August 12, 2010

A Better Way to Go Mobile

Here’s an update on how we’re approaching the mobile side of Tixato.

Sean and I spent a goodly amount of time prototyping a native iPhone app for Tixato. We got pretty far. But the more we worked on it, the more we started to wonder: is this the right way to do this?

We don’t need access to the most advanced features of the iPhone, such as the accelerometer, or OpenGL rendering, or things like that. And the stuff we thought we did need from the iPhone — like the ability to create beautiful side-swiping animations — it turns out…we were wrong. You don’t need a native app to do that stuff. We’re living in the age of HTML 5.

After I realized this, the answer became obvious: we should just make this a gorgeous mobile web app. Then anyone with a modern mobile browser can use it, and we don’t have to wait for weeks to see if Apple approves us for the app store, and if we find a bug we can fix it instantly.

Moreover, all those API calls Jesse created for our prototype native app? We still get to use those, because we still need those for a browser-based application.

The only catch to all this is that Sean and I aren’t experts in creating a mobile app, and I don’t want to throw any more work on Jesse’s plate while he’s burning towards the first beta release of everything else.

Solution? Find an expert to lend a hand. Say hello to Jordan Dobson. (@JordanDobson)

We sent Jordan the work we’d done on the prototype app, and he’s begun wailing away on translating that to a super-slick, web-based mobile Tixato. For example, here’s the login screen he recently created out of pure CSS:

shot_1281572519.png

Look ma, no images!

You can see some of his previous mobile work on Dribbble:

http://dribbble.com/players/jordandobson

I’m very happy about this adjustment. I think it’s the right way to go.

Posted by Chris

4 Comments

  1. Kirk Ostby says at

    September 6, 2010 at 8:39 am

    You guys do know about Square (www.squareup.com) right?
    CEO is Jack Dorsey (Creator blah blah blah of Twitter)
    They’ve got a shipping magnetic strip “card reader” and app for point-of-purchase transactions for iPhone.

    I’m a board member of a 50-seat community theatre in Indiana. Browsing the Qlab stuff, and came across your blog. Tixato might be a solution for us.

  2. Jamie Davis says at

    October 12, 2010 at 6:22 pm

    Will the iPhone app allow for ticket scanning? This is currently a major feature that I would love to see on a POS ticketing system. I know that other company’s have them made for other mobile devices but I am an Apple guy and something like this might just convince me to get Tixato. When do you guys think you will release a beta?

  3. Jesse says at

    October 13, 2010 at 12:28 pm

    The first version of the iPhone app won’t support ticket scanning, but it’s something we’ve definitely been thinking about for a later release.

    We have started a limited beta for the Tixato website, although that doesn’t yet include the mobile app. If you’re interested in joining our current beta, drop us a line at info@tixato.com.

  4. Luke says at

    October 25, 2010 at 12:24 am

    I would be very excited about ticket scanning. QR-Codes would be great, because I really don’t want Yet Another Barcode Standard (I’m looking at you , MS-Tag) I’m wondering how possible it is for a web-based app to use the phone’s camera, though.

    The web-based-ness of the app interests me for another reason as well; I have an Android phone. This Tixato looks like it’s getting very interesting.

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