Tildes mobile app
I wasn’t able to find a discussion on this, though I’m sure there has been, and for that, I apologize.
Is there any kind of timeframe on the release of a mobile app for tildes?
I would guess that on Reddit most of their traffic comes from people accessing the site on their phones at this point, but I could be wrong. In any case, it certainly is a large portion of the users that access the site in this way.
With that in mind, it would be nice to be able to access tildes from a mobile app to do away with the clunkiness that comes with using the site through a mobile browser. I don’t mean to sound like it’s terrible. The site functions well enough through a mobile browser, but it would certainly have me using tildes a lot more if the convenience of a mobile app was available.
I’m sure the developers are very busy, and I don’t want to sound demanding, I’m just curious.
And once again, I apologize if this has been discussed recently.
See here: https://tildes.net/~tildes/abb/are_there_any_thoughts_for_a_notification_system_or_a_mobile_app#comment-2kff
Agreed, fuck apps. Tildes does it right.
I disagree that apps are inherently worse than using the browser. I mean, for any website you want to browse, you could just use the browser. It's true. But when you have maybe three sites you frequent and don't want all of your other tabs getting in the way, it works better as a dedicated app.
Moreover, mobile apps often make for a more efficient use of screen real estate.
I tend to be a mobile user when browsing the net more than a desktop user, and I prefer it that way. An experience like Reddit is Fun would be terrific. It's simple and efficient.
There should be a button in your browser when you're on Tildes like "add to home screen" that will split Tildes out as a separate app-like icon where it doesn't share tabs and such.
If you're on Android, Hermit is also a really good option.
Yeah, I've been looking into these alternatives and I am going to try some of them out for sure...but I hope you can see what I mean in that mobile apps are often more fully featured and efficient ways of browsing certain sites you frequent.
Sure, I understand it. But it's a relatively small improvement (maybe it feels 10% better or something), and probably requires at least $100,000 per year per platform to build and maintain high-quality apps. That's not something Tildes is anywhere near being able to do. This is a one-person non-profit, not a venture-capital-funded Silicon Valley company.
Oh, I get that it's expensive and time consuming. It's why I'm not really demanding an app, just trying to argue with those that say apps are totally unnecessary and a browser provides the exact same experience...when it's just flat out untrue. And I'd argue that dedicated apps for sites like these do help to gain users.
I also didn't realize I was responding to you and not the other guy lol!
On the topic of apps, I'm in favor of simplistic ones like Reddit is Fun as opposed to ones with too much nonsense all over the screen like some other Reddit apps. Are those any simpler/cheaper to develop for?
I'd love to offer my services to help for an app, but unfortunately I'm not a programmer or anything of the sort. So unfortunately I'm stuck as a cheerleader on the side.
They're easier in some ways, but @talklittle has been working heavily on Reddit is Fun for over 9 years now. It's still a ton of work.
In what way do they get in your way?
How? Almost all apps I use are no better than any web app. This is highly subjective if not just incorrect, no?
As an aside: Maybe we could introduce synonymous topic suggestions or FAQ autocompletes when people start typing out frequently duplicated posts within the last n months* on this site? Especially at least for ~tildes? Kind of similar in functionality to how GitHub or Stack Overflow suggest potentially related topics when you file an issue or type out a question, respectively.
Maybe just utilise existing resources used for search currently and adjust the UI slightly to fit within the post a topic page?
I'm not criticising you, @quinns, but this is indeed at least the dozenth time I think I've seen this topic in the last several months.
* I added this clarification, because times goes on and accepted answers for things change. This is a big problem for Stack Overflow now, where questions that were asked in 2010 now have different answers nearly 10 years later.
I knew it must have been asked but my cursory search for the answer didn’t turn up much and as you say, answers change over time, especially with a site that is currently under development.
Maybe if there was a statement that there was no plan for a mobile app, or that a mobile app is scheduled to be developed in x timeframe, it would stem the flow of these questions that I have regrettably contributed to.
I see. I could have been more thorough in my searching, but I’m still glad I posted because I’m thankful to have had this discussion and am convinced that the mobile site functions well enough that a mobile app isn’t so immediately necessary.
The developer(s) have done well with the site and it’s functionality on mobile.
Once again, I’m sorry to have asked a question that you all are probably tired of seeing. I’m thankful for all of the work tildes has done and I’m really happy to be a part of what I see as something great and something that I hope grows to be a bastion of legitimate free speech and meritous discussion (an even better form of what Reddit was in its early days).
Thank you.
I think this has been asked a few times now. The answer is that the website works perfect on mobile so an app would do nothing. Just save the website to your home screen and it acts just like an app.
For Reddit, I had Sync Pro, and it was a million times better than the web app, in that it loaded quicker, scrolled faster, and put a icon in the notification bar without having to mess with it on Chrome. Even if Reddit was as optimized as Tildes, it would be nice to have an app for offline browsing, mental compartmentalization of using the browser for one less thing, and generic sliding and clicking that make an app feel better for me to use. I'm comfortable with Tildes in the webspace, but if I wanted a native app, that would be my wish list.
An alternative is to use an app called Hermit, which lets you add websites as apps to your home screen (which most browsers already let you do), but with a lot of helpful features, like pull to refresh, themes, notifications (by checking a url), a reader mode, and more.
These threads have some info on this:
It's probably in one of the linked posted but you can add tildes as a hermit app on mobile. It takes any webpage and basically full screens it and adds a home screen button -- functionally the same as an app. I've not bothered to setup notifications but from what I gather it's possible.