BeerAdvocate mobile beta: Testers Wanted

Works and looks great on a Galaxy S3. Going to try it on my Nexus 7 too, so glad you guys did this!

 

Reminds me of a mobile website from 2005.
Severely stripped down beer pages, non-intuitive navigation (including overriding the browser controls), non-tablet optimized, non reactive controls on the stuff you can do (rating a beer has no confirmation) and scrolling had me accidentally rating beers.

Can the center title be some sort of menu? Maybe other parts of the site?
The reveal left nav (activated when the BA logo is clicked) looks to me like it could be swiped to hide. It can't be.
I think it makes more sense to use browser navigation, then replace the back arrow with search.
In the beer pages, the brewery button draws my attention because of its shape, shadow, gradient.
The beer pictures look like an afterthought.
In the brewery pages, the beer list looks 1/2 finished with the beer images aligned hard left with no padding.

I can just use the real website on any modern mobile browser and get a full experience. Why not just make a proper responsive site to enhance what you have already done? As is, the page has limited area on smaller mobile devices. The address bar for the browser, then the fixed BA header menu leaves a small area to scroll. I currently see no value in using this especially with the full site giving a decent experience. Hopefully as it progresses, it will become good.

I'm still skeptical on how mobile reviews will work. The BA reviews are well thought out. Will this standard be kept with the mobile site?

Who is this website for? Is it meant to be just for a way for BA members to use on mobile devices? Or is it to dominate the beer app market?

 

It works well to quickly retrieve ratings while browsing in the store for something new. But, as Whoisegon stated, I can use the actual site for this as well. I look forward to any progress you guy s make with the app.

 

Reviewing on an iPhone 4 - ios 6.1.3
I right clicked the arrow to save it my home screen so reviewing it in the actual app state, not in browser.

> I personally really love how clean and simple the app is. I think some people forget that when you are creating for mobile it is supposed to be a scaled back, down and dirty version to quickly use -- not a replica of the desktop version. But if you do want to please the masses it could be a good idea to give the option to "switch to full site" when someone clicks on the mobile site in a browser.
> When I initially start to type in search it flashes results as what looks like the link the code is pulling from (blue font with underline). It quickly switches back to the formatted search results (image, beer name, brewery and beer type) but could be something that people get stuck on if they have a slow connection.
> In Search Results there's a lot of padding (white space) to the right of the image. Since you require beer images to be a certain width, maybe you could move the copy to the left more to leave additional room for beers with longer names?
> Agree with everyone else, would be more natural to have the back button on the left.
> Wouldn't be a bad thing to have a search icon on the top right to quickly get back to search in case you get too deep. However as I (and other people) become more familiar with the app I'd easily train myself to hit the BA button to go back to search.
> Also wouldn't mind seeing a review or two for the beer as I usually go off those on deciding whether I want to take a risk on a new beer -- especially when I'm in a crowded bar and don't have the luxury of asking the bartender questions.

 

May have been said, may be in the works. Barcode scanner for search reasons.

 

Oh for the love of god, make it easy to access the full site for those who want it. Nothing frustrates me more than websites that refuse to load the full site, or make you scroll forever to get to the link to do so.

 

I like how it looks, its still not very smooth though. Once everything is included and it runs good this thing is gonna be badass.

 

I was just now using the mobile app. Searched multiple phrases to find Dogfish Head Sixty-one, but it could not be found. I fired up Safari, loaded Beeradvocate.com, and found the beer on the first try. Search on the mobile site appears to need improvement.

 

I like the picture icons next to the beer names when selecting the brewery of the specific beer you are searching.

 

• Can you switch the Home and Back buttons. It just feels counter intuitive to have the back button in the top RIGHT corner. Spotify, Messages, etc. all have the back button on the top LEFT.
• Allow the Home Menu (Profile Picture, Home, Search, Forum) to be opened by swiping. You can close it by swiping right now. Why not be able to swipe it open?
• Overall it's looking great. I know many people love the android RateBeer app, so maybe look at that for extra help or guidance.

 

This is great, guys. Keep up the good work. I can't wait to try all the enhancements as they roll out.

 

It would be nice to see your Inbox/messages and Beers somewhere.

 

Don't forget the "Like" button

 

Obviously the forum stuff is still in its infancy, but marking unread posts and skipping to them is an essential feature that should be prioritized.

Edit to add: looks like maybe there's no user-specific stuff in the forum functionality (e.g. viewing a post on the mobile site doesn't mark it as read on the full site), so maybe this will come when we get the ability to post?

 

Agree that being able to see reviews rather than only overall scores would be nice.
Barcode scanner would be awesome too

 

I enjoyed being able to read the forum last night from my phone. You guys are doing a great job trying to get this thing up and running.

I agree with my fellow BA above (Zero) that seeing reviews would be very helpful, as well as, adding a barcode scanner would be awesome! Also, checking your inbox and being able to converse with other BA's would be cool too.

Keep it up!

 

"Desktop browsing isn't restricted, but eventually will be."

Please, please do not do this. There is nothing I dislike more than being forced into using a mobile version of a site. The app so far works well but I would still choose the desktop version of the site in every case except for maybe browsing the fest specific (EBF) content.

 

I think Todd meant that desktop browsing of the mobile website would eventually be restricted, not that anything would change with the regular BA website.

 

I'm loving it so far, much better than when I had a dumbphone a few months ago and would literally go to the liquor store and write down a list of beers that looked good, then go home and look them up online, then go back to the liquor store to purchase