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Dtoid Mobile beta 2 -- now 50% faster, more features photo

Do you read Destructoid on the toilet?  Don't answer that!

If you have an internet-capable phone you'll be glad to know that we've upgraded the mobile version of our site quite a bit to make it faster and more useful on the go.  We've packed most of the features into a tiny interface that lets you login and do just about everything -- read and post comments, jump to friends updates, view all community blogs, and get all the news or just jump to your favorite consoles.

We didn't water down the experience either: Instead of loading the entire articles with large photos we now load a highly compressed thumbnail (or author photo if none is available) and a summary that jumps to the full text.  These improvements dramatically help load time even if you're not on a 3G phone. A few little things were scrapped (as loading 500 avatars on a cell phone was melting some people's batteries) but overall I think you'll be pleased. 

If you are not getting the mobile version of the site from your device please visit this page and let us know exactly what it says in the comments below and we'll hard-code support for it on the next patch.

Otherwise, any suggestions on how we can make it better? Let us know know! Please mention the type of phone you are using.


Continue: More web site updates stories





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37 comments | showing # 1 to 37

Hamza CTZ Aziz's Avatar
Hamza CTZ Aziz at 10/28/2008 02:20
Aw shit Niero, this is Jawsome! I look at Dtoid Mobile a lot when on the hour train ride to San Francisco :D

Couple of things: There seems to be a big gap between stories. Also, you can't scroll all the way back up after you've scrolled past SEARCH when NOT logged in. It looks like Login and all the links below it are one hyperlink.

When you try to read a full post, this error message pops up: format_post_text(): need field option

Otherwise, sweetness!
thebza's Avatar
thebza at 10/28/2008 02:23
I've been using the site from my iPhone all day today and I can definetly see the improvement! looks like you got your work cut out for you but it looks like you're off to a great start, thanks for putting on the hard work niero!
mr spooky's Avatar
mr spooky at 10/28/2008 02:38
Great Niero. I remember being a looker on destructoid in 2007 because the website was kinda of slow for me back than. i might have been looking at destructoid in 2006, but i'm too sure. I remember some people were trying to put some of destructoid post in digg.com. I was a digg user in the early days that probably led to desctructoid.com.
vexed alex's Avatar
vexed alex at 10/28/2008 02:42
This makes me want to pay the $5 a month for mobile web service. Too bad my phone is too shitty to take advantage of it.


:(

Great work!
Niero's Avatar
Niero at 10/28/2008 03:14
Ah, the good old days :)

CTZ what phone are you using? I fixed the format_post text error on DT1 and now the menu is context sensitive if you're logged in (hides friends/comments links), plz give it a few minutes to sync up

also made some minor formatting changes to how the comments are displayed now on mobile
Hamza CTZ Aziz's Avatar
Hamza CTZ Aziz at 10/28/2008 03:23
Using the Samsung Blackjack II.

Everything works fine now!
Niero's Avatar
Niero at 10/28/2008 03:23
@ THEBZA - thanks much! I need to get my hands on an iphone soon so you're my eyeballs until then :) Let me know if there's anything busted or awkward
Skribble's Avatar
Skribble at 10/28/2008 04:04
I pretty much check dtoid mobile on the old iPhone every morning on the way to work.

The main page is not formatted correctly. The "DTOID MOBILE" logo appears to the RIGHT of "home, community, friends, etc", pushing all of those options to the left. Other than that it loads the stories up fine, with the logos to the right.

Nice job man, I look forward to more updates!
Niero's Avatar
Niero at 10/28/2008 04:14
ah, your screen is probably wider than mine so I didn't catch that. I'll fix that asap
Wookiee's Avatar
Wookiee at 10/28/2008 06:15
My blackberry thanks you.

iphones are for pansies.
Kryptinite's Avatar
Kryptinite at 10/28/2008 06:29
FUCK YES!!!! The community section works on my iPhone now :).

Also, fuck blackberries.
Jakysan's Avatar
Jakysan at 10/28/2008 06:37
Blackberries are for lame suit people.

And to neiro, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. About the only access I have to my news through out the day is on my iPhone. I've been using the mobile version for some time. I do likez it!
AgentMOO's Avatar
AgentMOO at 10/28/2008 06:42
Sweet! This is how I access the site half of the time so it'll go a long way. I'll give it a good kick in the tires during my work day.
Electro Lemon's Avatar
Electro Lemon at 10/28/2008 07:04
Niero, on the T-Mobile G1, it just says "404-Not Found". But under the login page, the browser info says:

Mozilla/5.0(Linux; U; Android 1.0; en-us; dream) AppleWebKit/525.10+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.04 Mobile Safari/523.12.2
Kryptinite's Avatar
Kryptinite at 10/28/2008 07:33
Man, there's so many fucking mobile browsers, thanks for the hard work you put in Niero. I realize coding for multiple browsers blows.

...I do it on a daily basis at work and it sucks balls.
Kathos's Avatar
Kathos at 10/28/2008 07:43
Thank you thank you thank you!
sleepingagain's Avatar
sleepingagain at 10/28/2008 08:01
thank you so much
galagabug 's Avatar
galagabug at 10/28/2008 08:33
you are an army of one!
Strife381's Avatar
Strife381 at 10/28/2008 08:37
Thanks!!! I do use the mobile internetz version often, but my 2G iphone cries every time. this will sure help :), Damn you Steve Jobs.... damn you
AgentMOO's Avatar
AgentMOO at 10/28/2008 08:38
Wow the front page loaded right away on my iPhone - it usually takes a good 15 seconds. The change to thumbnailed images and whatever tricks are in there male a night and day difference.
AgentMOO's Avatar
AgentMOO at 10/28/2008 08:39
Make, not male.
jonnybryce's Avatar
jonnybryce at 10/28/2008 08:42
What is the url for the mobile website? My instinct takes me to the full Destructioud by default unlike other sites that suggest the mobile version right away (Google, AOL blogs)
gotdurnrite's Avatar
gotdurnrite at 10/28/2008 08:42
I'm also getting the 404 not found on the G1.
PappaDukes's Avatar
PappaDukes at 10/28/2008 09:02
ahhh... my PPC thanks you.
Rational Animal's Avatar
Rational Animal at 10/28/2008 09:13
Looks great thanks for the update. I'm particularly thankful for the inclusion of an iPhone-compatible favicon, so that it looks pimpin' on my home screen. Was that available before?
Tubatic's Avatar
Tubatic at 10/28/2008 09:15
Hey there Niero!

I'm getting "insufficient memory for this operation" . . .which might be a problem with my browser cache. I"ll check.

Got a Samsung u740 running on the Verizon network.
TKurata's Avatar
TKurata at 10/28/2008 10:10
Great news--I will check it out now! Do I just load up the regular web address?
TKurata's Avatar
TKurata at 10/28/2008 10:17
Eh...same as before...it's about a 900kb webpage download (not good). I tried loading http://www.destructoid.com/info.phtml from my mobile also...nope.

Palm Treo 700wx

Now this is a nice layout for a mobile web video game blog:

http://i.joystiq.com

Clean, text only on front page, loads images quickly, displays all comments.

http://www.myspace.com/tkurata (some musics)
king3vbo's Avatar
king3vbo at 10/28/2008 11:28
I'll have to try it on my blackberry during my after lunch bathroom break :D
Niero's Avatar
Niero at 10/28/2008 11:28
hmmm, ok I'll work on G1 support. Try going to this URL directly:

dt1.destructoid.com/elephant/index_mobile.phtml

That should force it if it doesn't autodetect. I'll set up a shorter URL soon
welkstar's Avatar
welkstar at 10/28/2008 12:07
I stumbled upon this last night when I was mucking about on my room mates iPhone. Works great!
gotdurnrite's Avatar
gotdurnrite at 10/28/2008 12:35
Thanks, Niero. The link works.
hpv's Avatar
hpv at 10/28/2008 12:36
Niero: Direct link works on G1 but there aren't any background images. Also, still can't login. How about putting an option to attempt login anyway even if your screening fails to recognize a fully capable web browser?
BlackSheep's Avatar
BlackSheep at 10/28/2008 12:49
hmmm i logged in with my blackberry pearl, looked great, left a comment, but apparently it didn't post?

will try again.
Jon2309's Avatar
Jon2309 at 10/28/2008 14:12
Yes, I do read Dtoid on the toilet. Yes, this will help a lot. <3
ExpertPenguin's Avatar
ExpertPenguin at 10/28/2008 14:49
Methinks it looks great...but can there be an option to view the original site on an iPhone? Not that it defaulting to this site right away is a bad thing (saves batteries, especially on this thing) But it'd be nice to have the option, y'know?...
BluDesign's Avatar
BluDesign at 10/29/2008 07:19
I have an iphone.

The new redesign makes the site unreadable in portrait mode. If I flip the phone to landscape, as I normally do, it's readable, but the text is like 3-4pt font size, tops.

I'd appreciate it if the text wasn't fit to a fixed width, so that it could possibly rescale itself when being flipped around.

I have to do a lot of zooming and scrolling around to read articles now and it makes it a headache to read it otherwise without busting out the glasses.

I have yet to test out the cblogs on the iphone because they used to crash the Safari browser constantly.
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