This morning, we finally launched the long awaited mobile version of Swingular. In this email, we wanted to give you details about the process and why it has taken us so long to get here. We also want to talk about the features and what you can expect going forward.
HISTORY
As most of you know, Swingular has been around since 2001. It was started in Florida by me and a partner as Playful Swingers and I was the sole architect and coder. Swingular was custom built from the ground up.
After a year or so of tremendous success, we didn't see eye to eye and decided to legally split off into two separate entities, Playful Swingers & Swingular. After many years, Playful Swingers went out of business but Swingular continued to grow.
Around 2004 and 2007, I rewrote Swingular and gave it new looks. Over the years, we have changed a few things here and there, but most of the underlying code has remained the same.
Well, a lot has changed in the world since 2007 and mobile devices have become a bigger source for accessing websites. In 2007, Swingular was great for it's time and for desktop users. In 2016, not so much.
In 2012, we decided we needed to make Swingular mobile. After looking at our competition, we noticed they made their existing sites work with mobile but the experience was horrible. Sometimes you were taken to a non-mobile version so you never knew what you were going to get.
That wouldn't be good enough for us so we decided that we were going to build our mobile site from the ground up. As we started working on it, technology was constantly changing. Being perfectionists, we kept restarting the project to adopt these new technologies to the point that we could never finish anything.
Then we handed Swingular off to another owner and you know what happened there. After getting Swingular back in our hands late last year, we made it our goal to finally get the mobile version built from the ground up and here we are.
CHALLENGES
We started building this version of the mobile site back in October of last year. The challenges we faced were that we had to convert our technology stack to work with both the old version of the site as well as the new one. This is what took most of our time and what you probably have noticed the last 6 or so months.
Once our technology stack was overhauled, we began designing the user interface. Again, this was a challenge because we wanted to support all devices out there, from iPhones, to Androids to Windows Mobile as well as all the tablets. So we had to make sure that everything looked good not only by device, but by screen size.
Being that Swingular is custom built, we didn't want to use popular UI frameworks like Bootstrap so that we didn't look like everything else out there. So we had to design our UI to be unique to us.
The most important and final challenge was making sure that the mobile site was safe and secure. We didn't want to release a half baked app just to get it out quickly only to find that we had a huge security hole. Your safety and security is our number one priority.
After getting through the bulk of issues, we felt it was finally time to release our first beta version of the site with features that would showcase this new look.
FEATURES
To get a mobile site out in a timely fashion, we decided to use an agile development process which basically means we would create a basic working website, release it, then continually add features as we went along.
We sent out a survey to our members to ask what they felt was most important in a mobile site and we took that to decide what was necessary to release our first version.
Since we already have a website that is somewhat usable for everybody, we decided based on your feedback that sending and receiving messages, as well as viewing profiles and photos would be the first features to release.
Then every two weeks, we would release 1 or more new features.
WHAT'S NEXT
Now that we finally have this up and running, we will be working on bug fixes as well as introducing features. We will send out bi-weekly updates so you know what's available.
We ask that you understand that this is only a beta version of the site and you will most likely experience bugs or issues. However, we have added a Bug Report/Feedback tab so you can report them and we can get them fixed quickly.
FEEDBACK
The great thing about building this system on an agile development process is that if we need to add, change or remove something, we easily can. So if you have any feedback or suggestions, it is always welcome and we will take it in consideration.
Thanks for your patience and we hope that we can provide you with the best mobile experience ever.
Enjoy,
Robert
HISTORY
As most of you know, Swingular has been around since 2001. It was started in Florida by me and a partner as Playful Swingers and I was the sole architect and coder. Swingular was custom built from the ground up.
After a year or so of tremendous success, we didn't see eye to eye and decided to legally split off into two separate entities, Playful Swingers & Swingular. After many years, Playful Swingers went out of business but Swingular continued to grow.
Around 2004 and 2007, I rewrote Swingular and gave it new looks. Over the years, we have changed a few things here and there, but most of the underlying code has remained the same.
Well, a lot has changed in the world since 2007 and mobile devices have become a bigger source for accessing websites. In 2007, Swingular was great for it's time and for desktop users. In 2016, not so much.
In 2012, we decided we needed to make Swingular mobile. After looking at our competition, we noticed they made their existing sites work with mobile but the experience was horrible. Sometimes you were taken to a non-mobile version so you never knew what you were going to get.
That wouldn't be good enough for us so we decided that we were going to build our mobile site from the ground up. As we started working on it, technology was constantly changing. Being perfectionists, we kept restarting the project to adopt these new technologies to the point that we could never finish anything.
Then we handed Swingular off to another owner and you know what happened there. After getting Swingular back in our hands late last year, we made it our goal to finally get the mobile version built from the ground up and here we are.
CHALLENGES
We started building this version of the mobile site back in October of last year. The challenges we faced were that we had to convert our technology stack to work with both the old version of the site as well as the new one. This is what took most of our time and what you probably have noticed the last 6 or so months.
Once our technology stack was overhauled, we began designing the user interface. Again, this was a challenge because we wanted to support all devices out there, from iPhones, to Androids to Windows Mobile as well as all the tablets. So we had to make sure that everything looked good not only by device, but by screen size.
Being that Swingular is custom built, we didn't want to use popular UI frameworks like Bootstrap so that we didn't look like everything else out there. So we had to design our UI to be unique to us.
The most important and final challenge was making sure that the mobile site was safe and secure. We didn't want to release a half baked app just to get it out quickly only to find that we had a huge security hole. Your safety and security is our number one priority.
After getting through the bulk of issues, we felt it was finally time to release our first beta version of the site with features that would showcase this new look.
FEATURES
To get a mobile site out in a timely fashion, we decided to use an agile development process which basically means we would create a basic working website, release it, then continually add features as we went along.
We sent out a survey to our members to ask what they felt was most important in a mobile site and we took that to decide what was necessary to release our first version.
Since we already have a website that is somewhat usable for everybody, we decided based on your feedback that sending and receiving messages, as well as viewing profiles and photos would be the first features to release.
Then every two weeks, we would release 1 or more new features.
WHAT'S NEXT
Now that we finally have this up and running, we will be working on bug fixes as well as introducing features. We will send out bi-weekly updates so you know what's available.
We ask that you understand that this is only a beta version of the site and you will most likely experience bugs or issues. However, we have added a Bug Report/Feedback tab so you can report them and we can get them fixed quickly.
FEEDBACK
The great thing about building this system on an agile development process is that if we need to add, change or remove something, we easily can. So if you have any feedback or suggestions, it is always welcome and we will take it in consideration.
Thanks for your patience and we hope that we can provide you with the best mobile experience ever.
Enjoy,
Robert
Swingular Mobile Website Addresses
We have many ways that you can get to Swingular Mobile. In the future, we will use one of these as a more discreet way of accessing Swingular from your mobile device. Currently, they all redirect to the main url, m.swingular.com
We have many ways that you can get to Swingular Mobile. In the future, we will use one of these as a more discreet way of accessing Swingular from your mobile device. Currently, they all redirect to the main url, m.swingular.com
Current Features Available
We will post all of the currently available features here and update as necessary.
We will post all of the currently available features here and update as necessary.
-
04/09/2016
- Read/Send/Reply/Delete Messages
- View Profiles (From Messages)
- View Photos (From Profiles)
-
04/21/2016
- Basic Member Location Search
ILLUSTRATOR wrote:
Same here. Mail is fine, but how do we search someone or check out the forums or any of the other features on the home page?
Please read the initial message for details.
Upcoming Features
We will post features that we will be releasing next here. This list is not definitive as we have a lot to do, it's just what we are currently working on to release next.
We will post features that we will be releasing next here. This list is not definitive as we have a lot to do, it's just what we are currently working on to release next.
- Create/Edit Profiles
- Upload/Manage Photos
- Search Members
MAZIKEEN wrote:
Why not a mobile app?
Google and Apple do not allow sexually explicit apps in their app stores and even if they did, designing an app for all the platforms out there would've taken longer. Plus, an app is absolutely unnecessary given that the website version can perform just as good.
We're glad to see the mobile version started.
Basic location search has been added.