tapatalk wont login or update feeds anymore

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Blinky 42

Active Member
Aug 6, 2015
615
232
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PA, USA
I noticed it as well earlier this week but figured it was an update the the app did and would gt fixed eventually so didn't investigate much
 

nthu9280

Well-Known Member
Feb 3, 2016
1,628
498
83
San Antonio, TX
I noticed it as well earlier this week but figured it was an update the the app did and would gt fixed eventually so didn't investigate much
I think it started on Wed/Thu. I recall @Patrick saying that if the #users fell below some critical mass he would look at discontinuing Tapatalk support. Not sure if that is what happened. I don't follow the general discussion / forum features thread. So even if there was announcement, I would have missed it
 
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Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
5,792
113
Tapatalk is turned off at this point. You can thank the EU and GDPR for that. It may come back once we have time to work through it. Here are some stats though:
  • Tapatalk is the #1 maintenance item on the forums. Constant security updates, broken bits.
  • Tapatalk had an annoying banner for any non-Tapatalk mobile user on the forums. The way to remove this was to move to a paid subscription.
  • We looked at moving to paid, but the advertising is so poor/ revenue share so poor that Tapatalk revenue was on the order of $0.05/day. For $1.50 in revenue per month, it did not cover the cost of upgrading. The rates given to publishers like STH are frankly terrible.
  • On the GDPR front, Tapatalk essentially sucks all content/ data and makes that data hard to manage.
We may revisit it at some point, but the new EU GDPR was finally the last straw that means we cannot support it at this time. I have three international round trips and 26K miles to fly in the next 13 days starting today so no time to deal with Tapatalk. I know we have a few people that love Tapatalk, but from a site owner point of view, it is not worth it at this point.
 

SlickNetAaron

Member
Apr 30, 2016
50
13
8
43
know we have a few people that love Tapatalk, but from a site owner point of view, it is not worth it at this point.
Totally understand that. Is there an alternative mobile app that we can use? I just like the push notifications.. much finer control for my use than getting email notifications
 

mstone

Active Member
Mar 11, 2015
505
118
43
46
tapatalk was once useful, but started going downhill years ago until it was nothing more than obvious play to squeeze ad revenue from people still using it by habit.
 

RyC

Active Member
Oct 17, 2013
359
88
28
Is there a way to mark a forum as read that I'm missing? I used Tapatalk to mark the Sales/Deals/Trades forums as read (to avoid temptation) and I can't seem to find a way to do it now.
 

RyC

Active Member
Oct 17, 2013
359
88
28
Does that mark ALL forums read or just the forum you're currently in?
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
3,346
598
113
Is there a way to mark a forum as read that I'm missing? I used Tapatalk to mark the Sales/Deals/Trades forums as read (to avoid temptation) and I can't seem to find a way to do it now.
Haha
 

ttabbal

Active Member
Mar 10, 2016
743
207
43
47
Is there any alternative to Tapatalk on Android which works with STH?

Just browsers. The site performs pretty well in Chrome. Script heavy sites like forums used to have lousy performance on mobile, but they have improved a lot lately. As have mobile processors etc.. And tapatalk has been going downhill lately as well, so it's a lot less useful than it used to be overall.
 

lumdol

Member
Jun 9, 2016
30
2
8
39
Tapatalk is turned off at this point. You can thank the EU and GDPR for that. It may come back once we have time to work through it. Here are some stats though:
  • Tapatalk is the #1 maintenance item on the forums. Constant security updates, broken bits.
  • Tapatalk had an annoying banner for any non-Tapatalk mobile user on the forums. The way to remove this was to move to a paid subscription.
  • We looked at moving to paid, but the advertising is so poor/ revenue share so poor that Tapatalk revenue was on the order of $0.05/day. For $1.50 in revenue per month, it did not cover the cost of upgrading. The rates given to publishers like STH are frankly terrible.
  • On the GDPR front, Tapatalk essentially sucks all content/ data and makes that data hard to manage.
We may revisit it at some point, but the new EU GDPR was finally the last straw that means we cannot support it at this time. I have three international round trips and 26K miles to fly in the next 13 days starting today so no time to deal with Tapatalk. I know we have a few people that love Tapatalk, but from a site owner point of view, it is not worth it at this point.
Mobile phones and tablets are ubiquitous. Although I’d venture to guess 99.9% of users here have desktop and laptop machines, many I’d imagine would be similar to myself in that checking forum activity is much more convenient and pleasant in an armchair with a tablet or phone on one interface.

Even with a wealth of desktop machines, I’m just not in “work mode” in front of them when I choose to check forums generally.

This is in part why I don’t venture here much, and is likely a data point missed in your site analytics- those who will be far less active or completely inactive without Tapatalk.

While Tapatalk is certainly imperfect, it’s the best thing going. Until there’s high quality alternative options or you design your own mobile interface for sth Tapatalk will be the only game in town.

That you dislike their terms is unfortunate for me but of course it’s your choice. Many find a way to manage.

The effort in creating compatibility is not drastic nor should it be the largest piece of your maintenance regimen. If it is perhaps there’s a greater issue in your methodology. Plenty of sites I frequent (some of which EU based) which survive purely on a shoestring of donations of site administration, maintenance and server costs manage to keep seamless compatibility.

Just offering a perspective that may be the same as many, but a voice that you will likely never hear / a data point that won’t be clear from your userdata.

Likely they’re all on reddit or anantech or comparable and won’t take the effort to express their issue.

To quantify a lack of growth or rather growth rate stunted by a lack of mobile users is rather impossible. So, making a wager as to its value is as much a guess as anything. However, judging by mobile device adoption worldwide id bet on retaining mobile compatibiltity.
 
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IamSpartacus

Well-Known Member
Mar 14, 2016
2,515
650
113
The mobile experience on these forums are quite good. I have zero issues navigating and posting in my mobile browser.
 

lumdol

Member
Jun 9, 2016
30
2
8
39
If you review my previous post you will notice I’m not criticizing the mobile experience of this website in any way.

Regarding differences between an app and using the website: being logged in on an app allows more control and additional features such as push notifications, browsing multiple forums from a single interface, seamless photo uploads from a phone or tablet and other conveniences.
 

mstone

Active Member
Mar 11, 2015
505
118
43
46
Conveniences like extra ads that apparently pay the site owner almost nothing! And a buggy crashy app with a bad UI!

I despise sites that push you into using a stupid app instead of just working with a browser.
 
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lumdol

Member
Jun 9, 2016
30
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No one is pushing anyone to use anything. It may be hard to envision for some, but I can see a world in which one can have a useful mobile friendly site as well as app compatibility.

And everyone is entitled to their preferences.

My preference is for the thing you despise (because we obviously see things differently).