Comments on: TV by the Numbers For iPhone, iPod Touch, Android Users

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:44:23 +0000

Sorry fans of the plugins who ARE NOT having any problem, but the issue where people might be getting the mobile version in their regular browser is too big of a problem to ignore. I’ve turned off the plug-in for the time being.

By: Sherbert

Sherbert — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:38:50 +0000

Thanks for the reply.

I’m sorry I was so negative. It is a cool and useful thing.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:32:14 +0000

Sherbert, we know its a problem (and so do the developers I have looked at the support forums), but it’s not our software, we don’t control it.

Our option is only to turn it off (which we may) until it gets fixed, or leave it on.

By: Sherbert

Sherbert — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:32:00 +0000

Wow! Delurking seems to have fixed it… I can see the main site again. Interesting.

By: Shreve

Shreve — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:30:43 +0000

As a regular iPhone visitor, thanks for the mobile option, the full site takes slot of work to navigate on the phone.

By: Sherbert

Sherbert — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:30:39 +0000

I’m also getting the same problem as other people who are getting the Mobile version and trying to turn it off only pushes you back to October and the Finke article. Trying to go to the front page then just gives you the mobile version again.

I’m disappointed that there hasn’t been any kind of acknowledgment that this is a problem or that it’s being looked at. Unless I’ve missed it (I’ve hardly used the site because I find the mobile version so off putting to use in a browser).

A mobile version may be cool but it’s pretty disastrous to bring it in at the expense of the main site working.

Not good.

By: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:10:37 +0000

[i]I find this fascinating. Of those you listed (you didn’t include Symbian), Blackberry has the highest market share, yet it’s way behind iPhone/iPod. It would be interesting to see how many Blackberry users there are on this site who never visit it from their phone, vs iPhone users who do.[/i]

That’s a very interesting point. The main reason I chose the Pre over the Blackberry Tour (besides my brother giving the Pre glowing reviews) was that there were complaints about the resident browser on the Tour. (not many other complaints about the Tour, though) Of course, I probably could have downloaded Opera for it, but Palm did me good the prior two years with the Centro, so I didn’t want to change brand names.

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:01:05 +0000

Patrick, never say never, but while the iPhone and iPod represent more than 2 percent of our visits, the Palm OS is currently at 3/100ths of a percent. We get more visits from WII (4/100ths) and PS3 (6/100ths). Android is 13/100ths of a percent and Blackberry 14/100ths.

I find this fascinating. Of those you listed (you didn’t include Symbian), Blackberry has the highest market share, yet it’s way behind iPhone/iPod. It would be interesting to see how many Blackberry users there are on this site who never visit it from their phone, vs iPhone users who do.

By: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:50:48 +0000

Actually, I just tried using the resident browser on the Pre, and the full site comes in fine. Of course, I tried to leave a comment with the phone, and I guess the site receives a lot of “malicious” activity from the IP address my phone goes through. (Sprint) :-O

Ah, well. At least I can read it on the go. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

By: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:48:09 +0000

Actually, I just tried this out with the resident browser on the Pre & it’s good. The regular site loads fine.

In the words of Emily Litella, “Never mind!”

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:42:39 +0000

Patrick Murphy, and to be clear, *we* didn’t develop this software, we’re just the happy beneficiary of it, so we don’t control what happens with it.

By: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:23:38 +0000

I know. But I like my Palm Pre. It’s like the iPhone without that annoying AT&T service attached to it.

But I see your point.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:03:44 +0000

By: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:46:21 +0000

I don’t suppose there’s any chance in hell of there being a Web OS version for the Palm Pre/Pixi, will there? Pweeaaaaasssseeee???

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:57:54 +0000

1.) the search feature is still available, you need to select the “down arrow” in the title bar
2.) Fringefan, indeed, I am experiencing the same problem as you — I can’t turn off “mobile’ at the post level, only at the home page level, and when I turn it off there, it brings up TVbytheNumbers vs. Nikki Finke post from a few weeks ago
3.) The latest version seems buggier than the version before. The problem above didn’t exist with the version I installed on Friday.

By: James

James — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:47:57 +0000

Perfect! When I’m out of the office and on the run, I start checking the numbers on my phone around noon!

By: Fringefan

Fringefan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:57:13 +0000

Ugh, personally I hate this mobile version. I try turning it off and either it works and takes me to tvbythenumbers vs Nikki page or it doesn’t work and stays on the same page I’m at. It really does load faster but I miss the regular page.

By: Chuck3G

Chuck3G — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:01:08 +0000

I have Iphone 3G, the search feature is very helpful. Without it I couldn’t find the Chuck thread.

I was unable to switch it out of iphone mode though.

Thanks for the update. It is cool and well organized.

By: JVO

JVO — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:51:04 +0000

Hey this is nifty.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:08:12 +0000

I tried it on my G1 (Android) and it looks like the full site to me. but everything works fine that way.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:22:43 +0000

Junior G., I see what you mean. With the blue/white versions (mine) you just need to tilt your iPhone and go into Landscape mode, though I will try to be more conscious of narrowing the tables, there’s nothing we can do that will get them to display well in portrait mode.

Bill’s version of the table (see Saturday overnight report) doesn’t work in portrait or landscape mode well. I narrowed it by 50 100 pixels and viewers still didn’t show up in landscape mode. It could be narrowed more but then will look kind of crappy on the site itself. We produce these table differently, and I combine Rating/Share into one column where Bill is using two to simplify copy/paste. My guess is Bill will just nuke the “share” column and figure out how to get it to work on all platforms.

edit: but note, there are some tables (weekly cable ratings, DVR Live+7 numbers) that you’ll probably need to view in the site’s normal mode. There’s just too much information in those tables to get them to format well in a scrunched space.

Note to Bill: I had to narrow the table to ~415 pixels to get it the whole thing to display on the mobile version in landscape mode.

By: Junior G.

Junior G. — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:13:39 +0000

I have noticed a problem though. When you look at the charts (blue and white stripes) the ratings numbers are cut off and only shows the show names and time-slots. Hope you can fix this soon, thanks!

By: Sam B

Sam B — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:44:26 +0000

I check the site frequently on my IPhone as well, and it looks great. Thanks!

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:33:46 +0000

Thank you, Kevin. You were actually the proverbial straw. Also thank the folks who created the great plugin:

http://www.bravenewcode.com/

And thank WordPress for making it so easy to add stuff like that on

By: Kevin Bachelder

Kevin Bachelder — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:26:11 +0000

As someone who visits your site and links on my iPhone frequently thanks for doing this. It’s working great for me.

By: Robert Seidman

Robert Seidman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:19:44 +0000

The primary reason we added it in the first place was requests from Twitter users who really wanted it to be “faster” when they clicked the links. It truly does make that process faster.

By: Matt Killeen

Matt Killeen — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:06:09 +0000

I get the “mobile” version on Mac (Firefox, Safari, and Flock).

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:40:47 +0000

The new version worked fine this morning on my Touch.

By: Jayme

Jayme — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:28:09 +0000

Ausiello recently installed this and I personally think it’s fantastic. It gets the information out there, even if the colour scheme is a bit bland. I view quite a lot now from Twitter on my iPhone (am now even) so I’m loving it, yeah

By: Dylan

Dylan — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:14:49 +0000

I’m just getting the normal format on my Android.

By: Tommy

Tommy — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:57:05 +0000

i can’t view the mobile version on my ipod touch!

By: Pix

Pix — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:42:51 +0000

Doesnt’t load on Symbian browser (Omnia HD) or Windows Mobile with Opera 9.5.

By: Knope Knows

Knope Knows — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:38:04 +0000

Cool! Just waiting for the blackberry love (:

By: Junior G.

Junior G. — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:36:17 +0000

Wow! Just tried TV by the numbers on my iPhone and its great! This is so great thanks Bill and all the TVBTN staff!

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:27:30 +0000

Ah, but I am having the same problem as others have reported in that turning it off doesn’t always seem to take effect. It just took me two “turn offs” to have it stick.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:26:10 +0000

love, scroll to the bottom of the page and there is a switch button that turns the mobile theme off.

By: love

love — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:14:29 +0000

how can I switch to the normal display?