Just to say I have almost completed my prototype: http://www.gingerbeardman.com/iphone/ This uses the iUI framework but I may switch to the more versatile WAn framework.
I will be proceeding with integration into a Vanilla theme when I get a bit more time. As well as investigating whatever addon or method is required to only serve this to iPhone/iPod Touch.
HINT: I recommend signing up for and downloading the free iPhone SDK. It comes with an iPhone Simulator program that lets you test websites in the iPhone environment. It's like having an iPhone on your desktop.
Hey folks, what's the progress on this? Beautiful theme, I'd love to play with it. Also, Dan, is it confirmed that your code for detecting the iphone to switch styles works?
I am slightly reluctant to go down the web-based route, simply because it is pretty slow and will be prone to breaking with the different and somewhat random selection of extensions each forum will have installed. It is also a good bit of work to do a theme, and I'm not really that familiar with the Vanilla PHP.
So: choices...
The Web approach I could ask one of you guys to help do the PHP/theme to my spec, and my CSS and AJAX would sit on the top. That takes the pressure off me and onto either somebody else, or split between both of us.
The issues with the web based approach still hold: slow, breakable, a lot of work.
The App approach I'm a certified iPhone developer with an app already in the App Store. So, I am considering doing a dedicated "Vanilla Forum" app, which would be available through the App Store at a small cost.
You'd launch the native app, enter your login credentials and the app would use the RSS2 extension as it's data source. The experience would be identical to my earlier iphone demo, but running as a native app rather than in Mobile Safari. Benefits of this approach would be speed increase, flexibility and ability to do "more", and it's price would fund it's development meaning I could work on it more. Cons are that it's a lot of work, but in a different way.
This is a fairly recent thought, so I'm still thinking it through...
I would say a combination of both.
The web approach is beneficial due to the fact that it allows universal access. Anyone with an iphone and an internet connection would be able to access the forum to read and make posts, exactly what people want to do be able to do on their phone. If their is already a web based Vanilla forum, the iPhone stylesheet should only kick in when an iPhone is detected. In the future, as the Android platform gains in popularity (which it will) another style could be developed which could kick in when an Android phone is detected. This would allow universal access to a forum on PC, on iPhone, and on Android devices and maintain real time consistency of posts and functionality.
Now, the biggest benefit I see for an iPhone app is that you could make money. BUT I believe people would be willing to pay for a custom forum software that works smoothly on the iPhone whether or not it comes as an official app. Therefore, by taking the web based route you could still make money by selling it as a stand alone software which people would use to set up an iphone compatible forum. VBulletin makes lots of money this way, theres no reason you couldn't do the same thing except specifically for the iphone. An iPhone app would not allow people to set up their own forum...it sounds like it would only allow them to access a specific forum. Even then, that means that every forum owner would have to release their own specific version of the app to pull RSS data from their specific forum. I may have misunderstood you, but it seems unclear what the iPhone app would exactly do if released by you the developer.
Final Thoughts:
I think you should use the Vanilla software, have the iPhone theme built in, and market the product as a stand alone "iPhone forum software" kind of like Vanilla itself except specially for iPhones. There is a lot of buzz going on right now about how much money people are making from iPhone apps. It is clear that the money making potential is there. There are lots of people out there who don't know how to develop their own apps but they do know how to set up a forum and I'm willing to bet that they would pay 10 or 20 bucks to try out a forum software that allows them to "take advantage" of the iPhone's popularity. I know that there is vBulletin plugin that allows Vbulletin forums to be viewed on the iPhone but they are limited in functionality whereas Vanilla's clean slick interface would shine. On the flip side, I know I would use a forum on my iPhone to read and make posts if it was easy to use, at it appears your theme would be.
I really see some potential here and if you do a google search you will see that this hasn't really been done yet.
Thanks for the detailed post! Lots of good thinking there.
I'm going to think some more about it. I also have a quick coding test I want to do on Monday when I'm back in the studio. Yes, I am self employed. Essentially the iPhone app is an RSS reader, but one that functions like my above demo, a bit like iPhone Mail. But with mine, you'd not realise it was using RSS as data unless told. And it would allow posting, searching etc.
Finally, would it be legal for me to sell a Vanilla Extension? What licence is Vanilla covered by?
Comments
This uses the iUI framework but I may switch to the more versatile WAn framework.
I will be proceeding with integration into a Vanilla theme when I get a bit more time. As well as investigating whatever addon or method is required to only serve this to iPhone/iPod Touch.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/putyourcontentinmypocket/
HINT: I recommend signing up for and downloading the free iPhone SDK. It comes with an iPhone Simulator program that lets you test websites in the iPhone environment. It's like having an iPhone on your desktop.
demo still at the URL above
I am slightly reluctant to go down the web-based route, simply because it is pretty slow and will be prone to breaking with the different and somewhat random selection of extensions each forum will have installed. It is also a good bit of work to do a theme, and I'm not really that familiar with the Vanilla PHP.
So: choices...
The Web approach
I could ask one of you guys to help do the PHP/theme to my spec, and my CSS and AJAX would sit on the top. That takes the pressure off me and onto either somebody else, or split between both of us.
The issues with the web based approach still hold: slow, breakable, a lot of work.
The App approach
I'm a certified iPhone developer with an app already in the App Store. So, I am considering doing a dedicated "Vanilla Forum" app, which would be available through the App Store at a small cost.
You'd launch the native app, enter your login credentials and the app would use the RSS2 extension as it's data source. The experience would be identical to my earlier iphone demo, but running as a native app rather than in Mobile Safari. Benefits of this approach would be speed increase, flexibility and ability to do "more", and it's price would fund it's development meaning I could work on it more. Cons are that it's a lot of work, but in a different way.
This is a fairly recent thought, so I'm still thinking it through...
Any thoughts?
I'm going to think some more about it. I also have a quick coding test I want to do on Monday when I'm back in the studio. Yes, I am self employed. Essentially the iPhone app is an RSS reader, but one that functions like my above demo, a bit like iPhone Mail. But with mine, you'd not realise it was using RSS as data unless told. And it would allow posting, searching etc.
Finally, would it be legal for me to sell a Vanilla Extension? What licence is Vanilla covered by?
I'll look into it.
ps: dan39's simple user agent detection code works.