Redflea

I've read the sticky thread on why the forum has decided not to support Tapatalk, and have seen the paid Android mobile app in the Play store w/its very poor ratings (2.4 stars) and numerous comments on issues w/it, and as far as I can tell no update in years (last update June 2012).

Folks, it's 2015, and we live in a world of mobile devices...more mobile devices sell than any other "computer" every year. I'm looking for a bike forum to hang out in, and the lack of decent mobile access is surprising.

I know there are only 50 downloads of the app, but given the listed issues and lack of updates (and the fact that it's a paid app) I can see why it has stalled out.

Why not reboot the app w/some fixes for the issues, make it free, and promote it across the forums. The more eyes you have on your forum on more devices, the more posts/activity, the more ad views, the more the community grows, all for the better. Trying to make money off the app is hurting rather than helping. Make it free w/ads for regular users, free w/no ads for Elite members. More people will try it, you'll get more feedback, be able to resolve issues and in the end have a much better experience for your members.

cafzali

Personally, I think the reason you don't have more people clamoring for it is because the newer-generation devices do a much better job of translating pages - especially when you use a modern mobile browser like Chrome, Safari or Firefox. That, combined with faster connections and customized content apps, has rendered customized mobile browsing like Tapatalk much less important.

no1mad 

You have the option of viewing this site in both "mobile" and "full site" modes/skins/styles.

Scroll down towards the bottom of the page, past your posting permissions, and you'll see a darker ribbon that has links on the right hand side and a drop down menu on the left that will allow you to switch from full to mobile.

Redflea

That is the most useful bit of information I've received in a month of Sundays. Thanks very much. Still would love Tapatalk support, but get it that that isn't coming.

Don't know if that settings info was provided to me and I missed it when I signed up, but would be helpful if the site detected browser agent and defaulted to mobile view.

Redflea

I've got an S4 running KitKat and using Chrome browser, very fast connection, but it is just not pretty or fun to use w/the normal view on this or most sites...mobile view (now that I know it's available as a manual switch-to option here) is very nicely done.

Overall, in my experience the speed and ease of use of Tapatalk (at least until the Tapatalk team recently screwed up their own app with some very ill-advised UI changes) to manage my forum activities is not matched by any browser experience, mobile view or otherwise. But I digress... Just glad to know now that there is a good mobile view available here - lots of nice smart people around here.

Redflea

Suggestion: Can we get this information (how to change to mobile view on mobile device) stickied in this forum? Maybe add this to the already stickied thread about Tapatalk?

agenkin

I don't know how it is for iOS users, but the Android app has fewer than 100 installs and less than 2.5 stars (out of five) rating, even though the app has been available for more than two years. I'm not going to even try it.

Somebody at Bike Forums who makes decisions needs to wake up and smell the coffee. The custom mobile app was not, and is not the right solution. Tapatalk is the de-facto standard for mobile forum access, please make the forums accessible through it.

no1mad 

Have you tried switching to the mobile view of the site (as explained up-thread)?

no1mad 

Check out the OP of the Tapatalk sticky .

Figured it made sense to add the info to the OP rather than bury it at the tail end of the thread.

Cyclist0383

You can't reply with a quote on the mobile page. Like BF proper, it's full of technical problems.

BrockLee

Mobile version has problems; Notifications shows that I have notifications but won't actually THE NOTIFICATIONS when tapped. Please fix.

Cyclist0383

That's just one of many problems with the mobile site. Internet Brands, the owner of BF, knows about but doesn't care about, fixing problems with the site. It's been this way since they bought BF.

Rollfast

I'm not sure what you all are talking about...People are using Tapatalk on The CABE and they have the same version of vB as we do. If I remember correctly the other forums I am on using this version also work with Tapatalk.

APPLES are a problem...

Cyclist0383

Internet Brands decided not to enable TapTalk on BF in hopes that people would buy the rubbish app they made for BF. It's not that the version of vBulletin isn't capable of supporting TapTalk, it's that Internet Brands doesn't want people to use it.

cplager

I find that the mobile version takes much longer to load than the regular version (which really isn't how it ought to be).

I'm also don't understand why I get ads on the mobile version (I thought that's why I was paying money).