Blackberry, PDA/smartphones, et al for visiting HTF? (1 Viewer)

[ManW_TheUncool]

Are people using their PDA/smartphones, especially one of the newer Blackberries, to visit HTF nowadays?

Just wondering since I'm finally getting a Blackberry Tour (from work) and might want to use it to do quick, regular visits on HTF (and some other sites I frequent daily). Would be good to get the lowdown on how best to approach HTF w/ a Blackberry Tour (or similar), especially since RIM's web browser is known to be rather spotty in compatibility and performance. I'm aware that RIM is coming out w/ OS 5.0 (that's downloadable for just about all their devices in the near future) and will likely include a better web browser, but I don't think my Tour will have OS 5.0 yet -- and it seems the Tour might end up being one of the last models to get the official upgrade.

I do also have an iPod Touch that I use sparingly to check stuff on the web, but since a PC (or a PS3 for that matter when I'm home) is rarely far away when I also happen to have WiFi access, I haven't really bothered to use it for HTF -- I'm also aware that HTF is not very iPod Touch/iPhone-friendly anyway when it comes to actually writing messages, so...

BTW, will we be getting a mobile-friendly version of HTF in the forseeable future? If yes, what's the planned time frame for that?

Thanks...

_Man_

PS: Not sure if this actually belongs in the Feedback or Suggestions section or here, but figured I'd start here first and see...

 

[Hanson]

I've been browsing HTF on my smartphone since my Treo 650 days (circa 2005).

Man-Fai, have you tried installing Opera Mini on your Tour? It's free and much faster than any default browser. I'm not sure how well it works on the Tour, but on my HTC Touch Pro 2, it loads HTF pages in a snap and I can reply and reply with quotes (having a slide out keyboard helps).

I just upgraded from the keyboardless HTC Touch Diamond, and I can never go back. A hardware keyboard is a necessity for me.

 

[Sam Posten]

Using HTF on an iPhone is horrendous and the staff here and at Huddler have repeatedly stated (in the feedback forum) that this is a long term but not high priority goal for them to improve. Incredible but true.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I may end up giving Opera Mini and maybe also Bolt(?) a try on my new Tour, especially if OS 5.0 (w/ the new browser) doesn't come out soon for the Tour.

I did some browsing of HTF w/ my Tour yesterday (or rather, the day before now), and boy was all the scrolling a serious pain on it, especially since I hadn't figured out how to jump to the top (or the bottom) of the page yet -- now I know though.

Didn't bother to try posting w/ it as I didn't really want javascript enabled on it -- js apparently bogs it down big time and also doesn't work very well on it anyway. I'll probably wait until a browser upgrade/switch before I try posting w/ it.

_Man_

 

[Parker Clack]

Actually for me having a mobile skin for the site IS a high priority. I just haven't been able to get it implemented. I find our site a real pain to navigate with anything other than Opera Mini. Using it on my HTC Touch Diamond wasn't that great and takes forever to load with my Ipod Touch. I just picked up an HTC Hero that I have yet to try to load our site on but will be downloading Opera Mini for it soon and let you know.

The bottom line is that we need a skin for mobile phones but getting it done has be a real challenge to say the least.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Since the switch, I have stopped visiting the site completely with my Blackjack. Even using Opera Mini, navigation is a PITA since everything loads and I have to scroll forever to get to forum links and make it through posts.

 

[Hanson]

Clinton, I've only used Opera Mini on windows mobile phones, but left/right on the Dpad in mobile view sent a pg up/dn command in 4.x. They removed this functionality in 5.2, but they did add flick scrolling for touchscreen users, so it.was an okay tradeoff for me. What version of Mini were/are you using on your Blackjack? And Parker, I also used Mini 4.x on the Touch Diamond, and while it wasn't perfect, I didn't have any specific issues loading and navigating HTF. Mini on the Touch Pro 2 is like butter in comparision (I'm posting from it. right now).

 

[Clinton McClure]

I was using 4.2. The pg up/down was nice, but it took too long to download the entire page (AT&T non-3G area) and I was still scrolling haphazardly up or down trying to find the right link to click. With the well-designed WAP skin of old, there was only text data transferred and all the forum links were there as soon as the page opened. No hunting and scrolling. Even on a slow network, the WAP skin made HTF quick and easy to navigate.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I'm currently trying both Opera Mini 4.2 and Bolt 1.62 on my Blackberry Tour,
and Bolt is winning more or less hands down for me. Bolt behaves a good deal
more like a full featured standard web browser although there are still some
minor useability flaws on a mobile device -- and I'm not sure how nicely it'll
work w/out 3G access. Still, I find Opera Mini 4.2 to have many more flaws than
its one or maybe two (nav) advantages can offset.

So far, I find Bolt to work pretty well w/ HTF for basic stuff, which is all I really
need, and it even manages to load just about everything (or so it seems)
although not perfectly, which is to be expected. I'm currently writing this post
w/ Bolt.

Would be nice though if I can insert emoticons in the right place w/ it. Haven't
tried quoting and other post writing tools yet, but Opera Mini didn't load the
posting tools at all for me anyway.

If you're not that happy w/ Opera Mini 4.2, you might want to give Bolt a try,
assuming your particular device is supported.

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

Does the Blackberry have Opera Mini 5.0? I started using it on my Touch Pro 2 in December, and after a few days adjusting from 4.2, I haven't looked back. Of course, my experience on the TP2 in no way parallels the Blackberry, so Bolt may be the best option for you. I'm posting from Mini right now. Even in 5.0, no smilies.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Isn't Opera Mini 5.0 still in beta (2)?

I will probably give it a try on my BB Tour when it goes into full prod release for BB -- well, I may just wait until BB OS 5.0 is out (for the Tour) first before trying Mini 5.0.
The one issue I'm noticing w/ both Bolt and Opera Mini 4.2 (on the BB Tour) is I often find a need to input something 2x for it to register. For some reason, Bolt seems to do an unexpected(?) refresh after I enter something in a field -- and it often loses the input during that refresh, requiring me to re-enter. This doesn't usually happen w/ posts in forums, but it happens a lot w/ stuff like login fields. The same thing seems to happen w/ Mini 4.2 also.

Maybe it's just something odd w/ the BB OS (v4.7) and how these java-based(?) browsers are handled on/by it -- or maybe it could be a javascript handling issue causing the refresh. I don't see the same problem w/ the native BB browser (which mostly ignores javascripts by default). However, the native browser sucks in too many other ways (including essentially non-existent javascript support) -- and it seemed to get gradually less stable as I used it until it completely stopped working (ie. just gets stuck trying to download anything off the web) and needed a complete reboot of the device.

_Man_

 

[Hanson]

5.0 is indeed beta, but there are so many little improvements over 4.2 that I totally ditched the older version.

I have used browsers on various mobile phones, and I am shocked by how slow and terrible they are. Even the slightly better Palm OS browser and iPhone Safari are too slow for my tastes. The Opera Mobile that comes with the Windows Mobile HTC phones is also slow and aggravating. That's why I'm so big on Mini -- it's the only mobile browser that has speed. Skyfire is pretty bad on the TP2 -- I recently did a factory reset on my phone and didn't even bother reinstalling it.

But you bring up a great point -- since Mini is Java based, your experience is only as good as your phone runs Java. I have a custom Java program running on Windows Mobile 6.1, and it's probably the reason my Mini experience and yours are so different.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Anyone else here having problems logging into HTF w/ their mobile browser of choice?

I haven't been able to log in w/ Bolt v1.7 on my BB Tour for the past week or two. I don't get any error messages. It just behaves like I hadn't actually submitted the login input -- though the login fields continue to show my login input, including the "remember me" checkbox, after the page returns/reloads w/out actually logging in.

So it's been too troublesome to bother checking the site w/ my BB Tour lately.

Anyone else having similar problems?

_Man_

 

[Parker Clack]

_Man_


I will submit a ticket on this.


I have not stopped telling Huddler that we need a mobile app for the site. And I will not until it is implemented.


Parker

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Hi, Parker.


Thanks for that.


My mobile access on HTF seems to have improved somewhat since having trouble w/ login a while back. It's unclear to me whether Bitstream made some changes that essentially solved that particular problem for me, but I haven't had much problem w/ login of late (w/ Bolt v2.1).


Still, a more mobile-friendly version of HTF would be great for easier, faster (and more complete) access.


Thanks again...


_Man_

 

[mattCR]

I will say this: check with crackberry.com and download OS5 as fast as you can. Performance is much better. I use it and Opera Mini5. Good luck on my Bold.


But Nokia really pulled the hattrick today, with Mozilla releasing Firefox 1.1, a full version with full mode support for probably the best experience I've ever seen on a phone.