Best Mobile Service, Tapatalk or ForumRunner or?

Which do you prefer?

  • Tapatalk

    Votes: 15 71.4%
  • ForumRunner

    Votes: 4 19.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 9.5%

  • Total voters
    21
I get hundreds of tapatalk users a week and 2 forumrunner users a week.
Just disabled forumrunner. No one seems to use it and its one more thing to keep up with.
 
The thing with Tapatalk is their code you install into your server... it is just terrible. To a point that I decided not to support it for Searchlight. It was a total chaos to create something reliable and efficient as search replacement. On the other hand, Forum Runner was a breeze to implement it. It really sucks the developer sold the product. I'm not even sure if IB is aware of the Searchlight implementation inside the mobile apps.
 
I really hope the Xenforo team has major plans for a mobile suite for XF... they should really already have one. With our mobile the world is in this day and age... it's a no-brainer.
 
I moved to XF expecting native mobile support eventually, since mobile is the future for communities.

My members have been clamoring for mobile support for over a year, and yet I don't want to go third party (non-native) unless I had absolutely no choice.

Seems I am at that point now. Will try Tapatalk.

Honestly, if I had any idea this is how thing would play out with XF, I might have stayed with vB. vB sucked, and IB sucks, but can anyone seriously make the case they are less competent than what we have seen around here the last 6 months?

/vent
 
Sigh .. yeah .. I've been chomping on the bit for ages now before starting a few new web projects. XF certainly IS technically the best forum solution at the moment .. but it totally lacks a real mobile plan of any kind (aside from various 3rd party add-ons .. of which some look brilliant/fantastic/awesome .. but obviously not what most are looking for in terms of wanting something so crucial to be a core part of the main package that isn't dependent on 3rd party updates).

For me neither Tapatalk nor Forumrunner are serious options .. the truth is very simple .. we need our sites/forums to work on ALL major mobile devices under as many possible conditions as possible! The truth is that the average user of a non-geek-heavy site will not bother with your forum if they have to go through the hassle of installing apps. It might be fine for power users and your mod team .. but if you rely on those services to serve all potential members using mobile then you simply aren't being realistic! By 2012 websites simply MUST work in ALL major browsers .. both PC AND Mobile included (the rest is simply nice extras .. but certainly should not be dependent upon)!

Read the following to get my personal take on the xF mobile situation:
http://xenforo.com/community/threads/mobile-development.32972/

That being said .. I will never go back to vB after they mangled the product back around 3.7ish when they totally bungled up the implementation and general planning of social stuffs and groups and a bunch of other things .. then changing their licensing policy .. and then making 4.0 even worse and essentially never delivering on a bunch of promises like a real CMS!

Personally I'm waiting until Nov 6th for xF .. the day after we see if IB's legal charges are dropped or not to see if 1.2 and mobile was actually developed or not (as we were told it was all along from last year until june 19th of this year) .. if there were some legal reasons for xF to have been keeping information from us all this time then I'm willing to accept that excuse. But if that wasn't the case and 1.2 isn't ready to go within a couple days after the court ruling, then that means the xF crew blatantly lied to our faces for several months on end about "development is ongoing" .. and I'll have no choice but to add xF to my list of companies I simply cannot trust or depend upon!

I sincerely hope that's not the case .. and in my gut for the longest time I really trusted the xF team .. but despite what 99% of people on this board will tell you one way or the other .. there simply is no way to know for sure either way until the court case is resolved!

I personally believed them when they stated (right up until June 19th) that there would be a beta with mobile available by the end of June 2012 .. I planned my personal time developing my new projects based on that rough timeframe .. but I personally simply cannot wait any longer .. I'm giving until Nov 6th .. and if there's no news then I'm going to probably go with IPB. Their overall product seems fairly solid (admitedly I prefer the core forum of xF .. but the extras with IBP certainly can make up for it depending on your needs) .. and their mobile skin looks solid as well .. but more importantly than anything else they seems like a relatively trustworthy company that I can actually depend upon .. they may not have the perfect solution .. but it's good enough for me to build upon .. much more so if you also consider that the integrity of the products (and people/companies who build them) is an important part of the foundation of your internet projects (or any project for that matter).

I really hope to be using xF 1.2 by mid November .. and I really hope that the only reason the integrity of the xF team is in question is because they've had to keep quiet and evasive for strict legal reasons .. and that in the end when they told us for multiple months on end that "development was ongoing" that that was actually the truth ... but it's a coin toss at this point .. about half a dozen people probably know the actual real truth .. so if you can afford to wait it out then do so as xF has the potential to be something great .. but if you can no longer afford to wait any longer .. then give yourself until november 6th .. and if there is no significant news at that point .. then it's definitely time to move on I'm sorry to say! :(
 
I know Rob (ClemsonJeeper) told me he was going to still be handling ForumRunner for the immediate future but I havent talked to him in a while. Ive known Rob a long time (15 years maybe) and his word is good with me but like everyone else, I wish he hadnt sold to IB.

That being said, we're using Forum Runner on our big forum and it works great. Im using Tapatalk on one of my smaller forums and it works okay as well. If it stays the same, Forum Runner has a better licensing model.
 
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