New Mobile Applications

snookes

Well-Known Member
Ladies,

We have started pushing out two new mobile applications, available for free for our members, on the Android and App Stores.

The applications will be available shortly and support is already in place for the new functionality. Please note that these are brand new applications and will not work with the previous vendor's network.

What's new:

  • Smoother interface and navigation
  • Instant PUSH support of subscribed topics (requires activation)
  • Support for a lot more devices than before and.... (drumroll)
  • Thanks support (you select the post and hold your finger and choose Like in the popup).
  • iPad support

There will be many more features coming in the next few weeks and updates will be automatic for all of you.

Some key notes:
iPhone
The application will be updated once you choose to either manually (or it happens automatically on your device) from the app store. Our app has gone to the App store today so it is still under review. Hopefully it will be approved this week.

Android
Users MUST uninstall the old application and install the new one. This is again due to the fact that this is a brand new application with a totally different platform than before.

We will continue to support both platforms (i.e. old applications and new applications) until the end of this month at which point we will decomission the old code from the forum. This is done to aid with the transition from one app to another.

More to come on this.
Awesome I can't wait and thank you for all that you do.
 

Guinan

Re-Branding
I think we need to get a petition going. Between not having the app and having to resize your photos, it's annoying.
 

beverly

Admin (November 2020 Photo)
Staff member
The software that we are using now (Xenforo) does not have an app that we can buy. The software that we used previously did, but caused alot of issues for you guys. We took into consideration all of the complaints and we listened :) We thought this software was the better solution even though it would not have an app to go along with this software. This site is web enabled for viewing through your browser. We can look to see if there are any other software alternatives out there which are secure, and caused less downtown, crashes, and functionality glitches. However this was the best solution the last time we upgraded the forum. if you are experiencing specific problems, please let me know what they are.
 

gforceroy

Well-Known Member
Hello, I hope someone can give me more information.

I am long time (I think) member of the longhaircareforum.

I believe that the one reason we have seen a decrease in the activity of this forum is the lack of an app.

However, I used to use the old app and it seemed there were a lot of bugs anyways.

I work as a Software Engineer and I want to try to make an app for this forum, it's something I am willing to work on outside of my Job. I would do it for free and I would try to make something that works for iOS and Android.

Let me know if that is something that you would be interested in. If so I would be willing to try to make it happen.
 

dimopoulos

Crazy Greek
Staff member
@dimopoulos is the app ever gonna come back?
I hope so ladies.

Here is the issue. The current forum software works with an application called ForumRunner. Some of you are familiar with it.

ForumRunner was created by a guy (I forget his name) who was local to the NoVA area so it was nice to be able to talk to someone close vs. a corporation. His application would connect to both xenForo as well as vBulletin based forums (forum software).

Now some time later, after we were using ForumRunner and we had bought a customized application to be there just for our forum, vBulletin bought the app from this guy. After that it all went down hill. I would send numerous requests, pleas even to fix critical bugs with the application but nothing would happen. From time to time, the iPhone based one would be updated but not the Android one. It was frustrating but it worked for the most part.

After banging my head against the wall, I decided to drop it. There is no point in having an app if it does not work. Note the last update to that app was 2013. vBulletin clearly bought ForumRunner in order to kill it as a project and eliminate competition. That is all there is to it. Notable that the last time I contacted ForumRunner was 5/21/15 and I got a reply back (we cannot get support for Forum Runner) in 7/15/15. That gives you an idea.

Furthermore years back we tried this again with a company called Tapatalk. They were a rising star in the mobile apps for forums community and we even bought a customized app from them - something like $1,500 or so. They too after a while refused to fix basic bugs in our app, yet their own branded app would enjoy those. I believe at the time they were asking between $30-50 per hour to fix bugs in our app, which was a clone of theirs, that they had already fixed. So we stopped using that app too.

The forum software is very mobile friendly and yes it might not be 100% perfect as all web based applications on mobile devices but it works.

Now I have been waiting and looking for a decent vendor to offer us a quality mobile app, native to mobile devices. There is one coming up that looks promising but it is not ready yet.

That is all I have for now.
 

dimopoulos

Crazy Greek
Staff member
Hello, I hope someone can give me more information.

I am long time (I think) member of the longhaircareforum.

I believe that the one reason we have seen a decrease in the activity of this forum is the lack of an app.

However, I used to use the old app and it seemed there were a lot of bugs anyways.

I work as a Software Engineer and I want to try to make an app for this forum, it's something I am willing to work on outside of my Job. I would do it for free and I would try to make something that works for iOS and Android.

Let me know if that is something that you would be interested in. If so I would be willing to try to make it happen.

I don't like reinventing the wheel, so if there is a company that would put people behind it and make a mobile app, I would definitely look into that. Actually there are two potential candidates for mobile apps but I have to do some due diligence so as to find the company that will have a good application, fixes bugs and offers support for the long term.

Having written that, if all fails I will definitely take you up on your offer. The main reason behind the above is that we all get busy at any given point and working on something on your free time is always taxing.
 
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