Mobile Bundle... Is it Worth the Extra Money?

[NHTourGuide]

I am currently running VB 4.x - Since its not mobile friendly I have lost some search engine rankings so im ready to upgrade to 5.x - I am not finding much information about the mobile bundle. I was hoping to see a comparison chart but I can't seem to find anything like that. All I can find is this:

The vBulletin Mobile Suite includes native iOS and Android mobile apps for your site. These apps provide your growing number of mobile users with an optimized smartphone experience. The full-featured apps showcase your branding, provide mobile moderation capabilities, enable mobile ad monetization and receive push notifications. vBulletin Mobile Suite provides custom apps for vBulletin 5.2.0 and up (including vB Cloud), as well as vBulletin 4.2.3 and up, and vBulletin 3.8.10 and up.
* To build iOS Native apps, your forum must be served via at least TLS v1.2, and meet other Apple ATS requirements specified here.
Note: vBulletin Cloud forums already meet these requirements.

So what kind of apps and what do they do? Is it really worth the extra money?

My forum doesn't get a lot of traffic, a lot less now actually. Is 5 Connect good enough?

Thank you for any help!

[glennrocksvb]

You don't need mobile apps if you are upgrading to vB5 as it is using responsive design thus it is viewable and usable on mobile browsers without pinching and zooming.

[NHTourGuide]

Awesome! Thank you for the info!

[Mark.B]

It should be added that plenty of people DO use the app with vB5. A responsive display isone thing but for some there are still advantages to using the app.

You can see the app in action on this site, just search for the vBulletin app on the relevant store.

[bitrix1717]

Mark, where can we see the app you mentioned?
Will there be two different applications running and each with its own admin panel, or will it be managed from one place?

[Joshua Gonzales]

The app for this site can be found at these links: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...bulletin&hl=en

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vbulletin-community-forum/id524847983?mt=8

There is an app for Android and an app for iOS. You do not have to use both. The app files are built from our Member's Area.
As far as I know, there is no admin panel in the apps themselves. All the app does is reproduce what is on the full site in app form so any management of the site would still be done from the full site.

[BirdOPrey5]

Just confirming the app does not provide Admin CP access.

[Conrad]

This seems like great value if you ask me.

By getting an app you are giving your site a presence on the app store, and users can access it quickly by simply tapping on the site's app (with its own logo) as opposed to going into a browser and loading it up from there.

[glennrocksvb]

and users can access it quickly by simply tapping on the site's app (with its own logo) as opposed to going into a browser and loading it up from there.

Agree. But you can also add a website to your phone's Home screen and it will put a shortcut to the site and use the big favicon (if any) as the app icon. And if your site has manifest.json linked in a meta tag, on Android (at least), when you tap the app icon, it will open the site in its own browser window without the browser address bar and toolbar, so it looks like an "app". That's what I have on my forum. You can try it to see.

[jdj]

add a website to your phone's Home screen and it will put a shortcut to the site and use the big favicon (if any) as the app icon. And if your site has manifest.json linked in a meta tag, on Android (at least), when you tap the app icon, it will open the site in its own browser window without the browser address bar and toolbar, so it looks like an "app". That's what I have on my forum. You can try it to see.

That's an interesting idea. Can you expand on this with a bit of detail as to how you do it?

[glennrocksvb]

I posted it on my site. Check it out.