Is there a special address for access a mobile view of the site? I navigated to it from my phone but it didn’t autodetect it and show a mobile view.
I’d like to be able to navigate from my phone and perhaps see a list of my folders all collapsed. Once I touch a folder, it would open up and show the feeds inside of the folder. Once I touch a feed, it would show me the stories in the feed.
I tried out the android app (I’m using an adroid phone) but the app isn’t useful for me right now – it doesn’t use the entire screen of my phone, for example. Maybe it will be ready for prime time at some point in the future. So right now, I’d like to be able to use the web ui.
I built a beta of a mobile interface. Needless to say, it sucks. But you’re mileage may vary: http://www.newsblur.com/m/. You’ll want to login on www.newsblur.com first, but the cookie should stick.
If you find that it doesn’t suck as bad as I think it does, I’d be happy to fix things that may not work properly.
By the way, that crappy mobile experience is what got me to write the native iPhone app, which is a far better experience.
Just tried it out. Sucks even worse than I thought. But yeah, mobile web is hard to make performant. But this is much, much worse than it could be. If I get any more me-toos on mobile web, I’ll invest some time. But it’s not likely, since the native apps are there doing their good work.
What I’m missing is a version that works on the iPad. If the regular web version would work with touch, that’d be great. But since you’re already going down the native app route, I’d be fine with a native iPad version too. It should be obvious from my other posts on here, but I do like being able to customize with bookmarklets, so my vote’s still for a web version.
I have way too many projects going on right now, so I have to keep restraining myself from trying to build a NewsBlur client in SproutCore.
As I like to mention, the second I get an iPad I’ll start working on a native iPad version. *whistles* That may be when the iPad 3 comes out, though. By then, I hope, the iPhone app will be launched, Search and Social will be launched, and I’ll finally have time to make the iPad version.
I tried out the mobile version some more on my phone, and can’t get it to scroll down past the first screen. When I do, there is a delay as it tries to load, then it jumps back up to the top. That’s with the default browser on my android build. (want version numbers?).
I downloaded Opera out of curiosity and things were completely wonky with that. I’m not sure what it was trying render, but I couldn’t see anything on the page. Opera wouldn’t let me scroll around to figure out what was going on.
Aside, on the mobile view, it would be nice to hide the unread feeds. I would probably even use that since I’d have things to click on at the top.
Btw, I haven’t had time to play around enough to know if there is a good sort-by-interest for the feed/folder view. If there was, that would probably make the mobile view even better.
Btw, I wish I had more time so that I could look at the source code.
I forgot to add that in the non-mobile url, the Get Satisfaction porition of the page is hidden when viewed from the default android browser on my phone.
Android version 2.3.7, Kernel version 2.6.35.13_CyanogenMod+bumble-bee@Hive2 # 1, Mod version CyanogenMod-7.1.0-SelfKANG10-Sensation, build number GRJ22
KANG10 seems a bit extra flakey for me, in case anyone is curious
My mobile web interface ( http://mobileblur.spiffyte.ch/ ) and newsblur.com/m are built with different technologies (Python vs JavaScript), so the code cannot be merged. New features would have to be implemented in either project from scratch.
I’ve implemented into MobileBlur most of the major features I’m personally interested in (just folder support remains), but I’m open to adding other features to make the experience better if there’s enough interest.
Where are we at with this? I don’t really want to have a client on my Windows Phone (although one would be nice that did river of news properly). I just want a mobile version of newsblur. As soon as it’s available I’ll be signing up (current /m link doesn’t work anymore) for a pay account.
I’m going to have to spend some time with the native iOS app, but my initial response is disappointment there’s no mobile interface for the website.
RSS feeds are for websites, so a separate app means I’m continually jumping between the reader app and Safari. e.g. on Ars Technica I often read the comments on an article, rate them, reply… and I want to do this in Safari rather than a web window inside an app.
It appears the http://www.newsblur.com/m/ does not work at the moment? In particular, a shell page loads, then /…/ajaxloaderpng?[timestamp] fails to load, and there’s some other javascript errors ("[object Object] has no method ‘split’" @ mobile.js:230)
Have you tried Metroblur? If you have and didn’t like it for whatever reason I would appreciate an email so I can try and fix it; metroblur -at- viennan -dot- net
Sad to say this is a deal breaker for me: as suspected, requiring a mobile app just means too much switching between the Newsblur app and Safari; particularly painful when trying to save to the Reading List. I’ve switched to Netvibes.
Best wishes Samuel. I think the work you have done and your level of commitment is awesome and professional.
