Preaching to the choir.

^^^^^

If IB doesn't want to enable Tapatalk due to lost ad revenue, couldn't it be made available to paying members only?

Indeed. IB has been a real disappointment to the mobile FlyerTalker. Which would describe most of us.

Looking a tad further down the road (but probably this year), we plan to upgrade to a version of VB that allows us a much nicer mobile skin for the forums.

For now, we have the app (which is being updated more frequently than in the past), and of course the ability to browse the full site from your mobile browser.

We're taking mobile initiatives very seriously, and welcome all your feedback. While we can't implement any form of Tapatalk, we are looking forward to implementing even better functionality than a simple forum reader.

Thank you,

Paul

I think the word you mean here is "won't."

Eh, as a forum owner/admin (unrelated to travel), I don't blame them for not getting on board with Tapatalk. Aside from the ad insertions (by Tapatalk), there *are* security issues... and mobiquo isn't exactly helpful to admins. On top of that, there is still zero Tapatalk support for vB Social Groups -- Tapatalk users can't see/use these at all.

Still... there should be a better mobile skin/theme or app... especially since it's readily available (with vB 5 Connect + Mobile)

Given the size of this forum, and the current version (vB 3.7.6), any change is probably no small undertaking... not only are you talking about migrating the databases, but probably updating apache, mysql, and php versions.

I don't doubt it's a major undertaking. But IB isn't some fly-by-night operation run by an admin in his spare time off of a server in his basement. Clearly IB has the resources to do the upgrade, and if the techs in the Travel & Leisure Brands department are nervous about the newer versions of vB, then IB also clearly has the resources to throw at the vB development team to get the product up to snuff!

And the longer they leave it, the harder its going to get.

Seriously, for a travel related forum, I am surprised by the real lack of a "mobile friendly" format esp considering the ownership of vbulletin and Internet Brands.

I'd honestly be surprised if the site admin(s) do this as a full time job. I'd imagine they probably admin multiple IB sites.

As far as resources to do an upgrade... it's a lot of work. Creating a test environment (server hardware), migrating a backup, then testing the environment. When all that's said and done, then doing the production site.

As I originally said -- I think it *should* be done, but it's not as easy as I think you think it is

Sure. But the company has 649 employees (give or take a few) for their 95 websites. Most of the sites are small and easily maintained with relatively little management. FlyerTalk is one of their flagship brands.

I didn't say it was easy. And I understand caution, especially when dealing with a site our size (one of the largest and most-trafficked forums on the Internet--#39, last I checked). But as a tenth-of-a-billion-dollar company whose sole aim is to operate websites and develop forum software, I'm saying it is absolutely not beyond their abilities to make something happen--if they're willing to put the resources into it.

And it strikes me as odd that they're not pressing harder to showcase the latest and greatest about their core product (vB) on their own sites.

I was trying, really trying not to respond to this, but I can't help it. Seriously man, igrating Apache, MySQL, and PHP? I did do that on servers I ran in my basement. It did take me two or three days worth of free time because I rarely did it and had to do a bunch of reading up before I did it the few times I did...

So it's next year now. Are these skins available? I'm searching around trying to find this app... But just started looking...

Sorry to bump an old thread, thought I'd ask here instead of creating a new one.......but will FT ever be supported through TapaTalk?

Yes, I would love to use Flyertalk on Tapatalk as well.
In fact, these days it's much nicer to use forums on phones and tablets because of thread tracking and notifications.