# Beta testing the iOS mobile app

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662
**Category:** Development
**Tags:** feedback
**Created:** [September 3, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662 "2016-09-03T04:13:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2

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### Author: ![ntadej](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ntadej/32/116716_2.png) [@ntadej](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ntadej)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 5:36am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/38 "2016-09-05T05:36:45Z")

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It’s more or less latest. I update on weekly basis or so.

I also tested adding it to my iPhone’s home screen and it uses a proper icon.  
[https://discuss.tano.si](https://discuss.tano.si)

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### Author: ![ntadej](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ntadej/32/116716_2.png) [@ntadej](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ntadej)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 6:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/40 "2016-09-05T06:12:43Z")

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Thank you for looking into it.

A few comment about apple touch icons. Discourse app should at least have white background as apple adds black background if alpha channel is present.

Another thing is that usually apple touch icons are square as iOS crops them. They look a bit strange in app. Maybe you could just use the logo small url or crop the image as iOS does.

Last minor recommendation is to tell the app when entering URL that we want to enter URL (I think you can do that). This will add the period to keyboard so URL is typed easier. Of course these are just minor UI improvements, generally the app works well. I got the notifications for our discussion.

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### Author: ![zogstrip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/zogstrip/32/512781_2.png) [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 9:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/41 "2016-09-05T09:24:08Z")

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Is there a reason why the URL of a Discourse instance is the main focus rather than its title?

I think it would look better if we had

> **Discussion about the next-generation open source Discourse forum software**  
> [https://meta.discourse.org](https://meta.discourse.org)  
> new (1) unread (4)

rather than

> **[https://meta.discourse.org](https://meta.discourse.org)**  
> Discussion about the next-generation open source Discourse forum software  
> new (1) unread (4)

(_excuse the poor mockup but I’m on mobile_)

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 9:29am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/42 "2016-09-05T09:29:54Z")

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Yes, mainly cause it would clutter that page a lot to have lots of bold descriptions of indeterminate length

I do feel new(2) and unread(2) may be a bit under-styled

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2016, 10:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/43 "2016-09-05T10:03:16Z")

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I think you should suppress the `http://` and `https://` bits though, just the plain URL is all you need.

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/5/e/5e577fb6d7a1660a968ed288bdb670086afa1818.png)

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### Author: ![fefrei](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fefrei/32/119538_2.png) [@fefrei](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fefrei)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2016, 5:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/45 "2016-09-06T05:27:19Z")

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After opening a site, reading the notifications and returning, the counter doesn’t always drop to zero immediately. Maybe the notifier could always refresh a site’s status after the SafariViewController is closed?

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2016, 6:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/46 "2016-09-06T06:13:16Z")

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@joffrey\_jaffeux committed a bunch of fixes for issues reported here last night and I tweaked some stuff this morning.

Build #3 is out.

- Rotation now works properly thanks @fefrei for reporting

- Flag counts were not included in the “badge” total thanks @henrikbg for alerting me to this, though we still want to improve overall alerting here at least they are not invisible

- We now kick off “one last update” when we kick the app to background state. This improves the cases where you quickly check notifications and then exit app. However we still have a 10 second safety net, where we never allow more than 1 bg update per 10 second window. We may lift this. Thanks @fefrei for reporting

- We remove the `http://` portion from the list, it is just visual noise. Thanks @codinghorror

- We changed it so we use a much easier `RandomBytes` algorithm that does not require special native code, to ease the android porting. (we only use random for nonce and messagebus id in both cases there is no information leak on the tiny chance there is a collision cause JavaScript `Random` is sub-optimal.

- The styling for new/unread is now blue, I prefer this color it should stand out a bit

- The styling of the connect button is a bit more consistent

- We use the URL style keyboard thanks @ntadej

We are also making good progress on Android should have something soon.

btw… if anyone feels like fixing up the images here [DiscourseMobile/ios/Discourse/Images.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset at main · discourse/DiscourseMobile · GitHub](https://github.com/SamSaffron/DiscourseMobile/tree/master/ios/Discourse/Images.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset) it would be awesome 🙂 Ever since @ntadej mentioned this the black border has been bothering me so much.

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### Author: ![sman591](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sman591/32/121179_2.png) [@sman591](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sman591)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 3:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/47 "2016-09-08T03:44:06Z")

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I’d love to help beta test!

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### Author: ![DylanYD](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/dylanyd/32/56096_2.png) [@DylanYD](https://meta.discourse.org/u/DylanYD)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/48 "2016-09-08T04:10:09Z")

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> [@sam](#):
>
> If you would like to help beta test reply here and I will invite you.

Would love to test it out.

> [@sam](#):
>
> Regarding cost, I am just going to clarify here that “push notifications” is at the moment an “exclusive” feature for all our customers in all hosting tiers.

Is there anything we will need to do on our end as a customer to have this configured?

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 6:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/49 "2016-09-08T06:49:34Z")

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> [@DylanYD](#):
>
> Is there anything we will need to do on our end as a customer to have this configured?

Nope, nothing 🙂 it is already magically configured

Invites are in the mail

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### Author: ![dush19](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/dush19/32/49367_2.png) [@dush19](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dush19)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 9:30am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/50 "2016-09-08T09:30:13Z")

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Here’s something I found today:

After tapping a notification, I am taken me to the main screen (I was notified for the green badge) . Whereas previously the user was taken to the exact post/topic. Was anything changing in this build, @sam?

 ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/5/6/5629fef984e2581620532d3a26338bd30355d713.png)

Details

iPad mini 1  
iOS 9.3.1  
Build - 1(3)

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Pilot8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pilot8/32/61478_2.png) [@Pilot8](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Pilot8)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 10:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/51 "2016-09-08T10:59:33Z")

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Yes please to the Discourse app!

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### Author: ![gdpelican](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gdpelican/32/81308_2.png) [@gdpelican](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gdpelican)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 12:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/52 "2016-09-08T12:40:09Z")

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Wish I had an iDevice to play around with 😁

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/53 "2016-09-08T13:34:57Z")

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Android is getting very close 🙂 if you feel like hacking on react native you could help rush it 😉

Atm my big blocking bits are getting crosswalk to be a bit more consistent and stop mucking with my statusbar and turn it white

Should have push notifications going pretty soon

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 2:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/54 "2016-09-08T14:08:36Z")

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Sam does crosswalk bring any benefits for people on Android 4.2+, with latest chrome as the default browser for in-app pages? Or it only get used if the embedded version is newer that the installed one?

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/55 "2016-09-08T14:24:32Z")

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It appears that WebView on Android (the turbo boosted chromium based one that ships in 4.4) is stuck in the past

[https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/webview/overview](https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/webview/overview)

Crosswalk is a wonderful normalizer and lets us get Chrome 51 (in stable) or 53 in Canary. But.. we must use 52 and up (which is beta) cause there are some debugging bugs in that make it impractical to use.

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/56 "2016-09-08T14:51:31Z")

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Nahh, it always took you to the main page, if you click the push notification it takes you to the actual post.

we are thinking of adding a native “notification list” page, in fact @joffrey\_jaffeux is planning to play with this, but for now all my focus is around getting android ready.

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### Author: ![gerhard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gerhard/32/119479_2.png) [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/57 "2016-09-08T14:53:09Z")

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WebView on my phone with Android 6 has version 52.0.2743.98

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### Author: ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/58 "2016-09-08T14:57:44Z")

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Sure, but what about 4.4 all the way up to 6 ? We want to target 4.4 and up, maybe even 4.3

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### Author: ![gerhard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/gerhard/32/119479_2.png) [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/beta-testing-the-ios-mobile-app/49662/59 "2016-09-08T15:00:06Z")

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Oh, I was under the impression that WebView gets updates on all Android versions.

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