you guys are requesting so much work. Like someone said earlier thats a lot of back end coding you have to do for the fourms. Plus you have to make your own API's etc. It would be nice to have a app for all these sites but it will take loads of work and a team. How about we start a open source project now? Anyone?
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
Looks quite good. News will be easy to implement. Buyers Guide shouldn't be that hard. Forums will be a pain.
 

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ziggyonice

macrumors 68020
Mar 12, 2006
2,385
1
Rural America
Looks quite good. News will be easy to implement. Buyers Guide shouldn't be that hard. Forums will be a pain.

What if, for simplicity's sake, the forums section was simply a browser? As nice as it'd be to have a very good looking and sleek -- I think having it set to the iPhone formatted forums would be good enough in the interim.
 

jbernie

macrumors 6502a
Nov 25, 2005
927
12
Denver, CO
Looks quite good. News will be easy to implement. Buyers Guide shouldn't be that hard. Forums will be a pain.

not a bad layout... maybe make more use of it if possible, have the buttons across the button more customizable, at least the option get to Subscribed Threads.
 

anti-microsoft

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 15, 2006
1,665
6
Edinburgh, Scotland
Ok, so I made this icon... I was thinking of doing it in MR's colors but as the app looks better in Apple's standard UI then I made it like this:

1. With depth, blue & red versions (like the google app icon)

MR app icon 2.jpg

MR app icon 2RED.jpg

2. Without, blue version.

MR app icon.jpg


Ams.
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
Is that the actual app running on the simulator??? or is it just a mock-up...?

Ams.

That's the actual app. I've also made it get real data rather than placeholder garbage.

Somebody was making a vbulletin API on Google Code. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have done much since January. PHP isn't my thing, so I can't fix it up. If it ever does get to a usable state, I'll definitely add the feature to the App.
 

anti-microsoft

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 15, 2006
1,665
6
Edinburgh, Scotland
That's the actual app. I've also made it get real data rather than placeholder garbage.

Somebody was making a vbulletin API on Google Code. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have done much since January. PHP isn't my thing, so I can't fix it up. If it ever does get to a usable state, I'll definitely add the feature to the App.

Great stuff!! Since Arn said that if made, the app would be official, will it be paid or ad supported like the site?

Ams.
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
Could the app just query the database instead of the server?

What exactly do you mean by this?

For the first release, I'm thinking of having:
- News (Page One, Page Two)
- iPhone News
- Share articles, offline reading
- Guides/Buyer's Guide if Possible

Forums will maybe be added for a later release.

Here's a picture of it working with actual news.
 

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twoodcc

macrumors P6
Feb 3, 2005
15,307
26
Right side of wrong
What exactly do you mean by this?

For the first release, I'm thinking of having:
- News (Page One, Page Two)
- iPhone News
- Share articles, offline reading
- Guides/Buyer's Guide if Possible

Forums will maybe be added for a later release.

Here's a picture of it working with actual news.

great work so far! are you the only one working on this?
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,155
442
.. London ..
Great stuff!

Always nice to see people stepping up and doing it themselves, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for them.

You have my full support for what I've seen so far.

A couple of nice iPhone news apps that I use (if you want ideas). Both free.

NYTimes (New York Times. Can save articles for reading in the subway. Please can the MR app have this? )
Sky News (Very simple interface, fast download)

Oddly, BBC news doesn't have an iPhone app. I have a link to their text-only mobile edition on my home page, but it has the same problems as the MR mobile page i.e. not really iPhone style.
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
great work so far! are you the only one working on this?

Yes, I am the only one working on this. I even made my own icons.

Great stuff!

Always nice to see people stepping up and doing it themselves, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for them.

You have my full support for what I've seen so far.

A couple of nice iPhone news apps that I use (if you want ideas). Both free.

NYTimes (New York Times. Can save articles for reading in the subway. Please can the MR app have this? )
Sky News (Very simple interface, fast download)

Thanks for the support. I am planning to let people add articles to their 'favourites' tab, which will save the article and all images inside it to the device. Downloading is fast, and stuff is cached and updated in the background to make it even faster.

I am planning on having it a paid app (cheap - tier 1 or tier 2), because I can't afford to have it free. I may introduce an ad-supported free version that only reads news when connected to the network (i.e. no caching, no offline articles, no buyer's guide..etc). Still, because it's paid, I'm making sure its absolutely the best way to read MacRumors on your iPhone - adding real quality.

This is the icon I made, it's the best I could do with 30 minutes and a copy of Photoshop. EDIT: And a pic of the app now. I'm using some CC tab icons as placeholders (CC does not allow commercial apps). Note the airplane mode icon indicating that this is all running offline.
 

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macbookairman

macrumors 6502a
Jan 15, 2008
900
9
Nebraska
Yes, I am the only one working on this. I even made my own icons.



Thanks for the support. I am planning to let people add articles to their 'favourites' tab, which will save the article and all images inside it to the device. Downloading is fast, and stuff is cached and updated in the background to make it even faster.

I am planning on having it a paid app (cheap - tier 1 or tier 2), because I can't afford to have it free. I may introduce an ad-supported free version that only reads news when connected to the network (i.e. no caching, no offline articles, no buyer's guide..etc). Still, because it's paid, I'm making sure its absolutely the best way to read MacRumors on your iPhone - adding real quality.

This is the icon I made, it's the best I could do with 30 minutes and a copy of Photoshop. EDIT: And a pic of the app now. I'm using some CC tab icons as placeholders (CC does not allow commercial apps). Note the airplane mode icon indicating that this is all running offline.

Don't forget arn's post earlier in this thread. Have you contacted him?

hey guys.

If we did this, I'd want MacRumors to control the app as an "official" version -- to avoid conflicts down the line. If there are any developers who thinks they could do this sort of app for hire, contact me.

arn@normalkid.com

Thanks
arn
 

RedTomato

macrumors 601
Mar 4, 2005
4,155
442
.. London ..
That was nearly a year ago, but I agree, it's polite to contact Arn. Looks like you might possibly find yourself with a paying job :cool:
 

RobertD63

macrumors 6502
Feb 17, 2008
403
42
A place
Hey guys I'm not a good devleoper but I do know a work around for the forums. Simple all you need is to add an webview and add a mobile skin to the forums. That is, unless you wanna write backend code ;)
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
That was nearly a year ago, but I agree, it's polite to contact Arn. Looks like you might possibly find yourself with a paying job :cool:

I have contacted arn. We'll see what happens.

Hey guys I'm not a good devleoper but I do know a work around for the forums. Simple all you need is to add an webview and add a mobile skin to the forums. That is, unless you wanna write backend code ;)

I could do that, but I really want it to be a great app, so I'm using WebViews at little as possible. For example, rather than sticking articles in a WebView, I'm parsing out the text, images, embedded videos...etc to categorise them. My plan is to have images and videos in a separate section like the AppStore does. I'd really rather it be native - there are a couple of projects creating vBulletin APIs for external applications, and when any of them are in a usable state, I'll update the app to support it.

And I kind of like my icon better than the MacRumors icon.
 

Saladinos

macrumors 68000
Feb 26, 2008
1,845
4
That looks great!

If arn wants to add that to the board (it'll be useful anyway - app or no app), I'll certainly include it. It's better than no forums I suppose.

I'm not really a fan of the MR logo, and I hate apps that have icons consisting of logos slapped on to a background. Looks like no effort was made, like it doesn't fit in with the system, and doesn't stand out.
 

iOrlando

macrumors 68000
Jul 20, 2008
1,811
1
not a lawyer and i dont know arn personally...but if you make money off of an macrumors app not officially part of macrumors....a lawsuit is very possible -- so be careful. Definitely get in touch with arn before publishing or submitting anything.

1) it has to be free. (best approach is to talk to arn and maybe they can pay you for whatever cost it is...but knowing macrumors...this app wont be used to make money....just to reinforce the macrumors brand)
 
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