This is an idea I have had for a while now and I thought it would be interesting to share to get other opinions on it. I frequently visit this site on the go when I'm board and on the go, when I do, its fine, but it feels a little unpolished and disorganized. It me be just me, but I still think this could make it a little easier if any one is up for it. A feature that would be really great to have on a mobile app is getting notifications sent to you went ever you get a new alert. This is just an idea I'm throwing up there, please share opinions on this thought as I'm anxious for feedback.
There are some 3rd party apps in development which are compatible with the forum software we use - however, I'm not yet convinced that they are worth implementing given the limitations they also impose. For example, they will not support many of the customisations we've made to the site to link all the zoo information in and so on - and they have no support for the galleries at all. ZooChat is about so much more than discussion threads - so it would be a rather limiting experience based on currently available software. Building an app which is fully integrated with ZooChat would be very time consuming and costly and not something I can justify at this point. There is a major new release of the forum and gallery software coming in a few months (currently in pre-release testing - beta version being released shortly). I've spent the past 9 months (along with many other users of their software) working with the developers to improve the software and the user interface - especially on mobile devices. I'm pretty happy with the direction things are taking and am already working on starting to port the customisations I've made across to the new version. Receiving alerts on your phone is a frequently mentioned feature request and often used as justification for deploying an app. However, there are alternative approaches which I am investigating which could achieve similar benefits without the complication (or cost!) of deploying an app.
Thank you for the speedy reply, Sim. I completely understand, it was just an idea I thought i'd through out there. I eagerly await the new software release.
