6 ms·

Turn Your Blog Into An iPad Native With PadPressed

42 points by jasonlbaptiste 16y ago

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Hey, this is a side project Andres, Myself, and Armando put together over the past couple of months. Pretty much to scratch a need- we wanted our blogs to function like native iPad apps without writing the native iPad app (I've been writing more and Andres runs PulsoSocial). Armando has done some very cool things with touch technology and JS libraries. He'll be on a bit if you guys have questions on the tech end (he's also writing a more in depth tech post).
- quizbiz 16y ago
  Job well done. I look forward to learning about the scripts that make it happen.
  - andreshb 16y ago
    Armando will publish an article on the tech details soon. =)
  - armandososa 16y ago
    Hopefully I'll be packaging some of the niceties as reusable libraries.
- westi 16y ago
  Looks really nice. I looked around the site but I couldn't see what the licence was for the WordPress plugin?
  - jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
    PadPressed <3 GPL. Adding a blog post to clarify that later.
    - westi 16y ago
      Excellent.
- pieter 16y ago
  It looks like a cool project, but my experience with it wasn't really nice. I tried it on my iPad, after reading this post, and I still wasn't sure where/that I could drag to scroll the content, and that was after knowing it was made specifically for the iPad. It also had some problems with registering the touches, with the picture slide view at the top stopping responding halfway through. When viewing the posts themselves, everything was slow and the text rendered with glitches. Perhaps you're overdoing the effects? I think I'd prefer the normal website for now.
  - jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
    Hey pieter, thanks for the feedback. We're still adjusting a lot of the sensitivity for the touch interactions. We did testing beforehand, but right now we're hoping enough set of feedback data points can tell us where to adjust things. We've thought about settings in the admin panel: sensitive, more sensitive, etc.
bjplink 16y ago
To start, I just want to say that I like the concept of this a lot. It's one of those "Why didn't I think of this?" ideas. But to be a little critical, the web site for it needs some work. It's too heavy on the shadow effect for the text in the body and the menu. It's tough to read. I get that the plugin uses some high-end Javascript but maybe it's best left for the plugin and not the promotional site. The screenshots inside the front page slider are too small to be really useful and I wonder if you can get away with just one long video instead of making me click and load six videos separately.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  Thank you! At first it was a whole lot simpler, then Armando kept coming up with new things. We're already working on some nuts HTML5 stuff for the future (offline caching is one). Yeah, we'll work on the main site over time. We have a long demo video, but we felt doing separate screen-casts would be useful. Right now it's kind of the first launch step. Lots more to do. I should probably listen to more of my advice from the article I wrote earlier today.
- chaosmachine 16y ago
  Yeah, I would kill that "black on black" shadow text ASAP, it's almost unreadable without highlighting it.
  - jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
    It was on my list and then I got caught up with the TechCrunch interview. I basically recreated techcrunch in 30 minutes, installed padpressed,etc. for the article. It actually has the shadow applied to all the text on the site, so if I remove it there, it makes the rest work. Hence, my lazy ass needs to create another style, apply that to the featured div, and voila, no more shadow.
BrianAnderson 16y ago
I am really struggling with some of the comments on TC. Maybe I am naive, but $50 is a drop in the bucket for the amount of time padpressed could save you plus the increase of your brand affinity. Given I am going to be launching a start-up soon that is a lot more expensive than $50, wondering what the communities thoughts are. Does the HN community feel $50 is too high, too low, or just right for padpressed?
- bjplink 16y ago
  Considering most of the people who bother to comment on a TechCrunch article are just trolling for backlinks I wouldn't let what they say bother you too much. Also, I think TC readers are notoriously poor performers when it comes to actionable signups/registrations/purchases of the things they're so quick to comment on. I'm not sure their thoughts on pricing are worth much.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  Yeah, the overly one sided (good or bad) comments on TC or the net in general don't hold much weight. Our thought on initial pricing was this: People pay for Wordpress themes AND plugins. This is somewhere in the middle. Woothemes charges $70 no problem, wptouch pro is $30, and other advanced plugins can cost $100. Let's start with $50. It's less than WooThemes, but more than wptouch pro.
  - BrianAnderson 16y ago
    Good to hear that I wasn't alone in that thinking! I would be an interesting experiment in pricing. All things "iPhone" get premium priced (except the amount a user is willing to pay for the app), so I wonder if it could be priced higher, or if since the iPad distribution is much lower, it will result in a lower price point. Of course it is always easier to wonder when it is not your product that is being impacted :)
- brianbreslin 16y ago
  I see this as being comparable to a premium theme price, those run $50-75 from woothemes or wherever. If you're serious about your blog, and a big ipad user or have heavy ipad traffic, its nothing. that being said, i think we'll see a LOT more premium plugins and themes for sale soon for wordpress.
hartror 16y ago
Great idea, must have been nice developing a theme without having to worry about IE.
- armandososa 16y ago
  I don't know why the downvotes. It is really amazing when you can work with standards in a reliable way.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  heh, ensuring compatibility with other plugins and wp versions makes up for it.

Hey, this is a side project Andres, Myself, and Armando put together over the past couple of months. Pretty much to scratch a need- we wanted our blogs to function like native iPad apps without writing the native iPad app (I've been writing more and Andres runs PulsoSocial). Armando has done some very cool things with touch technology and JS libraries. He'll be on a bit if you guys have questions on the tech end (he's also writing a more in depth tech post).

quizbiz 16y ago
Job well done. I look forward to learning about the scripts that make it happen.
- andreshb 16y ago
  Armando will publish an article on the tech details soon. =)
- armandososa 16y ago
  Hopefully I'll be packaging some of the niceties as reusable libraries.
westi 16y ago
Looks really nice. I looked around the site but I couldn't see what the licence was for the WordPress plugin?
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  PadPressed <3 GPL. Adding a blog post to clarify that later.
  - westi 16y ago
    Excellent.
pieter 16y ago
It looks like a cool project, but my experience with it wasn't really nice. I tried it on my iPad, after reading this post, and I still wasn't sure where/that I could drag to scroll the content, and that was after knowing it was made specifically for the iPad. It also had some problems with registering the touches, with the picture slide view at the top stopping responding halfway through. When viewing the posts themselves, everything was slow and the text rendered with glitches. Perhaps you're overdoing the effects? I think I'd prefer the normal website for now.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  Hey pieter, thanks for the feedback. We're still adjusting a lot of the sensitivity for the touch interactions. We did testing beforehand, but right now we're hoping enough set of feedback data points can tell us where to adjust things. We've thought about settings in the admin panel: sensitive, more sensitive, etc.

bjplink 16y ago

To start, I just want to say that I like the concept of this a lot. It's one of those "Why didn't I think of this?" ideas. But to be a little critical, the web site for it needs some work. It's too heavy on the shadow effect for the text in the body and the menu. It's tough to read. I get that the plugin uses some high-end Javascript but maybe it's best left for the plugin and not the promotional site. The screenshots inside the front page slider are too small to be really useful and I wonder if you can get away with just one long video instead of making me click and load six videos separately.

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Thank you! At first it was a whole lot simpler, then Armando kept coming up with new things. We're already working on some nuts HTML5 stuff for the future (offline caching is one). Yeah, we'll work on the main site over time. We have a long demo video, but we felt doing separate screen-casts would be useful. Right now it's kind of the first launch step. Lots more to do. I should probably listen to more of my advice from the article I wrote earlier today.
chaosmachine 16y ago
Yeah, I would kill that "black on black" shadow text ASAP, it's almost unreadable without highlighting it.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
  It was on my list and then I got caught up with the TechCrunch interview. I basically recreated techcrunch in 30 minutes, installed padpressed,etc. for the article. It actually has the shadow applied to all the text on the site, so if I remove it there, it makes the rest work. Hence, my lazy ass needs to create another style, apply that to the featured div, and voila, no more shadow.

BrianAnderson 16y ago

I am really struggling with some of the comments on TC. Maybe I am naive, but $50 is a drop in the bucket for the amount of time padpressed could save you plus the increase of your brand affinity. Given I am going to be launching a start-up soon that is a lot more expensive than $50, wondering what the communities thoughts are. Does the HN community feel $50 is too high, too low, or just right for padpressed?

bjplink 16y ago
Considering most of the people who bother to comment on a TechCrunch article are just trolling for backlinks I wouldn't let what they say bother you too much. Also, I think TC readers are notoriously poor performers when it comes to actionable signups/registrations/purchases of the things they're so quick to comment on. I'm not sure their thoughts on pricing are worth much.
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
Yeah, the overly one sided (good or bad) comments on TC or the net in general don't hold much weight. Our thought on initial pricing was this: People pay for Wordpress themes AND plugins. This is somewhere in the middle. Woothemes charges $70 no problem, wptouch pro is $30, and other advanced plugins can cost $100. Let's start with $50. It's less than WooThemes, but more than wptouch pro.
- BrianAnderson 16y ago
  Good to hear that I wasn't alone in that thinking! I would be an interesting experiment in pricing. All things "iPhone" get premium priced (except the amount a user is willing to pay for the app), so I wonder if it could be priced higher, or if since the iPad distribution is much lower, it will result in a lower price point. Of course it is always easier to wonder when it is not your product that is being impacted :)
brianbreslin 16y ago
I see this as being comparable to a premium theme price, those run $50-75 from woothemes or wherever. If you're serious about your blog, and a big ipad user or have heavy ipad traffic, its nothing. that being said, i think we'll see a LOT more premium plugins and themes for sale soon for wordpress.

hartror 16y ago

Great idea, must have been nice developing a theme without having to worry about IE.

armandososa 16y ago
I don't know why the downvotes. It is really amazing when you can work with standards in a reliable way.
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
heh, ensuring compatibility with other plugins and wp versions makes up for it.