Tapatalk support dropped

[Crispin]

Folks,

I, like a lot of prominent forums, have decided to pull support for TapaTalk.

Why:
They started off as a brilliant tool. When mobile web was in it's infancy and quite clunky to use they saw a gap. In the early days they were really good. Slowly though they became more and more evil though. As their user-base grew, so their tactics for nastier and they started becoming the forum rather than the paid-for reader they were supposed to be. What?

Their first "trick" was to keep your content such as images etc and not actually pass it onto the forum to which you were posting. This causes a few headaches for us and it's also "steeling" the content from you and removing any control we have over it. As has happened in the past users have asked me to remove content for various reasons. If they, some shady Chinese company, have it, there is no hope of getting any support out of it.

The second, and ultimate annoyance came when I got an alert on my phone saying "You've been added to the LandCruiserClub.net group". WTF thinks I? What they have done is create a Tapatalk group called Land Cruiser Club (and used my logo!) and enrolled all you. This then becomes the forum. I know nothing of this, I see none of the content, users or anything. What they done is, as I see it, tricking users away from this community. Sadly, they did this with my help - I allowed them access to the content through their plugin.

Continuing to support TapaTalk is like me continuing to erode the close-knit community and ultimately handing all of you over to a nameless Chinese company. Something I cannot do.


The Good
This new platform on which we're running now is far far better on the mobile phone. It should be a lot better and a lot smoother to use than the old platform. More so, it's new and has a greater community and younger company developing it so enhancements will come through quicker keeping the platform more up to date with the current trends.


If I could ask a favour
A bit of their own medicine - for those on Tapatalk, if you are in the group please make a few mentions of where we have gone. I don't want the users in there thinking the tiny bubble is all that exists. We're out here


Thanks
Crispin

 

[TonyP]

Wow very sinister by them. I had used Tapatalk a few time early on, but soon irritated with them for some reason, can't remember what it was now but something along those lines of enrolling me to something. Anyway it became less useful to me so just used a normal browser.

 

[MarkW]

Its a shame as I used tapatalk to use the forum whilst on trips and the notification system was great to tell me if there had been an update withoutthe headache of having to log into a web based forum then scroll through finding relevant posts.

I did use it a lot setting up and managing last years Morocco trip when I didn't have web access.

Like a few I though WTF when I got the message about being enrolled recently but from what I've seen it just works as an instant messanger rather than a forum, so no topics just message

 

[Crispin]

and the notification system was great

That is coming soon I am told. The browser on your phone now (or will very soon) support "push notifications". When that happens and when we get the new version of this platform we will be able to push notifications to your phone as if it were an app. Should all be in the next few months if the devs are lead to be believed.

it just works as an instant messanger rather than a forum, so no topics just message

That was the push for me. It was an instant messenger with my logo and my domain name on but had nothing to do with me. They, like all big corps, just nibble slowly and much like the frog in the saucepan, before you know it they've got so much of you that you cannot back out. i.e. they take over the registration of users and throw the scraps to me. The step before that was images uploaded. They hold them, not me. Slowly slowly...

Pretty underhanded but I can see why they did it.

 

[Graham]

Never used them or it on any forum.

Glad in a way.

Gra.

 

[SpinDrift]

I used it for a while on my tablet, but in the end preferred just using the browser

 

[Pumpy]

I only tried it once, horrible bloody thing, much like many "apps" that proport to make life easier (ebays ap is shite for buying, can't find anything unless you go to the regular view) mostly they don't.

Tappacraps insistence on telling everyone the comment was posted via tappacrap and which phone it was used on is getting really annoying on other forums.

Glad to see the back of it here *applause smilie*

Now go fix the smilies

 

[clivehorridge]

I've got tippytap on my phone but could never get on with it.

No loss for me, I'll delete the AP too, 'cos I don't use it for anything else.

Still struggling with the new platform though, at the moment I don't find it very easy to use. The last upgrade of the menus on the old forum was very good, and I'd suggest Cris to aim to replicate it on the new platform, if he can.

Still early days....

JMHO of course.

 

[Crispin]

The last upgrade of the menus on the old forum was very good, and I'd suggest Cris to aim to replicate it on the new platform, if he can.

Yup, I do want to replicate that - I quite liked how it worked and think the general consensus was good too. What is there now "works" when you "understand" it. I think it's just different to what we're used to.

Still early days....

JMHO of course.

Constructive criticism is always welcome

 

[wobbly]

Interesting about how tapatalk work, I assumed it was you running the forum via them.

it is good in that it pulls together about 6 forums I follow into one place, and I find using the browser less easy.

is there the possibility of creating an app for the website, so there is a single button to press on the phone?

pete

 

[Paddler Ed]

Easiest way Pete is to set a bookmark for the forum and drop it on the home screen of chosen device.

 

[GeekOKent]

If there is an easy and available way to syndicate the content, or should not be too much work getting a native app going.

Regards,

 

[Crispin]

There is rss which, if you have a reader, allows you to read the forum but don't not, in my opinion, work well with forums as it's more read-and-forget type of thing.

I am working on a mod at the moment though which allows me (the software) to push alerts to your phone. So, even if your browser is closed you will get notifications on your phone that something has changed. This handles the notification issue.

As for other apps - not sure if there are others and if there are, I would look very carefully at them before trying them out. There will always be an ulterior motive with apps like this.

Give the mobile version of the website a go and a few days to understand it - it's actually very good. (iphone 6 bug notwithstanding )