Flyertalk iPhone App Feedback (all versions)
 

Please post feedback in here so we can more easily monitor it. :)

Plus1 for the Droid App. ^^

WithOUT half the screen being taken up by advertising, as I've already seen posts in other forums reporting on the iphone app. :td::td:

iPhone App
 

First of all, let me say thanks for the effort in getting this done!!! :)

My first impression, made on me IMMEDIATELY, is that you didn't include (or I couldn't FIND) the "MyFT" button.
If I missed it, please advise. If it's not there, then it is a critical mistake.

I know plenty of FTers. I know that they use "My FT" as the home page from which they navigate the site.

Dave

Clean app or privacy abuse?
 

Hi. Love the forum. Is this application clean, or does it send information to third parties?

There are too many ads - I don't think I've ever seen another iPhone app with 2 ads on every screen. :( :td:

If you were to come out with a Blackberry app, around when do you think it would be available?

Thanks for creating this app! I installed it earlier today. So far, I like it - it is much easier to read and post.

Just a couple of things:
I would love to see an iPad version of this as well - one that is specifically sized for the iPad :)

Thanks for the effort you put into this. It is greatly appreciated!!!

Privacy?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...mod=djemTECH_t

Great app, thanks!
Dunno if it's just me, but when I make a search, clicking on the search results doesn't load the thread. Bug?

We're working on an android version. I'll post details about it's launch as we get closer to launch.

This app only communicates with Flyertalk. It does not communicate with any third parties.

I'll try to get some answers around this.

The MyFlyertalk issue was discussed with some of our beta-testers, so I'm going to paste in my response to them here:

MyFlyertalk is basically a branded version of the generic vBulletin UserCP, so I'm going to speak to this issue in that context, mostly because this application is being built generically for all vBulletin forums, not specifically for Flyertalk. I also want to make note that I was only in a few of the many meetings where the application's IU was discussed, so I'm speaking from a general understanding. For more details, I can try to get some of the product team in here. Since I was present at some of the meetings, I was able to give feedback along the way specific to my understanding of Flyertalk use-cases, which I hope will benefit the community and the mobile product.

The UserCP is a nice portal where users can view subscribed threads, PM's, and settings. It's a really great feature of vBulletin. When building the iPhone app, they bounced around some ideas on how to handle the UI, and they found that the concept of a single consolidated UserCP is difficult to do on a mobile device. They decided to split the functionallity into separate sections because it makes the user experience better.

Pretty much all of the functionallity is there-- when you sign in, the first thing you see is your subscribed threads. If you want to view PM's, you should always be two clicks away via the ubiquitous button at the top. You're "notifications" should give you heads up of the various things that you might want to look at.

Obviously, some features, like editing your settings, are missing. This is very common among native apps, as I think the only time I actually log into Facebook or Twitter are to manage these types of things. I don't know which of these missing features the development team plans to implement, but I feel that those decisions will be based on feasibility and feedback from users like you. The reason why the vBulletin team asked us to offer this to Flyertalk is because they want to know from first hand users what your opinions are regarding functional requirements.

This app doesn't use any third party trackers and only transmits content to and from our API. The exception to this is with the ads, which use admob. I'll be honest that I don't know what information that is transmitted to admob, but I don't imagine it's anything more than what is send back and forth loading an average web-page. Now, Apple monitors things about all apps like crashes and whatnot, but there isn't anything that we can do about that.

I would like to assure anyone worried about privacy that there are no additional privacy concerns with using this app.

Kind of defeats the purpose of signing up for FT Premium if you include advertisements on the mobile version. Any chance of dumping the ads for those of us paying?

what about losing the ads for flyertalk premium subscribers (ie same as for web site)

Crashed three times in first 5 minutes on my iPhone 4 with latest iOS... Dumped it and went back to my notepad...

+1

Mate,

They are drier than a dead dingo's donger!

Thanks to the developers for developing an app dedicated to FT.
After trying out the app for a short while I think I will stick with the mobile version as I can have several threads open at the same time and jump from one to another while others are loading in the background.
In the meantime some things I thought would be great to have as well would be:
- Refresh after add new post
- Quote function when posting
- Show complete list of subscribed threads, not just 20
- No need for the big welcome message at the top of the screen, it just takes up space.

Thanks for the detailed response. While I don't understand everything - I think the feature that I would put forth as being important in all this is the ability to see your subscribed forums, not just the subscribed threads. It would be great to see the Continental forum, since I subscribe to that... not just the individual threads.

That said - I think it is still cool that you created this, and I have used it throughout the day... with just one crash. But that happens with lots of new apps - so that will get worked out shortly, I'm sure! :)

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.

Getting notification when someone posts something new in your subscribed thread
 

It would be great to see if anything new is posted in your subscribed threads. When I opened it, I saw all the threads I am subscribed too, even the ones that have not had a new posting in months.

That specific feedback has been passed on to the developers.

I read FT on my own laptop, my work computer and now on the iPhone. Sometimes, I mark all threads as read so the next time, regardless of which computer, I know which threads have new posts. It'd be nice if the iPhone can tell me which threads have new posts since the last time I visited (regardless of device).

Personally, I don't think this bubble serves much purpose. The number in the bubble is the number of replies (as I compare my desktop version on the iPhone version). While I can kind of see why you'll want to pick the threads with more replies to read, on a mobile device, screen real estate and bandwidth are still king. I'd still read a thread with a title that appeals to me, rather than one with lots of replies.

May I suggest getting rid of this bubble, and put the number of unread posts in there. We have the blue dot on the left hand side to indicate a thread with unread posts already - combine the two?

Now that I've used it a few times, 'Home' isn't empty, just takes a little while to load. But I'd still like to see 'My FT' there as the first screen.

Fair enough - However, I'd echo others' comments (and I've also touched on it previously). With the ads and the menu system, about 1/3 of the screen is lost already. Can we lose one of the ads (at least) and have a smaller bottom menu or implement something like Mashable's app or the Huffington Post's app where the menu automatically hide unless you tap the screen?

I'm sorry that you're not happy with the application. Let me address a couple of your points.
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.

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.
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.
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.

Crashes a lot
 

I have been navigating around a lot and I have found specific posts that the app will crash on every time. Otherwise I like the app.

Thanks for the clarification about the syncing. I stated this somewhere else, but the application right now it's able to tap into the forums knowledge of where you left off in a post, although a more elegant solution is being worked on.

Great feedback! It will be shared with the team!

Sorry but the ads are a deal breaker. They are distracting and take up too much space. I deleted the app 15 minutes after installing it. I'll stick to the ad-free mobile site.

Which is faster anyway and gives you access to your subscribed forums. With neither MyFlyerTalk nor subscribed forums, this is much, much less useful than the mobile site.

I'm willing to pay handsomely for an ad-free version of any app that I use on a regular basis.

That's why I studiously avoid apps that are "free" because nothing, obviously, is free and the ads on a small iPhone screen are beyond annoying.

I'll be glad to use the new app when/if I can buy an ad-free version.

A slightly different slant - I tried the app on my iPad.

1) It's way too small on my iPad. Even at 2x resolution, everything just looks far too jaggy. OTOH I can use the SPG app on my iPad just fine (even though it too is a bit jaggy).

2) The double ad thing takes up too much real estate on an already too-small screen.

3) The way the ads flip is kind of annoying too. A static ad would be much more bearable.

4) I like the way the threads just kind of keep scrolling as opposed to having to hit "next page" then wait for it to load. Having said that I'm not sure how easy / hard it would be to navigate a monster of a thread.

5) The functionality of tapping a response and posting in general is good. I particularly like the easy access to smilies. :)

6) Broadly speaking, for an iPad user I think there's limited gain in using the app vs just surfing in on Safari. It's not a bad app, but it's not an app which immediately offers incredible gains either. In the end I think it's just going to be personal preference that drives app use.

I'm not sure what your definition of "delicate balance" is, but it seems to imply that there should be a bare minimum amount of content to justify even posessing the app, while as much "stuff" as possible should clutter up the screen at all times. Nearly 2 out of every 3 pixels displayed by the FT app are devoted to stuff that is not actual content!

http://i.imgur.com/q7Tk4.png

No one is asking for features to the exclusion of content. Be smart about screen real estate, and add features unobtrusively, in ways that do not detract from the actual content people are here to consume.

Consider the example of another data-heavy application designed for users to consume large amounts of text: Email. Compare Apple's implementation of "all data, all the time" to FT's version of "shovel in the features." I would challenge the app developers to work on flipping the ratio above, so that the majority of the screen is content, and the cruft stays out of the way until it's needed.

Perhaps the real estate "problems" would not be so severe if there were not such a rabid desire to stuff never-ending features around the content. All of the high quality iPhone apps have managed to execute here and have a quality experience in portrait and landscape orientations (some of my favorites are Facebook, Evernote, IMDB, and PCalc). I would expect no less from IB and FT.

I sell enterprise software. As much as I understand why you are saying this, from my perspective this is the FT implementation of the app and I dont care about the other forums. I actually want to use expletives each time i see this response. It seems that someone is confusing generic product with specific implementation. Build generic infrastructure but make sure you are releasing to me something that takes into account how and why I use your forum. This app does a very poor job of providing value in my opinion. Build something specific for the more complex customers and then cut it down to something generic would be a better way to go.

+10000!!!! ^^^
EXACTLY!!!
BTW: What is this "mobile site" others are talking about??? Do they mean the use of a mobile web browser, or is there a different site that I've missed? TIA!
Dave

FT has a mobile site available from mobile browsers (cell phones...)

Consistently crashes on trying to load this thread:
Community Buzz - Community Lounge.

+1 :td: for the ads. As a premium FT subscriber, if the app doesn't come ad free there should be a paid app that does.

To be fair, there was no MyFlyerTalk link from the home page of the mobile site either, but you could load it and bookmark it which was almost as good. You couldn't quote, or edit your posts on the mobile version so hopefully this is the first, albeit very wonky, step forward.

A disappointment
 

I've been looking forward to an app from FlyerTalk, and having inspected it and tried it out I am very disappointed.

The worst thing about it is the amount of ads. I've never seen an app with more ads. I've already deleted the app and will not recommend it to anyone. My price for a useful 'leisure' app is 1$. Let's pay and be done with it. As it is now it's simply ridiculous.

PS: It also needs a 'My FT'-button. But without losing tons of ads that alone won't save it.

for some reason, it keeps crashing on me..

ipod touch, latest gen

Thanks for the feedback! It will be passed along!

So, you don't believe that a back button, pagination, or the thread title is necessary information do display on a thread?

We're looking into the crashes.

You're putting words in my mouth. Some basic functionality and information is important. Not all of it must be pinned to the screen constantly taking up valuable space that could be used for actual valuable content. It boggles my mind why so much space is wasted on a row of page numbers when the overwhelming use case is simply "get me to the latest unread post." Put next/previous page links at the top or bottom of the page if you must, but make them scroll away.

Compare the current FT app to the existing mobile site as displayed in mobile Safari:

http://i.imgur.com/ZTMps.png

Note how nearly the whole screen is devoted to actual content. Even the post metadata like date posted and FT handle scrolls off the screen to make room for more content.

The mobile site is already largely appropriate for FT consumption on the go. I like the idea of a dedicated app for an even better reading/posting experience, but it seems like the execution so far is heading in the wrong direction. I'd rather have an excellent FT reading & posting experience than a mediocre one jammed with pointless features.

(Bolding mine)

Yes you can