Mobile app 4.0 feedback thread

[no_legs]

Sorry, but the new app is dreadful on my iPad.

The actual playing area is smaller still, now we have the ads and the new sidebar always on. This is the single most important thing about playing - being able to clearly see the whole table.

 

Chatting - to players or "table" now takes longer, you have to click on the little icon, then click on chat then type your chat. Previously only 1 click required.

 

Looking up the previous hand to see what others played in and made is also now clunkier.

 

The chat area itself is now smaller so a long comment by someone in a club makes it very easy to miss a comment from someone else at your table.

 

Please offer the old version as a downgrade.

[no_legs]

I'm having trouble liking the new version, although wish I could. I use it on tablets, in landscape orientation, primarily for kibbing.

 

When in landscape orientation, the new version loses too much 'viewing' window to the advertisement running along the top, and the header or whatever it is called ... Teamgame Table 1 etc. I'd say 25% of the screen is taken up by those two items .. they overwhelm. There, I just measured it. The 10" diagonal screens I am watching are ~ 8.5" wide by 5" high. The 5" height loses 1.25" to those two top items. I understand you need the ads, but it would be a big improvement if the ad area could be shrunk slightly, and maybe a smaller fontsize used on the Teamgame Table 1 etc. Or maybe they could be run alongside each other, and not on top of one another.

 

It might not be as much of an issue on a 4x3 tablet.

 

The problem mostly goes away in portrait orientation. It loses the same 1.25", but applied to a 10" height, is much less intrusive.

 

I hate to ask, but Is there any way to back out of 4.1, and reinstall 3.91?

 

I believe there is if you are using on an apple device and have a copy of the old version in iTunes on your PC / Mac.

[slior]

Sorry, but the new app is dreadful on my iPad.

The actual playing area is smaller still, now we have the ads and the new sidebar always on. This is the single most important thing about playing - being able to clearly see the whole table.

 

Chatting - to players or "table" now takes longer, you have to click on the little icon, then click on chat then type your chat. Previously only 1 click required.

 

Looking up the previous hand to see what others played in and made is also now clunkier.

 

The chat area itself is now smaller so a long comment by someone in a club makes it very easy to miss a comment from someone else at your table.

 

Please offer the old version as a downgrade.

 

Agree: for my use case (mostly kibitzing tables watching VuGraph), the bar offers nothing (would never use any of the buttons) and takes screen space while chat is very useful.

[alanrick]

I really like this new version (although I've only played a few hands so far).

 

I can now see players profiles which makes a world of difference. It also matches the Web version much better so it's easier to find the options. And history is fantastic!

 

Minor issues:

a) When I tried "take me to the first seat" it put me in the main bridge club and I couldn't see how to change settings so that it takes me to the relaxed club.

b) After leaving the game and looking at my profile (which I admit is rare), it showed that I was still at the old table. That frightened me because I didn't want to hog the seat but a friend said they could see that I wasn't at a table.

 

What I miss most is not being able to use a smaller font so that chat is easier (or disable the ipad's keyboard so that I can dictate chat without the keyboard obscuring the table). I also miss not being able to search for a user who's not a friend.

 

Looking forward to using this much more. It's so much more convenient on a tablet.

Alan

[wodahs]

I believe there is if you are using on an apple device and have a copy of the old version in iTunes on your PC / Mac.

 

I have Android tablets.

 

Tablet Old was running the older version, Tablet New the newer one. On Tablet Old, I used an apk extractor (thanks Google Play Store) and extracted the BBO apk to Dropbox.

 

On Tablet New I uninstalled the newer version, then I used an apk installer (thanks again Play Store) to reinstall the old version.

 

So I'm now running the older version on both tablets yeahhhh.

[fred]

Agree: for my use case (mostly kibitzing tables watching VuGraph), the bar offers nothing (would never use any of the buttons) and takes screen space while chat is very useful.

If all you want to do is kibitz and watch vugraph, try "Watch anonymously" instead of logging in. The navigation bar will not appear.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[keen12]

I always play BBO on my iPad and was shocked when I logged in and saw the new page design. Does anyone else dislike it as much as I do? The side bar needs to be made much smaller. The chat bar is also to large. It is very cheap looking and I would like the old one back. Any thoughts?

[goandi]

Ad notification bar still appears on my iPhone when I log on anonymously.

[gordontd]

I like it and there are functional improvements to it. Much better than the unfinished mish-mash of the half-redesigned full-size version.

[paulg]

The only difference between 4.0.1 and 4.0.0 is that the new version does not require GPS or Camera. It should therefore run on more (all?) Android devices.

It fixed my problem and I can now install it.

[1eyedjack]

I like it and, contrary to other opinions shown here, I quite like the colour schemes. Can do with some tweaking, for sure. The info bar across the top could perhaps be moved to the left margin when viewing in diagram mode in landscape orientation. It would give the cards a bit more room to expand vertically in the available screen space. I guess it is all something to get used to.

[Antrax]

I really like the fact it now shows all four hands after a deal - is it possible to configure the client to not start the next deal until I click on it? (talking about playing with 3 GIBs)

[lycier]

Some chinese users ask me to help them at Chinese forum. They said Android version can't be upgraded in the domestic. I have no way to help them.

Would you give our chinese users a link so as to download ?

Thank you very much.

[MyronMBA]

The newly updated BBO is terrible on my Apple iPad tablet! There is so much screen space used up by the silly icons on the right side of the screen and now the cards are much harder to see and more difficult to touch select on the iPad.

 

Clearly, this new interface was not thought out properly, and certainly not with the end user in mind.

 

Now it's hard to recommend BBO for anyone wanting to use it on a small tablet or smart phone.

 

Too bad, because you had a great thing going with your previous interface.

[TylerE]

This is not surprising to me. BBO usability has been downhill for years. BBOWin is still by far the best client.

[neonvw]

Hate the new mobile interface. Cards are smaller. Too much space taken up by ads and white space on right. Cannot figure out how to get audio bbeep for my turn without having every single card make an annoying swishing sound.

[42krunner]

App is also much slower now, so speed races are no longer possible on an iPad.

[lycier]

Our problem has been solved.

Sorry.

New interface looks very nice.

[rjaguar3]

Got a chance to try the app. (iPad 3rd generation, landscape mode)

 

• The results pane by default is so narrow as to be illegible. This was not a problem in 3.91, but the sidebar must have taken the extra space. (I know the chat box can be resized, but the table is small enough as is.) Also, I agree with the comments about the chat box being overly big.
  
• I miss the chat button directly from the table. Until I read through the thread, I thought there was no way for a kibitzer to chat to other kibitzers unless there was already a chat comment (since clicking the name allows you to change the chat recipients).
  
• There is no back button in the BBO Message displays for tournaments. This makes it impossible to view more than one hand record from a tournament without closing the message and reloading.
  
• The show played cards option doesn't appear to work when kibitzing; it worked in 3.91.
  

[mink]

I used portait mode, no animation, auto play singleton, no cards but symbols on a Samsung Galaxy S, first edition.

 

Once, while kibbing, the ♠ and half of the ♥ suit of the North hand was obstructed by the chat, but this did not happen again.

 

Checking an incoming mail while kibbing made it necessary to login again. I guess this happens in case of incoming phone calls as well, and if I use any other app while kibbing or dummy.

 

Response to user input was slow, sometimes very slow.

 

As mentioned by somebody else, it is no good idea to require 2 taps for initiating a chat message.

 

Finally, having played a few hands, everything nearly froze, and after some time Android reported that the app did not react, and when I selected to close the app, a reboot happened.

 

Some years ago, with the same device, the app worked fast and stable, and I was able to use it at a rural camping site utilizing the GSM net for hours without any problem.

 

Maybe the ads are causing some of the problems. Maybe it is a good idea to disable ads with animation. It might be also a good idea to disable ads on old devices completely.

 

Karl

[no_legs]

As a number of people have said, chatting takes longer to achieve as extra clicks are required. This is actually quite important at the table as when someone asks a question it takes longer to respond, especially when you factor in the lag. Also, any other comment either a general one in the club or a comment re vu graph or another comment from a player means that your comment pretty much disappears off the screen. This is exacerbated due to the chat log box being smaller and the chat font being bigger.

 

Finally, the whole point of the site is to play bridge and so making it harder to see the cards, harder to select the cards goes against that primary purpose. Wasting so much space in that new bar on the right hand side is just wasteful, as it's not something you would use most of the time. Better to trigger its appearance by clicking on a button than having it take up space all the time. Oh, no, that sounds like the OLD version :)

 

I have reverted to the previous version on my iPad and that was after having used the new one for 3 sessions of play. I undoubtably got used to the new one and became more adept at using it, but that doesn't impact the basic faults highlighted above. Please think again BBO.

[xAPPO]

A truly awful upgrade , I wasn't too happy with the previous upgrade - for the same general reasons but this is now pretty unusable.

 

You are crippling the application by taking away the real estate from the playing area. The functionality of the application is paramount and you've lost it. Please focus on what people use the app for - this looks to have been designed by someone who doesn't understand the purpose of the application.

 

Avoid big navigation bars - hate the adverts ... I understand the reason but please do it less obtrusivley.

 

The chat area has such a large font I only see about 10 characters by 4 lines and most of that is the username. Enlarging it obscures the cards. It has become useless.

 

 

I actually bought an iPad Pro instead of an iPad just to get a large kibitzing view and now it's smaller than it was on the previous iPad. This is all going in the wrong direction.

I use to enjoy watching bridge for a while before bedtime. Now I'll probably read a book. I might try the web interface but if that's compromised too then it's no more late night BBO for me.

[goatco]

For the love of God,isn't anybody concerned about Jacob.

[alanrick]

I still like it :) But

+1 for faster action to reach/show chat.

+1 for font toggle because there's a world of difference between a big tablet and a small cellular phone. Even better would be responsive or auto-font-size.

 

BTW now that Windows 10 supports Windows apps, is there any chance of a Windows app? I'd give anything to get rid of flash.

 

[js138]

Sorry if these comments repeat others above, but the thread is too long to read completely.

 

Ads. A necessary evil - but if they could use less screen real estate and be less animated/flashy, that would be a huge improvement. It was such a relief to play on Monday when they had been disabled completely - something flashing away in the corner is horribly distracting.

 

Right hand edge icons. I like their functions, but think this should be an auto-hide menu which shrinks to minimal width after a time and can be dragged back to normal width when needed. As is, it eats far too much screen real estate.

 

Chat window font size. This should be customisable. As is I can barely read on chat in it since the window for it is cramped for space by the sidebar icons and the topbar ads. With a smaller font size as an option I could mitigate this.

 

There are other quirks, but these are the three things I'd like to see changed most.