Around this time last year, we unveiled the IP.Board Communities app for iPhones. Since then, many community owners have told us that they would like to be able to offer this application customized for their forum, with their own branding.
To meet this need, we introduced the White Label Mobile Applications service, and the response has been overwhelming!
So you can see what the white label applications can do for you, we'll take you through two of our customers' apps.
eFestivals Forum
eFestivals is a UK-based website all about festivals, with an unparalleled store of festival news, guides, and ticket information.
eFestivals Forums is an example of a basic white labeled application, which you can check out on the App Store.
White label applications allow you to change the colors and images on the login screen to match your own branding, making the app more reflective of your community.
Like the generic IP.Board Communities app, a white label app like this one uses the mobile skin, allowing advanced customization without a single change to the application.
Also like the IP.Board Communities app, iPad is fully supported, and displays using the full skin for better use of the larger screen size
Volvospeed Connect
Volvospeed is a community where you can find reviews, guides,technical information and discussions about anything Volvo.
When Volvospeed came to us, they asked if we could make a single application offering unified access to all their communities. The answer is- yes!
With this application, a user can log into every forum in the list with the same user name and password, almost as if it were one forum. iPad is again fully supported.
Pricing and Availability
The white label mobile applications are available now! You can purchase this service right from your client area by clicking New Purchase, then selecting "Services" and "White-Label Mobile Applications", or you can read more about it first.
Future Plans
We have lots of ideas to improve the attractiveness of the white-label option, and will continue to improve it. In the near future, white label apps will gain the ability to take advantage of push notifications among other great features.
Android App
On a similar topic, one of the first questions we were asked when the original iPhone application was released last year was: will there be an Android app?
The answer is, again, yes! We're pleased to announce that you can now get involved in testing of the Android application in our pre-release testing forum!
Easy login to all your IP.Board Communities
Like the iPhone application, you can add a list of all the IP.Board communities you visit, and save your username/password for easy one-tap access.
Uses standard mobile skin
The app uses your standard mobile skin when browsing the forum. This allows your members to have a consistent experience across all the mobile devices they use, and allowing you to customize it to your liking.
Sharing
Android offers a robust and full-featured content sharing system, which we have integrated. This means you can share your content any way your device allows, whether that be by email, SMS, tweet, or any other way you can think of!
And much more!
As we are in the beta stages, not everything is finished yet… but once ready it will have the same options your iPhone members already enjoy –sharing pictures to IP.Gallery, status updates, push notifications*, and more!
*push notifications will require IP.Board 3.2 to operate
Pricing and Availability
We are hoping to have the final release available with or near the release of IP.Board 3.2. You'll be pleased to hear that the Android application continues to be free to your members. The white label option is also available, allowing you to have your own custom iPhone and Android application, offered with your branding to your own members.
Future Ideas
We have lots of great ideas to improve this app and will continue to do so, and we invite you to submit your own ideas for consideration. We may not reply to all feedback, but rest assured we do read and consider it!
We invite you to head over to the pre-release testing forum, download the app and give it a try! It's beta, so you may encounter some bugs, missing features, or features you'd like to see done differently. Please don't hesitate to report to the bug tracker or post to our feedback forum anything that comes to mind!
And now, I'll just leave you with this little teaser...