
OnSwipe - davewiner
http://scripting.com/stories/2011/06/26/onswipe.html
======
danilocampos
Fucking _crimony_ do I hate OnSwipe. _Loathe it_. It's just such a waste. It
looks stupid, its scrolling feels wrong and it presents everyone's content
identically. It solves absolutely zero problems, creates new ones and is
impossible to escape. (I have fantasized about creating a proxy at home to
strip out its bullshit.)

The irony here being that the iPad is perfect for displaying very nearly
_everything_ on the web just as it already is. WordPress blogs look excellent
on the iPad without any of this nonsense.

OnSwipe has become a perfect tool for preventing me from viewing content I'd
otherwise happily read. This is a latter-day Expert Sexchange.

edit: ...odd, instant karma drop that affected everything I said on this page
but this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2700241>

Learn from criticism, folks, don't downvote it because it doesn't agree with
your world view. It's how we all grow.

------
TheSkeptic
What everyone should keep in mind here is that, at its core, OnSwipe is trying
to be an ad network. See [http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/06/21/an-inside-
look-at-ons...](http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/06/21/an-inside-look-at-
onswipes-plan-to-rewrite-the-world-of-tablet-advertising/).

Also see <http://blog.onswipe.com/news/the-road-ahead>, written by OnSwipe's
founder:

"Mary Meeker estimates that 50 billion dollars of traditional media spend
needs to shift online. Our belief is that it’s in a holding pattern and can’t.
There’s a disconnect between award winning beautiful ads found in print and
tasteless spam ads that litter the web. We think touch enabled devices can let
this change by providing advertising people actually enjoy with the best of
the web layered on- mobile, local, social, and more. The touch enabled web can
let us create ads publishers want alongside their content, advertisers get
returns for, and most importantly, that users will enjoy."

<Start sarcasm>

Who wouldn't enjoy viewing award-winning print-like beautiful ads while
browsing websites on the iPad ?

</End Sarcasm>

If you read the entire blog post above, it is quite obvious that the people
behind OnSwipe don't really have a coherent understanding of publishing,
advertising or digital, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that their product
is an atrocity.

The product itself is little more than a trojan horse that OnSwipe uses to
insert itself between stupid publishers and users so that it can extract value
from content it didn't create and didn't add value to.

The good news is that this model inevitably fails and has since the late
1990s. There's no lock in for OnSwipe's partners, and once they realize that
the ad revenue they were promised never materializes and their users hate the
OnSwipe experience, they'll move on to the next company offering them a free
bridge.

~~~
mgkimsal
_If you read the entire blog post above, it is quite obvious that the people
behind OnSwipe don't really have a coherent understanding of publishing,
advertising or digital, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that their product
is an atrocity._

But onswipe doesn't happen on its own - someone integrates it in to the
website. None of those people understand publishing either? It very well may
be the case, and I think onswipe's problematic, but I don't think "they don't
understand publishing" is necessarily a good charge.

------
gojomo
I haven't yet hit OnSwipe on the iPad, but I experience similar frustration
with WordPress's mobile theme on the iPhone. The text is harder to read than
the 'normal' web site, and the text isn't zoomable, so there's no way to fix
other than find the 'switch to normal version' button at the very bottom...
every time.

When making a mobile version of content: first, do no harm!

------
tzs
I'm getting more and more annoyed by it on iPad. Besides the bad scrolling and
the frequent failure of the option to view the standard site, it also
frequently crashes the browser due to I'd guess excess memory use.

Do the individual WP blog owners actually chose to use it, or is it something
WP foists on them?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
We here you and the new framework from Slate.com, Geek.com,etc. is going to be
ported to WP. The biggest problem is the junk intertial scrolling we had to go
with. That's gone. Check out the new framework and my guess is that you'll be
very very pleasantly surprised.

~~~
danilocampos
Look, every interaction I've ever had with your product has been awful. Simply
repugnant. Now, we all have a mission, and I don't begrudge you yours, and
maybe making these obnoxious web wrappers will turn out to be the next big
Amazon. I am wrong about so many things every day, it would shock me not at
all to find out this is one more.

All I'm saying is this: You have a whole page full of comments here where
people are talking about how much they don't like to use your product. Please
create a global opt out for such folks, as has been described in a different
thread. It really would improve my browsing experience on the iPad. I'm
uncomfortable being in a position where I have to plead with someone to de-
degrade my browsing experience, but here it is.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
We think there's something new that can be done with the web on tablets. It's
not for everyone.

That's a really reasonable piece of feedback and it makes enough sense to
implement it on the WP.com version. Some people don't like it, a lot do, but
that doesn't matter. Even if it's one person, they should have a choice. If
you want to drop more in depth feedback, email me: j@onswipe.com

I will say, your comment above was way more effective than rude explicative
ridden ones here and on Twitter. I understand you're upset, but keep in mind a
lot of people have spent a lot of hard work on the product. I don't say this
because it's my company. I'd say it if it was someone elses. We all work hard
to make stuff and even if you absolutely hate it, a simple straight forward
comment will go a long way and is way more human.

~~~
danilocampos
> a lot of people have spent a lot of hard work on the product.

I gotta tell you: this doesn't matter to me even a little bit.

Here's why.

We live in a world of results. Right now, you guys – I'm sorry this isn't
positive – are making something that's frustrating, bad to use, unattractive
and inescapable. The "view real, non-broken site" button often _doesn't work._
So somewhere, someone is fucking up my iPad and there's just nothing I can do
about it.

You don't get to just come in and screw up the web for me without my having
some strong feelings, dude, it's as simple as that. So if you want to shove a
layer of non-useful junk into my way, you're going to need to acknowledge that
there are user experience implications that require thorough thought.

If you ignore that you will incur the brand penalties associated with making
people unhappy. And with a unanimous page of negative comments here, you're
well on that road. This is a community that can't agree on _anything_ , so I'd
take this feedback very seriously.

If I make shit, I expect people to call me on it so I can make it better. How
hard I've worked on it is irrelevant.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Absolutely agree that people should be called out. It's about how you call
someone out, not whether you do or not.

~~~
danilocampos
Yeah, you're definitely right. Understand, though, that I view OnSwipe like
malware, so I didn't expect anyone associated with it to either see what I had
to say or care. Even at that, you've created something so frustrating to me
that even being face-to-face would not have stayed my impassioned rage, here.

------
tednaleid
I hadn't run across OnSwipe yet on my iPad, but I went to slate.com and saw
it. Not impressed and definitely not the browsing experience I want on my
iPad. At least they put a link on the bottom to go to the normal desktop
version. That should be the default, and someone should have to choose to go
to the "enhanced" version.

Or, just make a native app for your website. People that want that kind of
experience will seek it out. Most people just want the web, not a simplified
version of it.

It'd also be great if OnSwipe had a global "opt out" so that your browser
would _never_ get the dumbed down version if you set some flag telling them to
go away.

~~~
danilocampos
> It'd also be great if OnSwipe had a global "opt out" so that your browser
> would _never_ get the dumbed down version if you set some flag telling them
> to go away.

This is the only humane option. There should be a way to escape this scourge.

~~~
tednaleid
I think OnSwipe is in for a lot of acrimony without this, especially from tech
savvy users who might otherwise be promoters in some spaces. They'd have an
easy defense of "if you don't like it, click this button and you're done". As
it is, almost all stories are going to have 90% complaining about how much
people dislike it (like this post).

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
That button is there and has always existed there.

For Wordpress, that might be a great idea of making it a global opt-out. I'm
actually going to suggest that to the team there and on ours.

~~~
mikeklaas
We have a native app that is similar in that it makes extensive use of css
transforms to animate content on the iPad (Zite, btw. I believe it is smoother
and less crashy than the OnSwipe pages I have seen).

The biggest issue we've come across is limiting the total screen area (in
pixels) of elements having "-webkit-transform: translate3d(0,0,0);" (this is
the declaration you use to force the browser to use 3d acceleration to animate
this element). Once it goes beyond a certain size, there isn't enough memory
on the iPad to handle it and you get jerky animation and crashes.

This will help:

[http://mir.aculo.us/2011/02/08/visualizing-webkits-
hardware-...](http://mir.aculo.us/2011/02/08/visualizing-webkits-hardware-
acceleration/)

------
skimbrel
I didn't like OnSwipe when I first saw it show up on a WP.com blog, and I
still don't like it. It breaks a lot of functionality in MobileSafari, and
half of the time the "View Standard Site" link at the bottom doesn't work.

It still feels like a cheap knockoff of Flipboard, and I don't need a
Flipboard knockoff for every blog I read on my iPad. The iPad display is big
enough not to need a special layout, and finding a poorly-implemented one like
this just frustrates me.

------
joehewitt
I'm excited by OnSwipe's potential and I'm optimistic they're going to get it
right eventually. For me, the biggest problem has been that OnSwipe makes no
attempt to handle URLs correctly. URLs from the desktop version redirect to
the TOC on iPad. When you visit articles on the iPad, the URL bar is not
updated, so you can't even bookmark or share what you're looking at. Once they
get this right, I think a lot of the grief expressed on HN will fade away.

------
keeptrying
I think this market is looking for a competitor. OnSwipe is like the minimal
thing you can do for mobile viewing of content.

There is such a huge room for improvement:

1\. making content more readable. Right now the readability is still about the
same as visiting a regular site.

2\. Faster - I cant help but feel that everytime I go to an onswipe site,
safari-ipad starts becoming immesely slow.

3\. Easier to browse content - Onswipe shows like 4 posts on eage page and you
have to flip through a bunch of pages if you want to get an overiew of the
blog, its frequecy and content covered.

4\. variety of look/feel - Every onswipe blog looks and feels the same. I for
one hate this. I think its just easier for my brain to classify information if
it also has a certain type of look.

Onswipe is the market pioneer and they are gonna make mistakes.

In anycase I think this space should be able to easily support at least 3-4
different companies.

~~~
armandososa
Wow. This is actually useful feedback.

------
gry
The problem is, people think they have to adapt for non-pc devices (read:
mobile). The rub is, the mobile browsers are _good_.

Build a clean and fast site. You'll be fine.

~~~
Joakal
Are you sure mobile browsers are good at viewing desktop-aimed content?

I'm considering auto-resizing (fluid) for simple content like cssgrid.net
because some placements will break or look weird. Would this be a problem for
mobile browsers?

~~~
gry
Quite. Mobile Webkit-based browsers were a joy to use long before we had
responsive design. I'm not saying responsive design is a bad thing, though I'm
not on the bandwagon because mobile browsers handle most websites with aplomb.

OnSwipe is definitely not responsive design -- it's changing the behavior of a
site for specific a devices which already have wonderful natural web UX
interactions.

------
oziumjinx
From Jason's recent tweet:

"...were doing way more than iOS. The criticism on HN is from a small
disconnected minority."

Disconnect minority??

[http://twitter.com/#!/JasonLBaptiste/statuses/85387519486726...](http://twitter.com/#!/JasonLBaptiste/statuses/85387519486726144)

~~~
danilocampos
It's like when the Experts Exchange guys talk, and they sound like exactly
what you would expect based on the product they make.

------
lotharbot
This is the first I've ever heard of OnSwipe. I went to onswipe.com to see
what the fuss was about, and couldn't find anything that gave me a clear idea
as to what it actually looks like. That content might be on the "onswipe
for..." pages, but they don't even render for me; all I get is the word
"cover" on a little swoopy thing in one corner and a gear icon in another
corner (FireFox 5.0 on Win7). I eventually gave up and used google to find a
video comparison.

It does not instill confidence in a product intended to make content beautiful
and readable when _using onswipe.com itself is an exercise in frustration_.

------
rickyf
I think OnSwipe on my iPad is an awful experience. I would do away with it
wherever I see it, if I could. I am sorry the developers' feelings may be hurt
but a bad UI/UX is bad regardless of the effort.

------
michaelpinto
Maybe the problem isn't so much OnSwipe so much as WordPress itself? Once upon
a time what made WordPress cool was its simplicity — easy to install, easy to
run, easy to add stuff to, etc. These days I cringe at the thought of doing an
upgrade — it's as if they lost focus once they got into the hosting biz. Why
make a great product when you can sell VIP service instead? It feels like
everything I hated about Movable Type back in the day.

Maybe OnSwipe is a sign that there's room to replace WordPress in the
marketplace?

~~~
rmccue
OnSwipe is only on WordPress.com, not WordPress, and WP.com is only one
hosting service.

------
donmcronald
I'm late to the party, but I also dislike OnSwipe. The scrolling is terrible,
I can't zoom at all and sometimes it crashes Safari. Even worse, the 'standard
site' link on the WordPress theme is at the bottom of the page. It should be
at the top.

Hopefully someone will create an 'unswipe' bookmarklet that we can use to
disable it on sites that don't have an opt-out. Add me to the list of people
that would like a global opt-out.

If your site uses OnSwipe and I can't disable it, I'll find content somewhere
else.

------
xpose2000
I went to Geek.com with Safari and changed my user agent to iPad.

Watch the infinite redirects ensue. I sure hope the real iPad users aren't
seeing that.

------
sidwyn
How do I even test OnSwipe?

~~~
Zakuzaa
I think it's enabled on every wordpress.COM blog by default.

