Mobile App for new Office 365 Network

[Sergei Baklan]

Hi Arunas,

Nope, you are not alone. Similar idea which is somewhere here was introduced at very beginning of TechComm and after that discussed several times. Current answer is

<here are no plans for a mobile app at this time but it is one of the most requested features - we hear the feedback.>

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Community-Guidelines/Microsoft-Tech-Community-Guidelines/m-p/...

[Sergei Baklan]

And which status was before?

[Cian Allner]

I was curious about this as well, so I checked and the software that this site is based on (Lithium) doesn't support mobile apps, after focusing on a responsive design instead for the last few years.  However, they have introduced an Android SDK which went GA in May and an iOS SDK is on the cards as well, so mobile apps for the Microsoft Tech Community might be much more likely/practical at that point, wouldn't that be good?

[Sergei Baklan]

Cian, thank you for the info. Thus no technical limits now, only budgeting and resources. Hope we will have native app one day, responsive design is not very suitable for sites like this

[Allen]

Hi all,

Building an App for the Microsoft Tech Community is something we certainly want to investigate, however at this time the team are focused on the Microsoft Ignite and Microsoft Tech Summit events that are coming up. We are currently planning to look more seriously at developing a Microsoft Tech Community app before the end of this calendar year.

Once we have an understanding of the work involved we will make a decision on if and when building an app would be feasible and share that with the community as soon as we can.

Please do continue to share your idea's as this will help us make a useful set of requirements for such an app.

[Sergei Baklan]

Allen, great to know that is not refused at all, thanks for sharing.

[David Leveille]

Honestly @Cian Allner I think that if the Lithium platform (that this tech community runs on) had a mobile app that was lightweight and fast it would help. For now, the content creators cross-posting on Twitter and LinkedIn is how I am notified of new blog posts, etc. I think that without a mobile app - think Yammer, LinkedIn, Twitter - you are stuck getting emails or remembering to check the site on your own. I have calendar reminders to check every 4 weeks or so. Should check more often, but I honestly forget. The notifications feature shows me the 25+ messages/likes/comments when I log in. If I had a mobile app alerting me on my iPhone or Windows 10 machine(s), I would check more often. 

[Cian Allner]

Agreed @David Leveille a mobile app is a must but Microsoft can only do with the platform permits and Lithium have been slow to provide an appropriate SDK making this difficult for now. 

Lithium has made inroads with an Android SDK beta last year and an iOS SDK beta has just been released in the last month, so the signs are good, Microsoft will be able to use these in due course.

[David Leveille]

Thanks for the update, @Cian Allner. Can't wait for mobile experience.

[Simon Denton]

Can we have an update for this idea?

[Allen]

@Simon Denton

Certainly, I have had some discussions with our partner, Lithium, to see how we can use their mobile SDKs to build a mobile app experience. The short answer is that there is no quick and easy way to build an app with the SDKs that takes into account our many customizations we have built over the last couple of years.

It looks likely that to build this app would require us to re-implement some custom work we have already previously developed and that requires time and a not insignificant sum of money to do so. Further implementing a mobile app would require us to implement login for the mobile app using the Microsoft oAuth2 methods and would require us to maintain this app and ensure we applied any security fixes or other changes to both apps and manage an app submission process for them.

Currently the Microsoft Tech Community team does not have sufficient resources to develop this app, especially since we already develop the existing web UI to work on mobile devices.

With this in mind we are not currently looking to develop a mobile app in Financial Year 18/19 - H1. We will continue to keep this idea under review and I will update you if the status of this changes. 

[Ivan Unger]

I'm not surprised and baffled at the same time. I've never truly expected a mobile app anyway. I'm still surprised that Microsoft took a plunge on a platform while its vision said "mobile first". It's 2018 and Microsoft scrapped the "mobile first" vision, so at least that's consistent.

As a former, very active mobile, Yammer Network user, my usage here dropped to about 5% compared to previously. And I don't think it'll ever spike to Yammer levels, since there is no mobile engagement here. Many of the first pain points since launch still exist in the web version. 

I've resorted to just reading the blogs here, mostly because Microsoft migrated them from blogs.office.com to here. 

[Simon Denton]

Thank for the update @Allen . Whilst I understand that investment as been allocated in other areas, continuing to excluding mobile is detrimental to the community. 

[Simon Denton]

I was wondering whether a mobile client was in your roadmap for 2019?

[Officerbill]

For the love of God, have one of the MS developers make a techcommunity app.
This site is a pita to use from a phone, especially since this particular group is for a phone app.

[Lroyny1]

I requested the same exact thing on the welcome post, said they'd look into it, so we'll see... I agree 100% that it needs an app...

[RG_Durishin]

OK, Satya, this is your opportunity to create a consumer-responsive face for MS. And it is essential because, sans a consumer face, the Office suite will eventually be overrun by the Goog docs thing.

[jmakumbi]

Only one up vote?

Ok

[Allen]

Hi all,

I am changing the idea of this status to 'On Hold' we presently have no firm commitment to build a mobile application, for the reasons I gave previously in this thread.

I want to be very clear here, we are not saying no to a mobile app but I feel the idea being in a 'Under Review' state idefinately is also disengenous to you all.

Please continue to vote on it and I can assure you that as soon as we have something to share on this I will post it back here. 

[HotCakeX]

Hi,

for ideas related to Microsoft Tech community itself there is this place, it also has ideas section:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Community-Info-Center/ct-p/Community-Info-Center

someone already posted this suggestion and developers answered it

[Nukmicah]

I was surprised to discover the official MS Launcher community also exists on Reddit. I don't want to create a Reddit account just to interact with Microsoft about their products, but if this forum offends you enough and you're already set up on Reddit it could be a good option until this forum is fixed. https://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftlauncher/comments/eo687b/announcing_microsoft_launcher_preview/

[HotCakeX]

To let the Microsoft Tech community designer and tech lead know about the issue of the website on mobile, you should mention it in here:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Community-Info-Center/ct-p/Community-Info-Center

[TheShaunSaw]

Sounds interesting. I was thinking about it some days ago and found that there was an idea opened about it years ago. It is a very big thing to implement but would be great if implemented.

[Reza_Ameri]

Considering the how this forum works, I prefer it would be a responsive web design and in case anyone wanted to add it in their phone, they would just pin it.

I don't think there is a need to create an application for it.

Applications would required regular updates and there are other challenges and PWA would be better solution where we have access to the latest version and we could access the website without installing anything.

[Simon Denton]

Nearly 4 years on and still no mobile app for the Tech Community... 

Community is any device, anytime, anywhere. 

[HotCakeX]

@Simon Denton 

"Community is any device, anytime, anywhere. "

Tech community website is available on any device, anytime, anywhere too.

try using services like Taptalk.

[Simon Denton]

Do not confuse availability with usability 

[HotCakeX]

@Simon Denton 

I don't

[PranamBhat]

It would be great if you can provide Microsoft application for Android and iOS device's.

It should include Blogs, Forums, Community Ideas and Users. Thus we can restrict other contents and focus on these item's. It will be more useful.