Mobile phones (iPhone)

[izaxon]

We’d also like to expand the website to mobile phones like iPhone and maybe more. The apps should of course follow the up-to-date platform specific design guidelines, e.g. Material Design for Android.

[izaxon]

A couple of questions:

• [ ] is it required to be a native app?
• [ ] or, can it be a web framed app (the site was built for this initially)
• [ ] is offline use required? (i.e. do we need the TTS installed on the phone, or can audio be retrieved from teldutala.fo over the internet)

[PaoloLeva]

(from Karin) You ask for using the app – without using internet. This will be the best way

[PaoloLeva]

So the mobile app will have TTS on the device and internet will be used (when available) only for logging in, sharing a document and so on.

[PaoloLeva]

From Bjartur: Not requiring internet for reading is very much wanted. How does this relate to the app being native or not? Can it be a webview but not require internet (some tts process that's running beside it)? Or is the app being native tied to the requirement of offline speech? Could you provide a small breakdown on the app requirements (native/non-native and online/offline speech) and what you estimate the difference is in prices and maybe advantages/disadvantages for each?

[izaxon]

When it comes to native we have three options:

• [ ] ObjC/swift
• [ ] Ionic/Cordova
• [ ] Xamarin/C#

I suggest we go with Xamarin. If we want a webview which doesn't require internet then Ionic/Cordova is an option. This option will be native, but with web UI in the app similar to the website, but faster and possible with more native looking menu etc.

If we do not go native, then we create a simple app with basically frames the existing website. This requires internet connection at all times (online use).

• [ ] webview

We can have TTS online (from the website) or TTS in the app. The recommendation is to use TTS in the app even if this requires more work. Then the app will be more responsive and it can be used offline (without an active internet connection).

• [ ] TTS from the internet (site)
• [ ] TTS on device

Access to the list of documents for a user requires internet access. One could put in place a feature which caches document texts in the phone for offline use. But at the moment this is not a prioritized feature. Better would be (at least) to cache the current text being read so that the user can pause and continue listening later, even if the user is offline.

[izaxon]

TTS on device: allows offline use, must be implemented Web framed: only online usage possible, less imp. work Native app: native look and feel, more responsive, longer impl. time Ionic/cordova: middle way, reuse much from existing site, native feel, offline usage possible, a bit more web alike app, could be hard to impl. TTS on device support

Right now a solution with Xamarin, native, with some offline support, and local TTS on the device would be the best for the users. But, this also requires much more work (than e.g. a web framed app).

[izaxon]

A good feature to have with an app is to allow other apps to share with the teldutala app. E.g. a user can visit a web page, select to share it with the app. The app then converts the web page HTML to readable text which the user can listen to.