Originally Posted by
baliktad
Bizarrely, this app seems to be written with a "put the desktop version on a smaller screen" approach. This is sort of an inexcusable failure when considering modern mobile development. Here's my experience:
- First thread I tried to read crashed the app. Twice. Evidently this particular thread is damaging to iPhone apps.
- Second thread I tried to read did actually load, but on post 1. FT knows what the last post in a thread I've read is. Please just take me to the new content.
- Two ads on the screen at a time is overkill. Especially for paying users. It's amazing how those ads always show up, even when the content has difficulty loading.
- No horizontal orientation mode for when I would prefer to read content without it wrapping every 4 words. No excuse for leaving this out.
- Space, space space. Look at the sheer percentage of space that is devoted to "chrome" - ie, controls and information that are NOT content. The title bar with Back/Home/+. The page numbers "bar" could be eliminated entirely. The title of the thread bar. The TWO ads. The subscribe/search bar at the bottom. In the midst of all this, there is the actual content. You know, the stuff the users type that actually makes IB money when other users read it. The actual valuable content is only allotted 50% of the horizontal space on-screen(!). To add further insult to injury, 15-20% of this space is then dedicated to a left-hand margin that only contains a mostly-useless user tile. The phone is not a desktop; those wasted bars and margins are sacrificing extremely valuable real estate for almost zero value.
After my quick perusal, it seems that this app is a slick way to deliver ads, but about 3 steps backward in functionality from the mobile website. I'll stick to the website for now.
I'm sorry that you're not happy with the application. Let me address a couple of your points.
Originally Posted by
baliktad
Bizarrely, this app seems to be written with a "put the desktop version on a smaller screen" approach.
Not at all. The design team tried to make a delicate balance between features and real estate. While some may think that they are trying to do too much with the interface, the majority of feedback has been "more features". Given how powerful the forum is, I think they did a pretty good job. Still, improvements will be made.
Originally Posted by
baliktad
FT knows what the last post in a thread I've read is.
That's correct, however this app is being built with all vBulletin forums in mind. While FT uses the most accurate method of keeping track of which posts a user has read and which it hasn't, not all forums do, as it's quite resource intensive. As I've stated in a different post, a more elegant solution is being worked on.
Originally Posted by
baliktad
Two ads on the screen at a time is overkill. Especially for paying users.
The functionallity to only display ads to specific users isn't built yet, so we discussed not putting ads in the app. We added the ads because we knew that if we added them later we'd get complaints.
Originally Posted by
baliktad
No horizontal orientation mode for when I would prefer to read content without it wrapping every 4 words. No excuse for leaving this out.
Very good excuse for leaving it out: Screen real estate problems are significantly exacerbated when using landscape mode without drastic UI changes. It was decided to not roll it into the product until it was more polished. I'm sure that if we had added it it would have been on this list.