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Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:17 pm
by kirent
Is there any chance of getting Tapatalk integration for these forums? It's free and would make navigating the forums easier for smartphone users.

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:56 pm
by empb
I've PMed Alex about this in the past and got exactly nowhere (i.e., no response). Guess he's thought about and rejected the idea...

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 12:40 pm
by kirent
Any updates on this?

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 6:31 pm
by Exige
I agree tapatalk!

Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2011 3:19 pm
by Alex Frakt
Sorry, but we've got way too much on our plate right now (planned upgrade to server and then forum software) to even review this, much less implement it.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 10:20 am
by kirent
Now that the servers are upgraded... Let's get this implemented :D

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 11:49 am
by Alex Frakt
I'm not impressed by the code we'd have to insert onto every single page to use tapatalk. What we do plan on implementing is a mobile/low resolution/low bandwidth option for viewing the entire site. This will help a lot more people than forcing them to install a proprietary app (if it's even available for their platform).

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:14 pm
by natureexplorer
Alex Frakt wrote:I'm not impressed by the code we'd have to insert onto every single page to use tapatalk. What we do plan on implementing is a mobile/low resolution/low bandwidth option for viewing the entire site. This will help a lot more people than forcing them to install a proprietary app (if it's even available for their platform).
+1

A solid mobile website serves a lot more people than app-based solutions. Companies like apps as it is essentially a bookmark to their site/app.

Having said that, the new forum doesn't display properly on BlackBerries. The old forum displayed just fine.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:22 pm
by rr2
Alex Frakt wrote:I'm not impressed by the code we'd have to insert onto every single page to use tapatalk. What we do plan on implementing is a mobile/low resolution/low bandwidth option for viewing the entire site. This will help a lot more people than forcing them to install a proprietary app (if it's even available for their platform).
Would the planned mobile site allow functionality in terms of starting and replying to posts, editing them, sending PMs etc or it will be a View only site?

I am using tapatalk on my Android tablet and absolutely love it. Nice clean minimalistic looks and much faster than using a browser.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 7:40 am
by G-Force
Alex Frakt wrote:I'm not impressed by the code we'd have to insert onto every single page to use tapatalk. What we do plan on implementing is a mobile/low resolution/low bandwidth option for viewing the entire site. This will help a lot more people than forcing them to install a proprietary app (if it's even available for their platform).
You are not forcing anyone to install a proprietary app. The first time someone browses to a forum on their mobile device with tapatalk enabled, they get a notification they have the OPTION to install the app. If they decline, no further notifications are given. You are just letting people know who use the app that they have the option.

I would love to see this too. It would give the bogleheads site a native app feel on mobile devices. Now that the forum upgrades are done this should be possible.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 8:31 am
by natureexplorer
Is there now a mobile version of the Bogleheads forum? I thought I read about it, but I forgot.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 8:55 pm
by LadyGeek
You bet! The RSS feed is up and running. Use your mobile RSS reader app to discover the feed on the home page. (bogleheads.org/rss)

(OK, it's not a forum upgrade, but it'll work in a mobile app.)

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:23 pm
by andrewj
Some kind of way for viewing it better on the iPhone, either a mobile version of the website or integration with Tapatalk (which I haven't tried yet but have heard about it) would be great!

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:53 pm
by LadyGeek
I added some opinions on tapatalk in this thread: Android app for this forum?. Below are my comments from that thread, reiterated here: (Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:50 pm)
LadyGeek wrote:Tapatalk has been discussed before (see Tapatalk Integration), but I'd stay away for a number of reasons - all of which are in their support forum - the first place to go when you want to check out a product.

- From the phpBB side of the fence, there's no confidence that this is a rock-solid product. In phpBB Discussion - Tapatalk Support, I see multiple complaints about PM problems and other things that I'm not happy about.

- From the Android side (Tapatalk for Android - Tapatalk Support), this app eats 15% CPU horsepower -that's a lot of juice. I also see problems with BBCode: CODE and STRIKE are not supported - that's unacceptable (Doesn't render all BB tags and smileys - Tapatalk Support).

IMHO, the best approach is to avoid proprietary apps that don't have widespread phpBB community support (there is no guarantee that tapatalk will work with phpBB mods, which is another sign that it's not fully compatible). Wait until Alex decides what to do. Sitck with a standard web browser for now, such as Dolphin.
(Updated 27-Apr-12 17:02 ET to incorporate linked comments.)

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 12:01 pm
by kirent
From a cursory glance of their support forums, it appears as though they respond very quickly, which I feel is a positive sign. And I don't believe using Tapatalk precludes the forums from using a mobile skin. Take a look at MacRumors, which appears to use both.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:43 pm
by phositadc
I'm not sure what the source of the anti-Tapatalk rhetoric from the forum admins is, and since I am not a tech guy, their concerns could be well founded. I would simply note that LOTS of forums use Tapatalk without any problems, so I'm not sure why it would be any different here.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:41 pm
by LadyGeek
That's certainly a valid point, and I do recognize that the support forums comprise a minority of users. It's not anti-Tapatalk per se, but a first look to see if there are any major concerns. There are some areas that require further investigation, but we'll wait until Alex Frakt decides on what to do.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:43 pm
by JohnM
Tapatalk = Greatness!

I use it for several forums that I follow and the functionality is great for mobile devices.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:45 pm
by interplanetjanet
Call me oldschool, but I'd really just prefer an NNRP interface... ;)

-janet

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 8:37 pm
by G-Force
LadyGeek wrote:You bet! The RSS feed is up and running. Use your mobile RSS reader app to discover the feed on the home page. (bogleheads.org/rss)

(OK, it's not a forum upgrade, but it'll work in a mobile app.)
Watching the RSS feeds with google reader results in each post generating a new RSS entry. There isn't one entry per thread, there is one/post which results in a ton of repeated threads shown in google reader. I still would love tapatalk integration.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:54 pm
by drizzle
1 more vote for tapatalk.

I'd be very happy to see it integrated.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:05 pm
by rr2
I would like to humbly request the forum owners to once again consider tapatalk integration. Most of the forums I visit do have tapatalk available and it is really great for browsing as well as posting from an iOS and/or android. I have used an iphone as well as an android tablet and pages load really fast.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:27 pm
by burgrat
One more vote for Tapatalk here! Works great on the other forums I visit.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 3:57 pm
by LadyGeek
There are a few other threads requesting tapatalk, so I pointed them to here. Alex Frakt (site owner) has given his opinion in this thread: [POLL] Interest in mobile access to bogleheads forum, a summary:
Alex Frakt wrote:... A mobile-friendly version is something I'm going to do eventually, but I do not like tapatalk...
I've given my opinion earlier in this thread, which looks from the developer / support perspective. A well-designed mobile interface, which is supported directly by the phpBB community, is a better alternative.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:08 pm
by Alex Frakt
Alex Frakt wrote:I'm not impressed by the code we'd have to insert onto every single page to use tapatalk.
Software evolves, so I just took another look and it appears tapatalk has greatly improved when it comes to this issue. I'll have to study it some more, but right now I'll move it from the definitely not to the possible column. The largest remaining issues are that using it constrains the modifications we can make to the regular site and it adds a potential support headache.

edit: note to self - http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=2131689 - http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=2131689 and http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=2131689

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:10 pm
by archbish99
Not having directly used Tapatalk for anything else, I'm not going to complain about the choice of either versus the other. (So long as something happens.) My more general experience is that apps usually offer a more comfortable experience, even when they offer the same features as a mobile site, though.

Really, just being able to hit "first unread post" without accidentally navigating to the OP's profile would be a huge improvement. :wink:

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2012 9:17 am
by magellan
From reading the previous replies I can see this is clearly a personal preference. To me, tapatalk doesn't offer much over a good web browser on a capable mobile device. I can certainly see its usefulness as an aggregator for forum junkies, or as an optimizer if you've got old mobile hardware, but that's about it. Like many of today's mobile apps, it doesn't add much to the already good experience you'll get on a latest generation device.

Accessing the Bogleheads forum on my tablet is super fast, even if I only have a 2g connection. It's reliably one of the fastest websites I use via mobile. When I have a lousy connection, I tend to hang out here at Bogleheads because the site is so fast and easy to use in my tablet's browser. phpbb seems to be pretty lightweight in terms of both browser cpu load and bandwidth. I rarely experience even the slightest page refresh or navigation delays.

IMO, with today's mobile hardware, the 'app to replace every website' paradigm is fast-fading. Sure, as in the PC world, there will always be cases where a custom app is the way to go. OTOH, web browsers provide a tried-and-true interface to the Internet. They'll certainly continue to evolve to better accommodate touch and varied display sizes, but IMO mobile touch-enabled web browsers are the future, not a patchwork of disjointed apps that each reinvent the user-interface wheel.

Jim

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 9:50 am
by af895
I'd like to see Tap-a-Talk installed.

I use it on other forums; it makes accessing forums significantly faster on a mobile device like an iPhone or Android phone.
It's of little benefit to a tablet user but a lot of benefit to those on smart phones.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:31 pm
by E-M-H
Many forums have set up mobile friendly interfaces that don't require the use of an app. I think that is an excellent approach as navigation is very easy for all with a mobile browser.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:39 pm
by natureexplorer
E-M-H wrote:Many forums have set up mobile friendly interfaces that don't require the use of an app. I think that is an excellent approach as navigation is very easy for all with a mobile browser.
+1 from Android

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:23 pm
by kirent
Any updates?

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 11:43 am
by JamesSFO
Was about to start a thread to ask and found this, so a ping for any updates on the thinking? Using the forums on a phone is pretty brutal right now and tapatalk is quite sweet.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 3:51 pm
by Sidney
My recollection is that this will not be done.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 4:14 pm
by LadyGeek
I haven't changed my opinion (not to do this), but will defer to Alex Frakt if he wishes to reconsider. I'm guessing he won't.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed May 29, 2013 4:17 pm
by ogd
Any chance to reconsider this? There's still no sign of a mobile site and I've just checked out the new version of Tapatalk and it's pretty great. Would love to be able to use it for this forum.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:36 pm
by firstsnowfall
Please reconsider. Tapatalk is a very useful, highly functional app to access forums. From what I read, implementation is simple and just requires installing a plugin.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:34 pm
by bltkmt
+1...another vote for Tapatalk!

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 4:44 pm
by DFrank
Another vote for Tapatalk here. I find it to be very functional for several other forums I frequent. I use it frequently when browsing from my Android smartphone.

A good mobile interface that gracefully handled re-sizing to accommodate physical screen size might be an acceptable alternative, but I don't see how that would resolve issues with potential incompatibilities with future revisions of phpBB. Certainly Tapatalk is going to be motivated to resolve any such issues as much (or perhaps more) than any individual forum.

Dave

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:10 am
by JamesSFO
I'm still pro Tapatalk, but I would settle for a more mobile friendly design which doesn't seem to have happened either...

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 12:45 pm
by Mudpuppy
JamesSFO wrote:I'm still pro Tapatalk, but I would settle for a more mobile friendly design which doesn't seem to have happened either...
Oh gawd, anything but this. As a person who still uses a desktop computer, I have to say nothing irritates me more these days than going on to a new "mobile friendly" webpage and being greeted with massive fonts, menus that require excessive clicking (because the hover menu option is not "mobile friendly"), options that are now hidden in drop-down menus instead of sidebars (I'm looking at you AmEx website, bring back the sidebar with the transaction tag filtering), and so forth.

I have a 1920x1200 monitor as my primary monitor (and a 1920x1080 secondary monitor), and all of that resolution is wasted in these "mobile friendly" sites with one column of text rendered in a huge font. I prefer the "old way" (e.g. the way they did it two years ago), where there is a desktop-friendly site and a mobile-friendly site, each with their own user interface. I'm actually surprised PHPbb doesn't have that option by default, as a database-driven website is ideal for such a setup.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 1:20 pm
by DFrank
Mudpuppy wrote:
JamesSFO wrote:I'm still pro Tapatalk, but I would settle for a more mobile friendly design which doesn't seem to have happened either...
Oh gawd, anything but this. As a person who still uses a desktop computer, I have to say nothing irritates me more these days than going on to a new "mobile friendly" webpage and being greeted with massive fonts, menus that require excessive clicking (because the hover menu option is not "mobile friendly"), options that are now hidden in drop-down menus instead of sidebars (I'm looking at you AmEx website, bring back the sidebar with the transaction tag filtering), and so forth.

I have a 1920x1200 monitor as my primary monitor (and a 1920x1080 secondary monitor), and all of that resolution is wasted in these "mobile friendly" sites with one column of text rendered in a huge font. I prefer the "old way" (e.g. the way they did it two years ago), where there is a desktop-friendly site and a mobile-friendly site, each with their own user interface. I'm actually surprised PHPbb doesn't have that option by default, as a database-driven website is ideal for such a setup.
A forum that is enabled for Tapatalk doesn't change the way the forum is viewed by users who either 1) access the site on a desktop/laptop computer or 2) Don't install the Tapatalk client application on their mobile device.

It is possible for a website to detect the type of device being used and direct those with mobile devices to a unique mobile version of the web site. That way the regular site doesn't change for those not using mobile devices. May take a bit more work to do it that way, but it is possible.

Dave

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 1:27 pm
by Luke Duke
+1 for TapaTalk

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 1:30 pm
by GeneralPerson
+1 for Tapatalk integration or a mobile-friendly design

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 9:18 pm
by JaxFLbh
+1 here too!

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:07 pm
by LadyGeek
To be clear, the decision rests with the site owner, Alex Frakt.

The main concern I have is with software support. We need something that has been vetted by the phpBB support community. Tapatalk is not supported by phpBB (as a mod) and a search of the tapatalk phpBB Discussion forum does not give one confidence.

Additionally, tapatalk requires two things: installation into the forum software and installation of a mobile app on your device. We have no control over your mobile device, so support again becomes an issue. Installation into the forum software is also more maintenance. This takes resources, which are very limited from that perspective.

I understand the underlying question is for a mobile style. Since we just updated to phpBB 3.0.12, perhaps this might be a good time to ask the site owner about a phpBB supported mobile style. I've asked before and will ask again. I can't make any promises, though.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:00 pm
by DFrank
Out of curiosity, I just checked a few other forums that I use that are Tapatalk enabled. All use vBulletin, not phpBB. It could very well be that Tapatalk integration with phpBB isn't fully sorted out.

Oh well.

Dave

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:25 pm
by JamesSFO
LadyGeek wrote:....
I understand the underlying question is for a mobile style. Since we just updated to phpBB 3.0.12, perhaps this might be a good time to ask the site owner about a phpBB supported mobile style. I've asked before and will ask again. I can't make any promises, though.
I think that would help a lot, thanks for jumping in here again.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 7:33 am
by ReedMan
+1 for Tapatalk integration, or some sort of mobile/tablet app or interface. You do what you have to do that makes sense for this board, but I do enjoy using it for other boards.

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2014 1:44 am
by Alex Frakt
Tapatalk is a non-starter. Supporting it would directly violate major portions of our privacy policies. We do not collect your information for sale, marketing or promotional purposes. Tapatalk does.

I have also been reviewing the mobile styles. My main problem with them is that the best supported options present an entirely different look and user experience. It's highly confusing if you use both desktop and mobile devices, especially as IMO, the mobile options are confusing on their own terms if you wish to do anything beyond simply reading existing threads.

The ultimate answer is going to be switching to a responsive style. Thanks to the evolution in html standards and web browsers, rather than having to code different pages for different devices, it is now possible to write single web pages that can adjust gracefully to any device. Pages that are coded in such a way are known as responsive pages. Unfortunately, the current version of the forum software we use does not include a standard responsive style, although they are working on one to be incorporated into a future release. There are third-party responsive styles for our software, but we have to do further research on how much of an ongoing administrative burden it would be to install and maintain such a style. It's especially important that any style be compatible with the modifications we have already incorporated into our existing style (primarily to keep spammers out).

Re: Tapatalk Integration

Posted: Fri Aug 22, 2014 6:25 am
by Sylvester the Investor
I don't really use Bogleheads anymore because it requires a computer. No one uses desktops anymore. Have a look at what everyone is using next time you are catching a bus or train.

Tapatalk is wonderful.