[Merged] Interest in an iPhone or iPad App for MacRumors.com

[RobertD63]

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?

[Beaverfish]

This is a fantastic idea, I wish everyone involved the best of luck !

[Saladinos]

Looks quite good. News will be easy to implement. Buyers Guide shouldn't be that hard. Forums will be a pain.

[anti-microsoft]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

Looks quite good. News will be easy to implement. Buyers Guide shouldn't be that hard. Forums will be a pain.

Is that the actual app running on the simulator??? or is it just a mock-up...?

Ams.

[ziggyonice]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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]

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)





2. Without, blue version.




Ams.

[Saladinos]

Originally Posted by anti-microsoft

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]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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.

[dmmcintyre3]

Could the app just query the database instead of the server?

[Saladinos]

Originally Posted by dmmcintyre3

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.

[Peer.P]

hey guys, I see there is something going on on behalf of the Macrumors-App. That is great news!!! I wish everyone participating good luck.

Thank you so much for your efforts!!!

[twoodcc]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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]

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]

Originally Posted by twoodcc

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.

Originally Posted by RedTomato

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.

[kymac]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

This is the icon I made, it's the best I could do with 30 minutes and a copy of Photoshop.

atleast use their logo! i made this up real quick if you would like to use it..

[macbookairman]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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?

Originally Posted by arn

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]

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

[RobertD63]

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]

Originally Posted by RedTomato

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

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

Originally Posted by RobertD63

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.

[macbookairman]

I just googled "iPhone optimized vBulletin" and this skin came up: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=171947

If this skin was modified to have the look of MacRumors, could the MacRumors app then have a browser that accesses the iPhone skin version of the forums?

EDIT: i guess what you said above kinda throws out my idea.

[gillboyswims96]

^^^^^^^^^^

thats what i was thinking...

[themoonisdown09]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

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

I'm sure that if Arn lets you do this, you will have to use the Mac Rumors icon. I don't know why you would use something different anyways, it would be confusing.

[Saladinos]

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]

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)