08-01-2013, 09:31 AM
For the last couple of days, the Cardboard has come up on my 10" Android tablet and Android phone with a different page design, apparently "optimized" for mobile.
The regular Cardboard design works fine on both devices (though not quite perfectly). The new mobile design is awful on both.
On my phone, the mobile design comes up with a microscopic font that is absolutely illegible. If I double-tap on the screen -- an Android feature that enlarges the text and re-flows the page -- the font increases to a readable (but still small) size, and of course I can zoom it still larger. However, quote boxes do not re-flow, so they stick way off the side of the screen and I have to scroll back and forth for every line in order to read the entire quote.
That problem is similar on my tablet, although the initial font is (barely) legible there. Also (at least on the tablet), the design wastes a ton of screen real estate with blank borders, etc.
The up/down respect voting buttons, vote totals, and some other elements are hidden in the mobile design. I suppose this is ostensibly to make more room so that the text can be larger and legible on small screens. But as noted above, the extra room is instead either wasted or filled with text in an even smaller font than the regular design gives.
I did notice a tiny, color-on-color link hidden at the bottom of the page to go to the regular design. This helps me, but sometimes clicking on a link takes me back to the mobile design and I have to click the bottom of page link again. Also, of course, I'm sure the mobile site can't be a good experience for anyone (unless it looks way better on an iPhone, perhaps), so think everyone would click this link if they could find it. In other words, the mobile site is worse than useless.
The regular Cardboard design works fine on both devices (though not quite perfectly). The new mobile design is awful on both.
On my phone, the mobile design comes up with a microscopic font that is absolutely illegible. If I double-tap on the screen -- an Android feature that enlarges the text and re-flows the page -- the font increases to a readable (but still small) size, and of course I can zoom it still larger. However, quote boxes do not re-flow, so they stick way off the side of the screen and I have to scroll back and forth for every line in order to read the entire quote.
That problem is similar on my tablet, although the initial font is (barely) legible there. Also (at least on the tablet), the design wastes a ton of screen real estate with blank borders, etc.
The up/down respect voting buttons, vote totals, and some other elements are hidden in the mobile design. I suppose this is ostensibly to make more room so that the text can be larger and legible on small screens. But as noted above, the extra room is instead either wasted or filled with text in an even smaller font than the regular design gives.
I did notice a tiny, color-on-color link hidden at the bottom of the page to go to the regular design. This helps me, but sometimes clicking on a link takes me back to the mobile design and I have to click the bottom of page link again. Also, of course, I'm sure the mobile site can't be a good experience for anyone (unless it looks way better on an iPhone, perhaps), so think everyone would click this link if they could find it. In other words, the mobile site is worse than useless.
