Category: Mobile

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New version of OnSwipe coming late June

A few months ago we took a quick look at the brain dead easy way to publish an iPad friendly version of your WordPress site using OnSwipe. We were told by CEO Jason Baptiste that they were going to launch with a new version a few weeks ago but for whatever reason it didn’t materialize.

A few minutes ago, we just got word that Jason and his team are ready to launch a new version of OnSwipe for all popular CMS including WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Tumblr later this month on June 23rd. Watching the video below, we’re guessing they’ll be now supporting smaller mobile devices like iPhones and Android phones and that they’ll be offer content hosting as well.

Onswipe Demo Video from Onswipe on Vimeo.

We look forward to seeing what OnSwipe has in store for us – check back here at the end of June!

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Review: OnSwipe plugin/theme for iPad

A few days ago we mentioned that OnSwipe released their plugin/theme combo to easily make an iPad friendly version of your WordPress site. We took a look at it today and we’ll fill in some of the blanks that aren’t obvious until you actually try it and look around the UI. Basically this plugin will almost “auto-magically” convert your existing WordPress site into an iPad friendly site.

Still confused to what this will do for you? If you’re using a modern WordPress theme, this plugin will automatically “convert” your WP site into something that looks like it’s custom-made for the iPad. People visiting your website on a regular desktop/laptop browser will continue to see the regular WordPress theme and people on an iPad  (it doesn’t work on iPhone yet) should see a special version of the site.

Let’s walk through a typical installation. For this example, we’ll use a test site for one of my clients, “Beautiful Day Photography.” I am currently converting her site from Flash to WordPress (yay!). On this project for now I am currently using the Graphpaper Press theme Modularity.

So once you’ve downloaded, installed, and activated the OnSwipe plugin, you’ll go to Appearance and select the OnSwipe options. You’ll see a control panel like this:

Onswipe ipad wordpress ui

We tried to upload a transparent PNG logo but it didn’t like it until resized it exactly to 200×200. You can choose which image to display on the home (“launch”) page. You can also select from a set of non-standard web headline fonts and a skin background color. There are no other options on the backend other than this panel. One thing we noticed is that there isn’t a way to specify an iOS home page bookmark/launch icon in this interface.

So what will your visitors see? Your custom logo will appear on the splash page of the site when a visitor goes to the site on an iPad. The user will have to swipe their finger right to left to “open” the page.

Next they’ll see a page like this:

Onswipe ipad wordpress

As you can see this plugin was able to take the home page content using the Graph Paper Press theme and reformat it automatically for the iPad’s screen size. It even displayed the NextGen photo gallery on inner pages as well. Unfortunately there’s no swiping support built into NextGen gallery plugin yet so the experience isn’t seamless as it could be.

One of the things we noticed is that for now OnSwipe plugin isn’t going to do anything for iPhone 4 Safari or Android web browsers yet. We’re surprised that this plugin doesn’t support iPhone Safari since it’s essentially the same thing as an iPad.

If you’re looking to set up a quick and easy iPad experience for your WordPress site, you can’t beat OnSwipe and best of all it’s now free. If you’re site happens to be on WordPress.com, you’ll notice that Automattic has already added this plugin for you.

Get it: OnSwipe theme/plugin

Update: Here’s a quick preview plus video of the newest version of OnSwipe coming in late June!

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Breaking News: OnSwipe switches to free model for iPad theme/plugin

Last year we were fascinated with OnSwipe’s WordPress theme/plugin called “PadPressed” that made our WordPress blog look like an iPad optimized magazine viewer. We had our share of issues and frustration with it, but we thought it had a promising future.

Today Automattic announced that OnSwipe’s plugin/theme was being made available for WordPress.com hosted sites and that OnSwipe was now giving away the plugin for free for self hosted .org sites.

It’s interesting that this being listed as a plugin rather than a theme in the WP.org repository.

Get it: OnSwipe WordPress iPad theme/plugin

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PadPressed update and another iPad theme

A few days ago we covered PadPressed now known as “OnSwipe” raised $1 million. Now they have some competion from WPTouch Pro. We asked them why their theme didn’t work so well in protrait mode. Maybe they’re busy celebrating their round of funding, because we never heard back from them.

Well there’s new competition from WPtouchPro 2.1 by Brave New Code, adds iPad support. We’ll take a look at it in the next few days and do a mini review. Meanwhile you can download the 1.9 version for iPhone/iPod touch for free.

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PadPressed grows up – Raises $1 million

Remember our PadPressed usage update from last week? It’s a good product but we were slightly surprised to hear  through WooTheme’s Adii on Twitter, that they have raised $1 million dollars and have transformed themselves onto a new company called “OnSwipe.” With the new onslaught of tablets coming out this year, they have a solid chance to capture some tablet publishing market-share. There’s also a good article on TechCrunch with more details on the $1 million investment.

It’s encouraging to hear that a company based around the WP platform could raise a decent amount of capital.

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PadPressed Update

A few months ago, we bought the App Sumo Bundle which included the PadPressed theme. At the time, the plugin/theme combo seemed hard to install and the support channel wasn’t quite there.

We just came back to try it out with a new 1.5.1 release (free for existing customers) and we’re happy to report the documentation has gotten much better and there’s a now a support forum. The developers have put some thought into the features including the ability to pull your site logo as the “home” screen icon when you bookmark the site on an iPad.

The only thing we’re not happy about is that the CoverPad theme doesn’t work well in landscape mode when viewing on the iPad, by that we mean the inner page thumbnails disappear when the iPad is rotated into landscape mode. But otherwise it maybe worth $50 to get your portfolio up quickly on an iPad. Try out our test site on your iPad.

Get it: PadPressed theme

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PadPressed: Tough to use – so far

Remember the AppSumo bundle from a few days ago? I finally got around to installing the PadPressed plugin which is more of a “kit”. It includes a plugin and built-in themes. My first mistake was to install the contents of the ZIP file via FTP into the plugins folder. For whatever reason, WordPress didn’t like it and had a “fatal error.” Ok, PadPressed support asked me to install the ZIP file via WP admin and that worked. Fair enough.

I’ve uploaded quite a few test posts to my test site at ipad.noelsaw.com but I am not sure exactly what to do next. The problem with this kit is a lack of documentation and it’s not easy to find – you have to login to their support site. There’s no mention of it in their “ReadMe” file. Once you’re in support, you’ll find a one page installation/reference guide but it’s not a real tutorial on how to use this “kit.” Until the PadPressed people write up a proper getting started tutorial, I really can’t recommend this one, therwise you may be pulling your hair out.