Phones

Hi all, I, like it seems most others have migrated over here from the wonderful Giantbomb community and was wondering if anyone has thought or is in the process of developing a Tested app for Android. Giantbomb users Harris, poserdonut and Drew created a great interface that mimics the iPhone app they created. I would love to be able to access the content and videos from this site on the go in a clean and streamlined interface on my phone. I don't know enough about coding to be able to do this myself but if anyone wanted to take this on know that you would be greatly appreciated!

Here is a link to the other app I was talking about, just for reference.
 
  http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/giant-bomb-android-application-now-in-beta/387862/

@Bhouse563:   
Currently, Tested is still in its preview stage and thus the API required for creating such an app is unavailable.    

I'd expect we'd see a Tested iPhone app before an android one, and then the inevitable port over would occur.  I don't think such a thing exists yet though.

I wonder how hard it would be to convert the giantbomb app into a tested app, seeing as they both run on Django.. I don't really know much about coding, 'tis just a speculation.

that would be great

I would think an iPhone app would come first. I'm not so sure it's necessary right now though, as the site is still new. As the articles and videos build then an iPhone/Android app would be great. I just hope they one-up Giant Bomb and figure out how to do a mobile version of the forums within the app. 

@david:  Thanks for the info david, I guess I will just keep my eyes peeled for the "Preview" tag to go away!

It would be great but you should realize that the time and dedication of a user was what made the Giantbomb Andrioid app. Also different skews for the Tested app will probably come out when the site becomes officially official. 

@Bhouse563: I'm one of the main developers behind the Giant Bomb android app, and I'd love to make a Tested app. If/when they open up their API, assuming it's similar to the other whiskey media sites, it would be pretty easy to convert the GB app to a Tested app. The only issue would be the videos. Giant Bomb videos are also encoded in a format that works on mobile devices, for the iPhone app, which I was able to find and use for the Android app. So far other Whiskey Media sites do not do this. So, there may not be video support, but everything else should work. I recently ported the app for Comic Vine as an experiment, and it worked pretty well, other than the video.

@harris: It might be ok if the videos weren't implemented in the tested app, seeing as they do much less video content than giantbomb does, and more readable articles. It's nice to see that the man himself is interested in this 

@harris:  I was hoping you would see this! I most definitely know that you have done a lot of work for the Giantbomb app as I use that on my HTC Droid Eris every freaking day! If you need any help I have been looking into how to create Android apps and am more than willing to learn. If you do create one I would love to know! Again, many thanks for everything you do.

@Bhouse563: You're very welcome :) And sure, help all you'd like! We're always open to developers or anyone looking to contribute. I'd recommend checking out Google's Android Dev Guide to get started with Android development. If you feel like you're ready to contribute, shoot me a PM and we'll set something up.

so any news on the app?

They're building a webapp instead so anybody can use it. As long as they pay, of course.

We don't have plans to develop anymore in house iPhone/Android/iPad apps. There's no reason users can't develop those apps if you guys want them--except we don't have the API enabled on Tested since we don't have a wiki. Once we have a wiki, I'd guess that we'll flip the switch on the API, and at that point it will be fair game for anyone to develop mobile apps using the API. 
 
We're rolling out mobile (m.) versions of all the Whiskey sites as part of the subscription service. Given the engineering resources we have, it makes much more sense to develop m. sites that will work for anyone who has a decent browser on their phone than to develop individual apps for each platform and site. Dave already talked about why that's part of the subscription, but the TLDR for that post is that the economics of developing a mobile site right now would have prevented us from doing it, because we could never have made money at it.

Yeah i sorta agree with the m sites...but i like having the app button to push on!!!...LoL

@Gonmog said:

" Yeah i sorta agree with the m sites...but i like having the app button to push on!!!...LoL "

If you're using android (probably possible on iPhones but I don't own one so iunno), make tested.com a bookmark, then add it to one of your home screens. Voila, a button that links to Tested.com ;)

  Look at this preview of the mobile site that should be launching tomorrow (if you become a subscriber that is)    
It looks pretty good to be honest and a great way to service all hand held devices without ridiculous development time for each platform. Sure when the wiki is made and the API's are turned on someone will make an app but i think this mobile optimised version is no big compromise and will be kept up to date with any new features added.