ForumApps presents Native XenForo Apps for iOS and Android

Aayush

Well-known member
Tired of hearing your users complain about not having a native mobile app for your forum? Don’t want to give out your data to Tapatalk anymore?
Gone are the days of Tapatalk and your users’ data on their servers.

The long awaited native XenForo apps for iOS and Android with push notifications support is finally here.

Engaging users has never been this easy. With push notifications, you can constantly keep your users engaged, drive traffic and monetize with strategically placed ads.

Your data is yours, the API is hosted on your server. Your data never leaves your server. The app is completely secure and only fetches and posts data on your server.

We wanted to give your users a simple way to interact with forums without the unnecessary fluff. With a cleanly designed user interface and thoroughly thought out user experience, we present to you the XenForo forum experience, now smoother and faster on your phone.

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Ever wondered why certain groups of users post once but never come back? There are more than a billion websites on the internet right now and user can get distracted easily by other websites and to regain his attention you need to constantly remind him of your existence with content related to him. Now you can encourage users to participate regularly in your community with push notifications support.

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We all hate those popups and misleading ads on the web. This is undoubtedly the number 1 reason for users installing ad blockers which reduces the necessary revenue stream required to run the website.
With our native XenForo app, add another stream of revenue to your forum with strategically placed unobtrusive ads. We support AdMob ads, which pay out high CPM and CPC rates.

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We know for sure that one size doesn’t fit all. So we tailor your app to your forums custom color scheme.

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To cover our continuous cost of development and providing support we are currently pricing the app at $20/mo, with an one time setup fees of $50.

To ensure that you and your community benefit from the mobile apps, we will be working very closely with you to deploy the apps and ensure your success. Due to this reason we have decided that we will have only 10 slots for purchasing the app.

So fill out the following form to reserve your and spot in the first 10 and know the next steps.

https://goo.gl/ov5ejd


FAQ
  1. Why the recurring fees?
    We believe to provide you with the best support and new features in future, this is necessary to cover our costs.

  2. Why only 10 slots?
    Our main purpose behind building ForumApps is to help communities engage more users by providing them with a simple, clean and fast way to access XenForo on their phones. We want each partner(you) to succeed and we can do this by focussing on the needs on your community and fulfilling those needs.
    We believe that 10 is the maximum that we can focus on at one point of time. Hence only 10 slots for now.

  3. When will I be able to buy again if I don’t get 1 of the slots this time?
    It could be 2 weeks or 2 months. Honestly, we have no idea either.

  4. Will you raise the prices in future?
    Yes, we do have plans to raise the price in future. We are consistently working to add features and add value to your apps. But if you enter in a particular slot, we assure you that we won’t increase the price your subscription. For eg. GameRebels is one of the first 10 forums who entered during the first round of offerings($20/mo) and the price increases during the second round to $40/mo, we assure that you will not raise the subscription amount for your apps.

  5. I am a non-technical guy, I don’t know how to upload apps. Can you do this for me?
    We will package, code sign and upload the apps to App Store for you as well as install the add-ons on your forums. So we envision this as a total hands-free setup for you.

To know more about the app visit http://forumapps.net
 
What about for iOS? Couldn't find in the app store
iOS version is currently being approved via Apple :)

I will give a full review once I'm off work, but Aayush has been nothing but helpful, and has been working on this for months. Anything that regarding any bugs or issues I bring to him, he fixes in a timely manner :)
 
Looks fantastic. I hope the pricing doesn't go up. As we have 2 forums 2 x $20 would be a push. More - maybe a no go.

If we have restricted areas requiring account upgrade would members be able to upgrade via the app?
 
Where are you seeing this? Not our experience at all. We are making 10x as much money with no apps now. Combination of normal mobile ads and amp ads far exceed any native app ad networks.

Referencing a research done by eMarketer.
https://www.google.co.in/amp/www.mobyaffiliates.com/blog/average-mobile-advertising-cpm-apps/amp/
  • 2016 US Mobile Media Spendings – 44$ billion
  • average mobile eCPM of July 2016 – $4
  • lowest iOS eCPM – $5
  • highest iOS eCPM – $10
  • lowest Android eCPM – $1.25
  • highest Android eCPM – $6
  • highest Facebook ads regional eCPM – $1.8 (Sweden)
  • average Banner ad format CPM – $1
  • average Interstitial ad format CPM – $3.5
  • average Video ad format CPM – $3
  • average Native ad format CPM – $10
 
Looks like a better implementation than what vbresults is trying to provide (and notifications work!), but is it necessary to register through the app just to browse the forum?
Yes, as of now. But we have noticed that it's not a requirement by our current API, so we are working to implement the thread pages without the reply box for non logged in users.
 
Looks fantastic. I hope the pricing doesn't go up. As we have 2 forums 2 x $20 would be a push. More - maybe a no go.

If we have restricted areas requiring account upgrade would members be able to upgrade via the app?
We currently haven't tied payments into the app, but surely we will be looking into the user upgrades functionality on near future.
However certain areas which are only accessible to certain members aren't shown to members who don't have adequate permission for it.

As for the prices, we believe that we would be providing you and your forum with excellent service and a quality product which will be updated regularly with new features and we would have to price the product accordingly in order to sustain us and at the same time deliver more value to you. Although not 100% likely that there will be a price increase but I'm trying to be open and genuine about our thoughts.
 
Congrats on your app launch :)
We are making 10x as much money with no apps now. Combination of normal mobile ads and amp ads far exceed any native app ad networks.
Exactly, and for fundamental reasons it's not surprising that browsers (and by extension webview-based apps) pull much more ad revenue. There is less ad space in 100% native apps and online purchases outside of the app stores are still largely driven by browsers, advertiser money follows that.
Looks like a better implementation than what vbresults is trying to provide (and notifications work!)

ForumApps is trying to release an API-based app so it's accurate to compare it to XenApp :)

If you are personally experiencing notification issues (there was an issue in the past, but it was fixed in 2.2), you can request help in the resource.
We currently haven't tied payments into the app, but surely we will be looking into the user upgrades functionality on near future.
Learned after publishing apps a few months that Apple does not allow user upgrades in the app. They force publishers to use their in-app payment system so they can take a 30% cut; if you don't use their system they won't allow your app on the store.
 
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Exactly, and for fundamental reasons it's not surprising that browsers (and by extension webview-based apps) pull much more ad revenue. There is less ad space in 100% native apps and online purchases outside of the app stores are still largely driven by browsers, advertiser money follows that.

@SneakyDave ForumApps appears to be API-based so it'd be more accurate to compare it to XenApp, when it's released :) If you are personally experiencing notification issues (there was an issue in the past, but it was fixed in 2.2), you can request help in the resource.

We understand that it wouldn't take more than an hour to develop something like that but we do not believe in that vision. We believe in providing the users with a better user experience which has been demonstrated time and again that it cannot be provided in an app wrapped up in a web-view wrapper.

As the world in going mobile and native apps are the best way to provide superior user experience(the key to user retention). We envision that the communities who have a strong mobile footprint and superior user experience, are the ones which will continue to thrive in the future.
 
We understand that it wouldn't take more than an hour to develop something like that
I understand why you would think so. A few others said the same and a year later they ended up producing nothing. I can go into the rest of your reply, but don't want to take this any further off-topic, this is about your app.

Congratulations on your launch :)
 
I'd love to see customization of pages shown on the navigation menu. I prefer new posts over recent posts, and recent activity page is a must.
Can you also support addons?
 
I'd love to see customization of pages shown on the navigation menu. I prefer new posts over recent posts, and recent activity page is a must.
Can you also support addons?
As I said before, the app is customizable. You can change the text of the navigation to anything you want.
We can support add-ons but we are looking to support only official XenForo addons at the moment but in future we are looking to collaborate with developers of popular add-ons.
 
Is app usage constrained by permissions or user group? i.e. only users (or user groups) I define can use the app?
Is the Admob advertising our own? Eg. Our advertising account? Or yours?
What is the timeframe for supporting XF add-ons?
Are image uploads native to the app? Eg. Can be at the post submit button, and have the option to take a photo and have it automatically added to the post?
 
Looks fantastic. I hope the pricing doesn't go up. As we have 2 forums 2 x $20 would be a push. More - maybe a no go.

If we have restricted areas requiring account upgrade would members be able to upgrade via the app?
$20/month is a no go for me in the first place.
 
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