I'm saying that Stephen has experience in developing apps and such, so what I'm asking of him is whether he's considered a mobile version of the website. I have no problem with the boards on an iPad, but when viewing Casebook on an iPhone, a mobile version would be an improvement. Onwards and upwards etc.
We have two different Android devices, a 10" Acer tablet with Ice Cream Sandwich (not upgradable), and a 7" Samsung with Jelly Bean. They both run the regular website perfectly fine with Google as a browser.
I have found that in several cases, Android has run a regular website perfectly well, no differently from running it on my desktop, then a mobile app comes out, and suddenly I am forced to download and use the mobile app, which does not have the full services of the regular website. I'm not sure why this is-- I'm assuming it is some contractual thing, in order to guarantee enough traffic for the app, even though the app is always free (the advertising may be different, I don't know).
So I would say, please, please, don't make a mobile app. I want to keep accessing the regular website on the tabs.
Also, I'm not sure it's a good thing if people can post from phones. Websites that have apps that allow posting from phones suffer from people using text-speak, because they sometimes have a character limit, or they have auto-correct/auto-complete, resulting in an incomprehensible mishmash, because they don't reread before hitting post, or they assume people will figure out what they meant, and fixing the post is "too hard" for some people. Or, they don't use caps and punctuation, because it requires three or four keystrokes to get to the character they need.
To clarify- what I was talking about is a mobile version of the website, not a stand alone app. Many websites (most prevalent in news sites and blogs) switch over to a more condensed, more readable version when you access them from a phone or tablet's web browser, 'fitting' their content to your screen thereby eliminating the need to deal with a finger zoom-in and out to click the right links and read the pages. Most sites that have this mobile viewing feature also give you the option of switching back if you want to view the site in it's regular format.
To clarify- what I was talking about is a mobile version of the website, not a stand alone app.
vBulletin has that feature built in. It's called Themes I think. There are colours, light, dark etc and also one called "mobile" which does what it says on the tin.
It might be worth considering installing Tapatalk on the server so that people with iPhones or Android devices can use the Tapatalk app on the go.
I would second this. I love using tapatalk to navigate forums on my iPhone. It is very handy. I know there is a fee of some sort to get your forum onto their app, but it's worth it, in my eyes at least.
Also, I'm not sure it's a good thing if people can post from phones. Websites that have apps that allow posting from phones suffer from people using text-speak, because they sometimes have a character limit, or they have auto-correct/auto-complete, resulting in an incomprehensible mishmash, because they don't reread before hitting post, or they assume people will figure out what they meant, and fixing the post is "too hard" for some people. Or, they don't use caps and punctuation, because it requires three or four keystrokes to get to the character they need.
Please, no mobile apps.
I really doubt that would be much of a problem. I, and I am sure others who use this forum, are perfectly capable of using correct English from my iPhone.
The tapatalk app just makes navigating around a forum much easier on the smaller screen.