Smugmug Site on the iPad Lackin User friendliness

marklivesinla

All,

I'm new to smugmug and having some real issues with the way the site is rendered on the iPad. It seems that the regular smugmug galleries render very poorly on iPads unless you maintain the basic thumbnail view and select images by way of the thumbnails.

Specifically here are my issues:

1) When you go into Slideshow mode, you simply get the images automatically transitioning. There is no control at all over the slideshow. No pause, no start, no stop, no left, no right. While the most ideal control would be through responsive controls (swiping left, right, etc), from a user perspective NO control at all is frustrating, unusuable and most importantly, completely out-dated.

2) There is no easy way to navigate from image to image in Full Screen (i.e., lightbox) mode either. One is still forced to use those EXTREMELY small arrow links at the top of the page, rather that some simple large buttons on the left and right side of an image that has become, in a sense, the norm for slider-type navigation.

Am I missing some obvious setting? I contacted support but the gentleman there seem almost surprised, as if he was unaware there was no native (or at least usable) navigation on the iPad but surely I'm not the first person that expects this.

Even the most basic sliders on the market tend to have responsive designs or are at least navigatable on iPads.

I am hoping that I am missing some obvious solution and would greatly appreciate your assistance!

mrneutron

Hi Mark,

I sent a message to the team and sent you an email with a ticket number. Please give them some time to look into this. : ) Thanks,

Andy K
SmugMug Support Hero

marklivesinla

Folks, this was the response from SmugMug. "The response was that the slideshow may not work correctly on all tablets. We hope to be able to fix this in the future but have no time frame as to when this might happen."

Absolutely insane. Definitely need to move to a platform that takes is mission to present people's photographs professionally more seriously. While I think smugmug represents great value from a storage perspective, my believe is that the usability and overall design of the galleries borders on dated by years. I can no longer recommend it on this basis. Usable, polished galleries aren't "nice to have." They are or at least should be SmugMug's raison d'etre.

Not sure if I can get a refund for the what's left of my two year contract but I certainly have to look into it.

TravWilliams

I agree with the poor iPad integration
I absolutely agree with this. I just viewed my own site on somebody's iPad and was very frustrated with the navigation. There ought to be larger arrows on the sides of any enlarged photo to make navigation easier.

I have had several clients complain or comment about the poor iPad integration of the site. SmugMug folks, I hope that this gets upgraded soon if we are expected to start paying double for our pro subscriptions.

--Trav--
www.BrokenBanjo.net

JCAPhoto

I agree with the above as well and found the same thing. The number one priority must be how images look and how they are seen on the iPAD/Mini/iPhone since practically every client I have looks at the site that way now... by a long shot... I do not have a single client using any other tablet. I also just found that when people view my site on their iphone it defaults to a mobile SmugMug viewer - with a SmugMug header and none of my branding - which is a big issue - but the bigger issue is the right click protection is gone. They can easily copy photos. I have been standing by SmugMug for awhile but I am getting near the edge and ready to jump ship.

zacHer0

JCAPhoto wrote: »

I agree with the above as well and found the same thing. The number one priority must be how images look and how they are seen on the iPAD/Mini/iPhone since practically every client I have looks at the site that way now... by a long shot... I do not have a single client using any other tablet. I also just found that when people view my site on their iphone it defaults to a mobile SmugMug viewer - with a SmugMug header and none of my branding - which is a big issue - but the bigger issue is the right click protection is gone. They can easily copy photos. I have been standing by SmugMug for awhile but I am getting near the edge and ready to jump ship.

You can change from the mobile view to the regular view in your Account Settings.
Account Settings > Style > Mobile Site > Off

You could also set mobile view branding in your account settings.
Easy Customizer > Mobile



We are always improving the site and how it functions across all platforms, not just Apple products .

Thanks for all your inputs!

marklivesinla

No improvement
Well. Here we are. Months later. Still no iPad friendly rendering of the galleries. By now I would have at least expected a Next and Previous button that was large enough to handle on a tablet but still it's as if they don't even exist. As for swiping from image to image? Well a boy can dream, right? The slideshow option still provides no back and forth control on an ipad at all.

I have to say, if it weren't for the commitment of 2 years that I made, and which I now sincerely regret, I would have long ago abandoned Smugmug in favor of a product where tablets - which have now been commonplace in the market for several years - are recognized as an important target platform.

Simple tablet friendly next and previous takes about 5 minutes of coding effort by a competent web developer. The reply above "We are always improving the site and how it functions across all platforms, not just Apple products" is indicative of how utterly unaware SmugMug are of the importance of this issue to photographers. Yes SmugMug. You can hear your customers. You're just not listening to them.

mbonocore

marklivesinla wrote: »

Well. Here we are. Months later. Still no iPad friendly rendering of the galleries. By now I would have at least expected a Next and Previous button that was large enough to handle on a tablet but still it's as if they don't even exist. As for swiping from image to image? Well a boy can dream, right? The slideshow option still provides no back and forth control on an ipad at all.

I have to say, if it weren't for the commitment of 2 years that I made, and which I now sincerely regret, I would have long ago abandoned Smugmug in favor of a product where tablets - which have now been commonplace in the market for several years - are recognized as an important target platform.

Simple tablet friendly next and previous takes about 5 minutes of coding effort by a competent web developer. The reply above "We are always improving the site and how it functions across all platforms, not just Apple products" is indicative of how utterly unaware SmugMug are of the importance of this issue to photographers. Yes SmugMug. You can hear your customers. You're just not listening to them.

Mark,

I understand your frustrations. We do however listen to our customers. We are currently in the process of working on an overhaul of mobile apps, including the iPad app. We listen to feedback from valuable customers like you, and keep that in mind when it comes time to work on a specific part of the app. I can promise you will not be disapointed with the future of the iPad app.

Michael

marklivesinla

Truthfully, I'm not at all concerned about the iPad app. What it is that I find so astonishing is that the rending of our websites ON THE IPAD is so completely horrendous.

Clearly we don't want to have to ask clients to download the SmugMug app to view our work. The whole idea of SmugMug is to seemlessly host our sites. Users shouldn't even be aware that SmugMug is involved.

mbonocore

Mark,

Thanks for your feedback Mark. I will look into where we stand with the mobile iPad friendly sites and keep you posted on this thread.

Michael

scoodog

mbonocore wrote: »

Mark,

Thanks for your feedback Mark. I will look into where we stand with the mobile iPad friendly sites and keep you posted on this thread.

Michael

It's been three months... any update?

This is the main reason why I left Smugmug a couple of years ago -- lack of support for the iPad browsing experience. The answer isn't the iPad app. The Smugmug site needs to render nicely for the iPad. And sure, other tablets, but the iPad has been the #1 tablet for several years now and Smugmug still doesn't render very nicely on it.

mbonocore

scoodog wrote: »

It's been three months... any update?

This is the main reason why I left Smugmug a couple of years ago -- lack of support for the iPad browsing experience. The answer isn't the iPad app. The Smugmug site needs to render nicely for the iPad. And sure, other tablets, but the iPad has been the #1 tablet for several years now and Smugmug still doesn't render very nicely on it.

Hi Tom,

We understand the need for a more iPad friendly viewer experience. Baldy made a great post the other day describing some of what we have been working on.

http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=233530

Michael