Tapatalks - Anyone is using "Build your own App"

phreak · July 2013

Hi alle,

For about two months i'm now testing the new Tapatalk BYO and just wanted to inform you that it is quite nice.

The Tapatalk team offers a Android and a iOS App for a subscription fee of about $39.- if you'd like to get an Android and iOS app version. What you get is a (in some ways) customizable Tapatalk app with your app-icons, colours or notification system. Test and App Store submit version can then be downloaded and set up on your own Apple or Android Developer/Distribution account.

From what i experienced the team is very very helpfull and their forum is full of tutorials if you're submitting an app for the first time. They also share new beta-version and as the iOS App has made a lot of design changes for better it was quite interesting to see what is coming upfront. Only the release could be managed better regarding language support. A lot of languages are only partly translated (they run a open translation system on crowdin.net where everyone can contribute) and it takes some time till they are taken to the core. Some bugs and glitches do even appear in the app, but from what i see this gets more seldom and the apps better.

Important to mention that there is also a setup fee of $99 dollars for the first app, but you can manage more forums in the BYO administration and you are not going to pay the setup fee again for them. Also AdMob, Google Analytics, Google DFP, App Ratings, iAd is supported for those interested in in app advertising.

The Vanilla branch is right now the weakest one as far as i can tell from the feedback in the tapatalk community.

If you have question just let me know, i think it's a very interesting add-on to your regular desktop andmobile site. A lot of people are hanging around in app stores and so i already had about some hundred downloads without doing a lot marketing for the app itself.

Anyone else using it?

Here is some info: http://tapatalk.com/build.php
Here is the support-forum: https://support.tapatalk.com/

Greetz

mbforums · July 2013

i would rather have it outsourced on freelancer...the price is aa bit high to host the app. Maybe, offer one time fee for startups etc..

phreak · July 2013

Do you really think that $39 a month is high for continuous development for Android and iOS? Ieek, what are the hourly coding rates in your country.
App itself is not hosted you can download it and it's yours at that point.

hgtonight · July 2013

I personally really dislike Tapatalk. That said, these are the reasons I would caution against using this custom application option.

I thought the appeal of Tapatalk is that a user only has to download one app and be able to visit all Tapatalk enabled forums? This custom app seems counter-intuitive in this regard.

With the built in ability to serve a different theme to mobile users, Vanilla is designed to support mobiles natively. This makes this feature redundant.

It is poor UX design to nag a user to download a one off application that provides no more function than the desktop/mobile site.

The bottom line is that this might make sense for your community.

Thanks for sharing @phreak

@phreak said:
Ieek, what are the hourly coding rates in your country.

LOL

phreak · October 2015

After 2 and 1/2 year working with them my opinion is... Tapatalk's BYO is pure fraud. Don't use it if your run Vanilla and quiet some other forums.

I've been a customer for Tapatalk for 2 1/2 years and ran 6-10 apps for Vanilla. I've been helping with the massive load of bugs by filing them and making annotated sreenshots, worked regulary on updating the translations and paid every single months between $120 to 200$ for the apps.

Unfortunately Tapatalk did never help me according to their promise or in the sense what a SAS model should do and is the ethical contract between a customer and the company offering the service.

In the last 12 months problems became so bad and bugs so much that even forum users couldn't write posts on the app for months. I've been played by them with hundreds of promises there will be fixes and i can have refund and many many conversations and emails went down, most of and about my initiative.

But TAPATALK NEVER REALLY HELPED. They just kept me with "soon", "coming month", "we'll respond next week" and weird offers i should agree to. I had to find out that i just wanted to have Apps for my forums and was faaaar to patient and they didn't move a single finger in the last months. I clearly gave them too many chances, actually to be honest TAPATALK fucked me quiet good. They also forced me not to speak in public about bugs anymore and moved me to email and private messages, i was stupid to agree on this.

Recently they managed to implement things you don't want while you are a paying customer. They use your content for their revenue on their ad network, they kept copyright labels inside the app and so on while many ask for white labeling when they pay for the app. This and many things were always a discussion and many of the support topics in their forum do not come from the failure of the BYO users, it comes from regular bugs that appear in every version.

I will spread this information on the internet about this because it's important that people now the "black sheeps" inside the SAS industry. Just that you know i'm not a hater... i think it's important that people read many arguments and positions on things and this will also be one of someone who experienced the most awfull customer behaviour of all time (even worser and picked with more lies than my own mobile phone company ).

I just mention this so you have another perspective on those guys also.
So be carefull when working with them, they say Vanilla is supported, it actually i not.

Tapatalks - Anyone is using "Build your own App"

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