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[Merged] Interest in an iPhone or iPad App for MacRumors.com
- Thread starter anti-microsoft
- Start date
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Could you post some screenies? I'm excited for your app, will it be optimized for the iPhone 4 screen when the app finally comes?
Thanks for the post, Dr Q.
1. At the moment, this app just does the news. Give it time, yeah?
2. I haven't looked at the iPhone 4 stuff, but I thought the scaling was automatic. I'll look in to it.
3. I was thinking about ideas for the iPad version, and then I set one of my profiles wrong in XCode, and the app resized to fit my iPad rather than staying iPhone-sized (with pixel doubling). Shots below.
The news list doesn't scale as nicely, and there are a couple of bugs when running it in iPad mode (clearly, since I didn't design it for that yet). Still, it looks alright, which means an iPad version shouldn't take too long.
Also, as something of an added bonus, that big red bar on the iPhone version (that I personally don't like, but lack the skills to design anything better) looks perfect on the iPad.
1. At the moment, this app just does the news. Give it time, yeah?
2. I haven't looked at the iPhone 4 stuff, but I thought the scaling was automatic. I'll look in to it.
3. I was thinking about ideas for the iPad version, and then I set one of my profiles wrong in XCode, and the app resized to fit my iPad rather than staying iPhone-sized (with pixel doubling). Shots below.
The news list doesn't scale as nicely, and there are a couple of bugs when running it in iPad mode (clearly, since I didn't design it for that yet). Still, it looks alright, which means an iPad version shouldn't take too long.
Also, as something of an added bonus, that big red bar on the iPhone version (that I personally don't like, but lack the skills to design anything better) looks perfect on the iPad.
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What's the advantage of using this over mobile.macrumors.com just for news? It formats pretty well on the iPhone I think. Forums - now that would be useful!
eV
I'm getting pretty sick of this: It is in development.
In time, it will improve to include these things. There are additional features to the news reader that make it much better than the mobile site (including offline viewing with images...etc). The rest is coming, but you'll have to be patient.
I'd really appreciate some useful feedback (e.g. "font X would work better"). That's why i keep posting updates to this thread. If all I'm going to get are a million "where's the forums?" posts, I'm just going to end up ignoring all your feedback because I don't want to sift through it all.
EDIT: Sorry to be so rude, but I am doing my best. I've had a postgraduate degree in Nanotechnology to finish, so that's taken up most of my time over the last X months. The app does give a much better experience than the website IMO, and I'm working really hard to get it out ASAP so you guys can try it, too. I know the forums are an important part of the site (hey, I do use this site too, you know), and even though the forums aren't yet implemented native, I'm going to try and be clever and integrate the web version in to the native parts.
The forum tab doesn't have anything yet. For the first release, it's going to have the WAP version in there. However, I'm going to try to integrate it with the native news part of the site (i.e. click on the comment button and it takes you straight to the relevant topic). It's less than ideal, but I think I've made it abundantly clear that the app isn't finished yet. It should give you a better navigation and reading experience on the iDevices, nonetheless.
There's lots of really great features I want to add to the forums on the iPhone (e.g. push notifications for PMs). It's going to be worth the wait, basically.
fine by me! i have been neglecting the front page news and this app would be GREAT for reading/optimising (aka getting rid of the crap) that
it will work but im not entirely sure about the "multitaskability" etc. i believe it requires a recompile though to run correctly.
i really like the design man! you have done a wonderful job.
criticisms:
-i think the red gradient should mirror the MR colour just a TINY bit more - its a little too bright for me atm
- for the news stories, i think the background colour should match what MR normally is (FFFFFF), then the quotes should be the clour #F0EEE8.
- where the buttons are down the bottom, how do they work? if i click "forums" does that load up a safari web page? if so, can i come back to the story i was on previously?
would you mind adding horizontal shots from the iPad? is that working?
it does look very nice yup i concur.
a awsome job man. keep up with the work hey but only when you have time! dont listen to all the haters and whingers!
I'm totally fine with this just doing the news to start with. This app is looking great and I'm just very anxious to see it on the app store so I can start using it. One request I have that would be a must is push notifications, atleast for the news!!! Is push going to be included in the apps first version?
Thank you for the hard work. Look forward to seeing this soon.
Yes, multitasking does require special implementation (it's not automatic). That's going to come.
- The colours don't look that bad on the actual device. The screenshot doesn't reproduce them very well. If enough people feel the same way after they've tried it I'll change it, of course.
- I've found that pure white (FFFFFF) is too bright and uncomfortable for reading. I can make it an option, though. I'm planning on adding lots of stuff to increase the readability (e.g. change font size, font).
- The buttons do everything inside the app, so yes, you can get back to the story at any time.
ahh sweet good to know
oh true good point! didnt think of that. id have to see it on the device in order to actually make a valid opinion then
ok great! i wasnt so sure on the white myself, but thought i would just get your experience with it. what about some sort of light grey?
excellent
just what i wanted to hear! I'd help coding / code an app myself, but not without a proper back end from the MacRumors side. Attempting to code an app without a server-side backend is a lot more work than just creating a good backend in first place and then creating a much simpler app that accesses that backend.
Arn should definitely work on a backend. I volunteer to help if there's anything I can contribute. I'm sure I'm not the only one, after all there are tons of talented programmers on this board!
(Stack Overflow & Co. recently created a rudimentary API for their site. To encourage adoption of the API and feedback about it, they hold a contest with cool prizes. MacRumors probably could do something similar.)
Arn should definitely work on a backend. I volunteer to help if there's anything I can contribute. I'm sure I'm not the only one, after all there are tons of talented programmers on this board!
(Stack Overflow & Co. recently created a rudimentary API for their site. To encourage adoption of the API and feedback about it, they hold a contest with cool prizes. MacRumors probably could do something similar.)
We don't need much from MacRumors. The only challenge is the forums, since vBulletin doesn't have a real client API. There have been efforts made to develop some, though, as plugin. Tapatalk, etc have made such plugins for their own app. Essentially, this provides the backend services in that case.
I/we could either develop one of the open source APIs up to usable quality (they're not right now), or we could just ask Tapatalk for access to their protocol. Indeed, this is what the XDA Developers app on Android does, so such a deal is a possibility, although I haven't discussed it with them yet.
So we don't really need much in terms of backend services.
However, I'm definitely looking to use the community we have here. For example, we need a good icon, and there are loads of amazing designers here. However, I believe arn mentioned that MacRumors is likely to keep development of the app in-house rather than open sourcing it. This may be because of the ads that keep the site going, but obviously only arn can say.
Ahh, great! You mods always stalk us but never post anything so it's hard to know that you have got the message
Keep us informed I'm a dev and I'd like to help create the MacRumors app. Drop me an e-mail (you can send me one over my profile) if you're interested as well.
The mockups look really nice, great job.
There are a few issues, though. For example, is it really appropriate to make downloading of an article such a prominent feature in the interface? MacRumors articles are short news bulletins, and I don't think people want to go through a multiple-step procedure to download those kind of articles. If MacRumors had longer editorial pieces, it would totally make sense.
Also, I tried to incorporate some of the site's "brand" in to the app. I'm not a big fan of UIs that are based around one colour (for example, there's just so much blue!). Some vibrant and contrasting colours can be used to highlight certain articles and, IMO, just look nicer.
This is what the current list looks like (this is a pic I took when testing offline mode - say, if you lose your connection suddenly). The simulator always shows the WiFi icon regardless. In this case, only the most recent article has been download (happens automatically when you launch the app, and you can tell it to automatically download the X most recent articles for offline viewing).
You're a really great designer, though. Do you think you could have a go at an icon? It's really stumped me, and I'd appreciate the help.
There are a few issues, though. For example, is it really appropriate to make downloading of an article such a prominent feature in the interface? MacRumors articles are short news bulletins, and I don't think people want to go through a multiple-step procedure to download those kind of articles. If MacRumors had longer editorial pieces, it would totally make sense.
Also, I tried to incorporate some of the site's "brand" in to the app. I'm not a big fan of UIs that are based around one colour (for example, there's just so much blue!). Some vibrant and contrasting colours can be used to highlight certain articles and, IMO, just look nicer.
This is what the current list looks like (this is a pic I took when testing offline mode - say, if you lose your connection suddenly). The simulator always shows the WiFi icon regardless. In this case, only the most recent article has been download (happens automatically when you launch the app, and you can tell it to automatically download the X most recent articles for offline viewing).
You're a really great designer, though. Do you think you could have a go at an icon? It's really stumped me, and I'd appreciate the help.
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Well, taking a second look at my mockups, there sure is a lot of blue
Maybe I'm gonna go back and try to incorporate some of the site's design into the app like you mentioned - although I believe (assume?) many iDevice users are looking for streamlined, slick apps that don't necessarily have to look like the sites they are based on.I already had a go at an icon today, I'm aiming for a newspaper-kinda look, I didn't like it though, so I'll have another go tomorrow.
But, I'm also very (if not more) interested in the code-side of the app. From the thread I gather that the forums aren't supported at all at this time. You did mention however, Tapatalk and some open-source vBulletin APIs. Could you post any links for the latter(s)?
Anyhow, I'd suggest that you hit me up via PM or mail so we can further discuss this. At a rate of 2 posts a day, we're not getting anywhere soon. I can pretty much help full-time during the next months. As a team, development would probably be much faster.
I'm preparing for a release in the next few weeks. We can discuss collaborating on the code after that. I'd like to get this out as planned before shaking things up too much.
This is the project I was looking at for vBulletin support: http://code.google.com/p/vbulletin-api/
It's not under development any more, but I was thinking of taking it over and fixing it up. Or talking to Tapatalk. That's a discussion for later, though. Right now, I'm still waiting for arn to tell me he's tried the app...
This is the project I was looking at for vBulletin support: http://code.google.com/p/vbulletin-api/
It's not under development any more, but I was thinking of taking it over and fixing it up. Or talking to Tapatalk. That's a discussion for later, though. Right now, I'm still waiting for arn to tell me he's tried the app...
OK, I'm gonna take a look at the vBulletin project.
EDIT: Looks like you need a vBulletin license to test the code. I'm also not sure whether you need to run the code on the server or on the client.
EDIT 2: So much for Tapatalk: snip.
