If your product has anything to do with viewing or sharing content, then you need to be testing it on the iPad. I’ve had several recent experiences with products that didn’t work properly on the device. Listen up, folks, I can’t take your product seriously if you aren’t ensuring it works on the iPad and other tablet devices.
The other week, my first post came out as a new columnist on Mark Schaefer’s {grow} blog. I knew there would be comments, so when I woke up, I immediately grabbed my iPad to check the post and respond to comments. Mark is using Disqus as his comment system, right now. I read the first comment and went to respond to it. Unfortunately, the Disqus login mechanism wasn’t working on the iPad. I couldn’t see the usual buttons to login via Twitter or Facebook. Frustrated, I abandoned the iPad and got out of bed to use my clumsy, old laptop.
About a month prior to that, I had a similar issue with the Livefyre comment system. Coincidentally, that was on Mark’s blog, as well. I’m not sure why he abandoned Livefyre, but my problem was that the comment I spent the considerable time typing up on the iPad disappeared. I lost my work. We all know how annoying that is! I tweeted about this to Mark, who retweeted it to the Livefyre folks. To their credit, they jumped right on the issue. I got an email from them asking for more details, and they fixed the problem.
It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, though. iPad sales are large and growing. People primarily use the iPad device to consume content. A blog is the quintessence of content. In a Business Insider study, 30% of respondents said they used the iPad as their main computer–and the main use was for web browsing!
Every blog platform, comment system, and any other content viewing and sharing platform needs to be tested thoroughly on the iPad and work well on it. Come on, people! Testing on the iPad is a no-brainer!
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