[Request] BLF IPHONE APP

Sorry, but there definitely won’t be any dedicated BLF apps. I’m not a web developer or a programmer (I do better with web server configuration and administration), so an app would be biting off way more than I can chew. I also must admit that I don’t have the motivation to create an app, since I personally hate using mobile devices whenever I have the remote possibility of using a vastly superior “real” computer.

This is by far the best option for heavy mobile users. This functionality is called a “site specific browser”, and here are some possible options for iOS and Android:

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Not gonna happen soon.
Drupal engine is not supported by tapatalk.
Mike

Just curious, what are your computer specs? I’m currently on the Ryzen train but I find I’m still eyeballin’ those Intel 9900’s.

Nah. Stay on Ryzen.
Look at the Ryzen 3000 series, and stay there.
You’ll see why.

Mobile devices feature power and capabilities which even desktops of just a few years ago could only dream on. The main problem is the software. Due to my particular circumstances I have done a lot of homework in using my handheld device like a laptop/desktop computer, just take a look:

Cheers

I'm not a fan of interfacing with mobile devices.

Give me a physical keyboard and mouse any day.

All I use my phone for is making calls and playing Candy Crush Soda Saga.

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Ah, I’m nowhere close to that actually. My main daily driver is an older model Thinkpad T530 with an SSD, still plenty fast for my needs. As Racoon City said above, I mainly value a laptop or desktop computer above anything else due to it having a keyboard and mouse, not necessarily for the processing power.

Yeah, I got bit by the PC bug as a kid. I’ve been building my own computers since I was 13. I was an early adopter on the Ryzen launch and it was an exciting (yet tedious) experience overclocking my system to stable. Love the budget approach AMD took, competition for the win!

I wouldn't want to place the burden on our admin. The site does fine on mobile for me, although sometimes doing formatting in my comments gets difficult.

It’s a good idea to have a BLF iPhone app just like CPF does. It would be super cool and convenient to have all the info we need at our fingertips, instead of opening up Safari every time we want to check out the website. I bet many BLF members, including myself, would be willing to pay for such an app.

Hi there @ArielSchwatrz , welcome to BLF!

There is a generic free app that you can use here:

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Progressive web apps look an feel like native Android and iOS apps while they are developed and distributed by a web server.

I made that for my website. It’s easy, no framework required. Just html, vanilla java script and sort of XML.

No “you must do this”, “your must not do that…” and lawyers gliberish from Googles or Apples app store.

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Why, is the iPhone incapable of viewing a mobile webpage? The new site works fine on my Android phone.

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I tried the Android Discourse Hub app. All it seemed to do was act as a bookmark to open my preferred browser on my android phone. I already had a easy to access bookmark, so that app ended just changing the taps I would make to get to my preferred BLF start page. Just different yaps but the same number. Made no sense to me to use for this site. I deleted the app. I think the OP was a bit strange; like spam without the actual spam

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New site looks good on my iPhone. Well at least it does with the Duck Duck Go browser/app. Not sure about Safari or anything else. I don’t do much BLF’in on my mobile though.

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BLF on my Android has one of the best, maybe the best, appearance and ease of use of any web based site I use a lot, without any need for an app. I still prefer my laptop PC but do find my Android very usable. I’m using it now. Now back to the ebook I’m reading.

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The new site works great on every mobile device I’ve tried. No app necessary. For direct access, simply add a launcher shortcut in whatever you use for a home screen.

I’ve also made sure my themes work on mobile, so people can keep the same appearance between desktop and mobile if they want, including day mode and night mode. I even spaced the main post buttons to make it a bit easier to press the right one on a small touchscreen, and reduced side padding so text can fit easier on a tall, narrow device.

As for dedicated apps for online services… they’re typically a downgrade. Usually they’re just a thin wrapper around a heavily restricted web browser which removes features and controls the user would have with a normal browser. Plus, apps tend to collect and sell a lot more information about the user… which is probably why so many companies push their apps instead of their sites. And they tend to run in the background all the time and drain the battery.

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Now I can’t even see pics on this new interface on my iPhone :man_facepalming:

We really want an official app for the App Store and android

And must be very easy to post pics or videos directly from our camera roll/studio just like Reddit

Asking the admin here to build an iPhone Discourse app is like asking your Uber driver to build you a new miniature Toyota, just because he gave you a ride in a one. Driving a car makes him qualified to build car engines, right?

It looks like there are a couple Discourse clients in the app store though… so maybe one of those would work? I don’t know if they’re any good, or if they’re up to date, or if they’re compatible with BLF specifically, but perhaps it’s worth a try. Or just using the BLF web site in a browser should work, unless the browser is an old version.

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Yep, this is an important point. I’m absolutely not going to subject myself and the whole forum to those additional complications and legal morasses.

As a matter of fact, this forum platform already is technically an app that runs in the web browser. The design of Discourse puts it in the class of Single-Page Applications (SPA):

Right. One of the primary reasons for choosing Discourse is because a large part of our BLF userbase uses the site primarily or frequently on a mobile device, and Discourse was designed from the ground-up to support mobile devices as well as full sized computers.

Hmm, now that you mention that I see that there is a single option to “Open sites with in-app browser” that needs to be enabled:


That will make it load within the Discourse Hub app, which is basically just a stripped-down Chrome browser (on Android, whereas on iOS all browsers have to use Apple’s WebKit engine) that will load the exact same mobile version of the site that would appear in a normal mobile web browser. I think that for most users their normal mobile browser of choice is probably the best option, possibly with a home-screen shortcut, but Discourse Hub might be preferable for some that want a more stripped-down app-like experience with less browser chrome.

Good tip. It should even automatically use a nice upscaled pixelated version of the BLF “starburst” favicon for the launcher. :stuck_out_tongue:

Bingo! Why in the world would I need or much less want an app for an insurance company or a pizza joint or an airline? Do they not have a website for that functionality? But it’s a lot harder or even impossible to block ads and/or data-hoover scripts that run in a dedicated app, so that’s why companies usually promote them so hard.

Could you please post a screenshot of what you’re seeing on your iPhone?

Well, no attempt has been made to emulate Reddit here, as a matter of fact I’m specifically trying to make it not like Reddit. But adding pictures or videos is now as easy as can be, just put the link to the picture or video on its own line. Or, if necessary, drag your picture to the editor pane or click the Upload button.

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