TL;DR – ottoneu is now mostly responsive and works much better on mobile devices, so visit on your mobile phone and let me know what you think!
In my last post, I dug into some of the most common ottoneu feature requests and built as much as I could during a little break from my day job over the holidays. When I first requested feature ideas on Facebook, and really every time I’ve ever asked the community for their wishlist, there is one common request that I wasn’t able to address over the holidays – a mobile app.
There are a couple reasons for this:
- Building native apps for Android and iPhone would distract me from continuing to improve the core ottoneu platform
- Maintaining (at least) two native apps while also maintaining the platform is a heavy ask for a single person who is, for now, running ottoneu as a side project.
- Native apps are a less flexible approach to mobile device support than making the existing site work well on mobile devices
With regards to #3 above, apps mean unique development for each mobile platform, a lack of support for future devices, and less than instantaneous addition of new website features. A mobile-friendly web layout addresses all of these issues. In reality, all these issues I’ve enumerated boil down to one thing – I’d rather try to build one thing (the core website) well, instead of three things (website, iOS app, Andoird app) poorly.
With all this in mind, I started digging into a mobile-specific layout for ottoneu this weekend, and I made a lot more progress than I expected! I am continuing to tweak little things here and there, but you can see it in action now. You will need to clear your browser’s cache to see the latest changes, and if you don’t take this step the site will look broken. Please check it out and let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or notice potential for improvements.