I find the mobile version of MacInsiders incredibly underwhelming and essentially useless when compared to the main site. A ton of features are missing and you can't see a general new posts page (pretty much the only page I'm going to assume 90% of people go to). Every single time I go to it, I just find myself going and clicking on the button to redirect back to the main desktop page.

Anyone else feel the same way?

its not well designed IMHO. also, the macinsider logo, when clicked, re-directs back to the mobile webpage instead of going back to the desktop page. really annoying and frustrating. i have almost stopped browsing macinsiders on my mobile.

fix it chad!

Ya its pretty bad. Thats why I looked into making an Android app a while back. However there is no friendly external mobile API (that I could find) that grabs content in (for example) XML. Instead one would have to parse poorly formed HTML. As a outside developer all hell would break loose if they changed some of the html formatting too. This is also should be done on a server as opposed to a battery-powered device.

Note there is an RSS feed but its limited to a few posts and has virtually no content.

Originally Posted by qwerty91

Ya its pretty bad. Thats why I looked into making an Android app a while back. However there is no friendly external mobile API (that I could find) that grabs content in (for example) XML. Instead one would have to parse poorly formed HTML. As a outside developer all hell would break loose if they changed some of the html formatting too. This is also should be done on a server as opposed to a battery-powered device.

Note there is an RSS feed but its limited to a few posts and has virtually no content.

Use jsoup. It's all about parsing fucked up HTML/XML code. It would make a lot more sense to have access to some sort of REST API though.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

Use jsoup. It's all about parsing fucked up HTML/XML code. It would make a lot more sense to have access to some sort of REST API though.

I was using Jsoup and was able to parse almost all of it. But small formatting changes can break the code. Its not hard to fix but it would require updates to all the phones etc etc. And the battery aspect. Jsoup wasnt really optimized for mobile so it can be slow or battery hogging depending on how you code it.

Originally Posted by qwerty91

I was using Jsoup and was able to parse almost all of it. But small formatting changes can break the code. Its not hard to fix but it would require updates to all the phones etc etc. And the battery aspect. Jsoup wasnt really optimized for mobile so it can be slow or battery hogging depending on how you code it.

Wow, I didn't know there were sites that could even crush Jsoup :o But ya, either way, I don't think a true app would be possible unless MacInsiders received a major backend overhaul to include a proper REST API. As far as I know, it's running on a pretty dated PHP forum software package that probably hasn't been updated in years.

EDIT: Hmm, it appears to be running on vBulletin, which does have a REST API in its newer iterations. Maybe there's hope after all... ?

Ya maybe.Would certainly be nice. Theres also a fantastic vbullitin app but im not sure how you would register macinsiders with it. And hahah dont worry the site isnt that poorly formed. Jsoup does its work...its just a lot of html for even simple stuff and that HTML could change at any moments notice.

Two complaints.

First.
I am using android 2.0 browser, which has zoom buttons in the lower right corner, exactly where the full version link is placed. So I am unable to change it without zooming/unzooming a dozen of time.

Second.
The first page is the generic browser of topic themes. Instead of hot topics like in desktop version. Which means I can't see if threads I'm interested in were replied to without zooming/unzooming a dozen of time.

This should go in suggestions forum.

But I agree with you to most of your reasoning.

My 2 main complains would be,
1. The web version homepage not appearing
2. Search function missing

I only ever go on MI from my laptop, so I wouldn't know how lacking the mobile site would be!