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WPtouch Pro

Mobile Suite for WordPress

June 14, 2014 — By WPTouch Admin

Continuity & Features in iOS 8 + OSX with WPtouch

Recently at its WWDC Conference Apple announced new features for iOS 8 that should significantly improve user experience on a number of fronts. We’re looking forward to all these enhancements, especially how they’ll compliment WPtouch-powered websites.

“Handoff”

continuity in iOS and OSX

If you missed it, Apple announced new features which make it easier to move between iOS devices and desktop computers. Handoff was one of them, and with it comes the ability to load webpages synchronously moving between Safari on iOS or Safari on a Mac.

Because WPtouch uses the same URL to load your website content, you can expect Continuity between web browsers on mobile, tablet and desktop computers to work great with WPtouch. Visitors will be able to seamlessly access your content, unlike other services or solutions that use different URLs for mobile webpages.

Speed in Web Apps

Until iOS 8, web-apps and native apps that used web containers did not benefit from the browser engine enhancements previously added to iOS (specifically the Nitro JavaScript engine).

In iOS 8 the gap between Safari website view and web apps is now closed, so WPtouch’s much-loved Web-App mode feature will be faster than ever. We hope additional features might become available for Web-App Mode (since it’s early in the beta releases for iOS) and we’ll add them as they become available.

Credit Cards, Logins

For websites with eCommerce solutions or require login, iOS 8 adds improvements and enhancements that make entering credit card information easier and moving between devices and maintaining logged in states much improved, and any website using WPtouch will be able to benefit from these enhancements automatically.

iOS 8 will be released this fall, and we’ll make sure WPtouch will be updated alongside it to add support for the new features and capabilities.

January 8, 2014 — By WPTouch Admin

Infinity Cache: WordPress Cache for WPtouch + Desktop Themes

wordpress cache

With WPtouch Pro 3.1 we’ve introduced extensions, powerful additions to WPtouch Pro themes that take your mobile website to the next level. Infinity Cache WordPress Cache is one of our favourites, and enables mobile + desktop caching for WPtouch Pro-powered websites.

Caching Mobile with WPtouch Pro

For a few years now we’ve been helping users configure WPtouch & WPtouch Pro to work alongside popular desktop theme caching solutions. Not without issue however— as doing so in some of these larger, in-depth plugins can be quite an elaborate process that essentially involves disabling cache for mobile. While a viable solution and mostly headache free, these configurations don’t offer the same speedy improvements for mobile page views as seen for desktop.

Network congestion and latency, coupled with slower wireless connection speeds make load time for mobile web pages extremely important for everyone.

WPtouch Pro themes are built as highly optimized, lightweight and are speedy in their own right— but caching can always improve user experience and minimize server load when it comes to php and MySQL-based websites. It’s always been a goal for us to offer a solid caching solution ourselves to speed up WPtouch Pro page views for mobile devices.

Introducing Infinity Cache

In WPtouch Pro 3.1, we’ve introduced three new extensions to current customers: Mobile Content (for replacing desktop content with mobile content on the fly), Responsive Images (for serving optimally-sized images for each device), and Infinity Cache (for caching both mobile & desktop).

Yes you read that right— Infinity Cache handles both mobile and desktop caches.

It even caches mobile visitors who switch to your desktop theme, ensuring all visitors are served lightning fast page views no matter how they choose to visit your website.

If you already have an existing caching plugin for your desktop website, you can also use it in conjunction with Infinity Cache- your existing plugin will cache desktop pages, and Infinity Cache will handle all the mobile agents set to pass through to WPtouch Pro.

It’s Lightweight & Easy to Set-up

Unlike so many of the complex cache solutions available for WordPress, Infinity Cache is simple and straightforward, and does caching right without worry. It truly is a “set it and forget it” type of cache solution.

infinity cache wordpress cache options

Infinity Cache options

In addition, Infinity Cache also includes support for Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) such as MaxCDN. If you have a MaxCDN account, you can simply add your custom URLs to Infinity Cache and have it automatically serve your static content from your CDN.

Get It Today

Infinity Cache is available to all Small Business, Agency/Multisite and Enterprise WPtouch Pro customers in the Themes & Extensions Browser inside WPtouch Pro 3.1.

To view licenses for WPtouch Pro, visit the product pricing page.

January 8, 2014 — By WPTouch Admin

Introducing BraveNewCloud + WPtouch Pro

bravenewcloud and wptouch pro 3.1

Recently we released WPtouch Pro 3.1, a major update to our flagship mobile plugin for WordPress. A solid two months of work went into the latest update— we introduced a new theme, 3 extensions, and improvements to the best platform for mobile development for WordPress websites.

BraveNewCloud

WPtouch Pro 3.1 introduces the BraveNewCloud, a revolutionary new feature for a WordPress plugin. With the BraveNewCloud you can now seamlessly install & update WPtouch Pro themes and extensions inside the admin panel.

The BraveNewCloud operates seamlessly within WPtouch Pro, and allows you to receive updates for themes and extensions as we release them. You no longer have to wait for a new version of the plugin in order to receive updates for themes and extensions. This allows us to ship more timely bug fixes and improvements to themes and extensions.

Including a cloud install inside the product like this wasn’t easy, and marks the first time any WordPress plugin has accomplished this feat.

Bauhaus: A New Theme, Theme Updates

Bauhaus

With 3.1 we’ve introduced a fresh theme, Bauhaus. Available absolutely free to all existing customers.

Contemporary design and full-featured flexibility are highlights in Bauhaus. Subtle hardware-accelerated animations and clean clear typography make Bauhaus stand out as a polished and powerful, modern mobile theme.

Classic Redux, CMS & Simple

New features, refinements and fixes are also included for all our existing themes. Hotly requested features like user login have been added, while support for iOS 7 (particularly in Web-App Mode) bring all of our themes freshly up to date.

All-New Extensions

Ever since the launch of 3.0 we’d planned to add extensions that help you take your WPtouch Pro install to the next level. With 3.1 we’ve added 3 new extensions and we’ll roll-out more this year.

Mobile Content Extension

Ever wanted to provide content on a post or page completely different from what your desktop visitors see? With the Mobile Content extension, you can. This extension adds a new text area on posts and pages in the WordPress publishing area, and allows you to enter whatever content you’d like to show differently for your mobile visitors.

Responsive Images Extension

One of the biggest issues facing responsive design these days has to do with images— since all webpage assets are served regardless of screen size in a responsively designed website, authors are forced to serve higher quality images (for larger screens) at the expense of larger web page sizes. This slows down websites when they load on a small screen device like a mobile phone, even though they don’t need large images.

With our Responsive Images extension, we’ve solved the problem. The extension swaps out larger images for smaller ones where available, since WordPress creates differently sized images for every uploaded image (full size, large, medium and small). It’s an extension that is literally activate and go— yet you can also add CDN capability to serve images based on geo-location for extra speed.

Infinity Cache Extension

Infinity Cache handles both mobile and desktop caching!

It even caches mobile visitors who switch to your desktop theme, ensuring all visitors are served lightning fast page views no matter how they choose to visit your website.

If you already have an existing caching plugin for your desktop website, you can also use it in conjunction with Infinity Cache- your existing plugin will cache desktop pages, and Infinity Cache will handle all the mobile agents set to pass through it to WPtouch Pro.

Unlike so many complex cache solutions available for WordPress, Infinity Cache is simple and straightforward, and does caching right without worry. It truly is a “set it and forget it” type of cache solution.

Available Now

The WPtouch Pro 3.1 update with BraveNewCloud is free to all existing customers, and you can upgrade through the WordPress admin like any other plugin today.

December 11, 2013 — By WPTouch Admin

Changes in WPtouch Pro 3.1 for iOS 7 and WordPress

It’s no secret that we have heavily been cued by iPhone OS for the staple & standard in mobile web’s design direction. While the web on mobile devices has grown, changed and evolved upon multiple platforms, so too has our work and our flagship product, WPtouch.

The release of iOS 7 (while controversial) is a welcome evolution of what we consider the forefront of the mobile web. With WPtouch Pro 3.1 we’ve worked hard to improve and build on out harmony of the product with the platform is most dominantly lives on.

Web-App Mode

An innovative technology in WPtouch Pro unmatched by competitors or responsive design, Web-App Mode in WPtouch Pro allows site visitors on iOS devices to save your website to their home screens. And unlike regular web bookmarks, Web-App Mode does away with the browser, and instead offers a much-more native app feel to your WPtouch Pro powered WordPress website.

Full screen, immersive and gorgeous— WPtouch Pro’s Web-App Mode is a customer favourite and is just a few clicks in the WPtouch Pro admin panel to enable.

Merged Header

iOS 7 and WordPress

In WPtouch Pro 3.1, themes that detect iOS 7 in Web-App Mode will adopt a native merged header appearance, in line with native apps on the platform which have been updated for the new interface. No settings or configuration is needed, WPtouch Pro themes detect iOS 7 and serve up the new style.

Bauhaus Cool

iOS 7 and WordPress

Our new default and flagship theme Bauhaus takes subtle design hints from iOS 7 and WordPress, including circles for featured images in post listings and partial borders, along with circular comment avatars and a preference throughout for for thinner typography and simple design differentiation of elements and colours. It’s the closest yet to an iOS WordPress theme, but it’s so much more than that. New branding options give you the control to transform this theme into appearing vastly different— it’s truly a chameleon-like theme.

iOS 7 and WordPress 3.8, Too!

Coming soon in our 3.1.2 update is a refreshed admin appearance as well, that harmoniously works with WordPress 3.8. WPtouch Pro 3.1 is a free update for all existing customers. You can update to 3.1 through the WordPress admin panel like any other plugin on the plugins page.

December 6, 2013 — By WPTouch Admin

Whoa! An All-New Free Version of WPtouch

free version of WPtouch

It’s been a long time coming – an all-new free version of WPtouch. Today we’d like to tell you all about it, but first a little bit of backstory.

A Mobile WordPress Theme Is Born

It might be hard to believe, but we shipped the first version of WPtouch back in April 2008. Since that time, the plugin has been downloaded almost 4.6 million times.

It’s now used on millions of websites worldwide, and is hands-down the most popular way to make your WordPress website mobile friendly.

You might not know, but the project started out as a mobile theme for then client of ours Canadian musician, author, and activist Matthew Good. We realized many of Matthew’s visitors were coming to his website on the then just released iPhone— so we thought it might be fun to see what a mobile theme designed just for touch mobile devices could look like. Here’s what it looked like at the time in 2007:

1753419684_002dca7684_o

After his visitors raved about how much they liked it, it dawned on us: wouldn’t every WordPress site owner want something like this?

So we set out to create a new version of the project, one that could be used on any WordPress website.

After a few months of development we shipped the first version of WPtouch into the WordPress plugin repository, and the rest as they say is history.

Going Big, Going Pro

In 2009, it quickly gained popularity and users began to request more and more of the product. It became clear to us that in order to fully develop the product and fulfill the vision of it we always had, we would need to release a premium version in order to pay for our development time and add good support for the product.

This wasn’t an easy transition— we were a successful design and development firm buried neck-deep in projects at the time. We believed in the project, and loved working on it, so we closed out our current projects, and devoted all our time and energy to creating a premium version.

We’ve had great success selling our premium version, and recently released an all-new version of the product, WPtouch Pro.

A Big Leap Forward

For quite some time, the free version has become stagnant, so we decided to use the all-new version 3 code base as the basis for a new free version of the product. It was a decision that allows us to do a lot more with it in the future, while also being a significant upgrade for free users today.

And to celebrate the launch, we’re also including a brand-new theme along with it (called Bauhaus) inspired by the design movement of Bauhaus. WPtouch Pro customers also have access to an enhanced version of this theme, as well as three others, in the 3.1 Pro version.

Based on the principles of the 19th-century English designer William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, Bauhaus design philosophy believed that art should meet the needs of society and that no distinction should be made between fine arts and practical crafts.

The new theme is not just aesthetically based on Bauhaus design, but its architecture (along with the core of the plugin itself) has been engineered to meet the needs of modern WordPress websites in an elegant way.

No Longer One Size Fits All

31-header-new

WPtouch is now a multi-theme, flexible mobile solution for WordPress websites. It now has far more branding, color & style control than ever before.

Themes for it are designed completely image–free, using the latest HTML5 and CSS3 web technologies, and leverage icon fonts, Google fonts, and the latest in mobile web trends to deliver fast, crisp, beautiful mobile themes.

Many of our Pro users had tried some responsive themes, and had been left disappointed. Either they were too slow, cumbersome or difficult to use, or simply ended up being too difficult to manage and maintain. It’s been stated over and over again to us that there continues to be a demand for BraveNewCode & WPtouch to deliver excellent mobile experiences for WordPress websites – and nevermore has it been so exciting for us to develop this product— it’s finally what we always envisioned it should be.

Here at BraveNewCode we’ve spent countless hours refining this product over the last half a decade. It really is the culmination of thousands of hours of hard work, experience, dedication & commitment to being the best of breed for mobile solutions and WordPress websites.

We’ve released the new free version into the repository today, and hope you enjoy it.

November 27, 2013 — By WPTouch Admin

WPtouch Pro 3.1 Update: New Theme, Extensions

We’ve just released WPtouch Pro 3.1, a major update to our flagship WordPress mobile plug-in. 3.1 contains a variety of fixes, updates, and improvements, and also support for all-new themes & extensions.

Previously WPtouch & WPtouch Pro were one-theme products. With the introduction of WPtouch Pro 3 in May we made it a three-theme product, but we weren’t done yet.

In 3.1 we’re introducing a new theme, and also support for what we’re calling Extensions, mini plug-ins to enhance your WPtouch Pro setups.

New Theme: Bauhaus

Bauhaus

07_iphone

Bauhaus is an all-new theme, and is meant for a wide variety of websites. It supports all of WordPress’s modern features, including thumbnails and featured images, custom menus, and custom post types.

It’s design is heavily influenced by the design movement of Bauhaus.

Based on the principles of the 19th-century English designer William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, Bauhaus design philosophy believed that art should meet the needs of society and that no distinction should be made between fine arts and practical crafts.

It also depended on the more forward-looking principles that modern art and architecture must be responsive to the needs and influences of the modern industrial world and that good designs must pass the test of both aesthetic standards and sound engineering.

This new WPtouch Pro theme is not just aesthetically based on Bauhaus design, but its architecture (along with the core of the plugin itself) has been engineered to meet the needs of modern WordPress websites.

Extensions

With WPtouch Pro 3.1 we’re introducing mini plugins called Extensions. Extensions enhance functionality and are specifically designed for WPtouch Pro.

Responsive Images (Enterprise Licenses)

Finally, truly responsive images! The Responsive Images extensions automatically crunches and serves the right size images for different devices. This offers significant performance gains on image heavy websites, leveraging our BraveNewCloud™ service to send devices requesting your pages the appropriate size of image, fast.

Leveraging the Cloud and CDNs, the WPtouch Pro Responsive Images Extension solves a significant problem for today’s mobile web.

Infinity Cache — 5x Faster Pages! (Small Business Licenses or higher)

screenshot- 2013-11-22 at 3.26.38 PM

Boost your WPtouch Pro installation with cache capabilities specifically designed for mobile & WPtouch Pro. You can even use Infinity Cache for your desktop theme, too! Infinity Cache is designed to be a simple, powerful caching extension to improve page speed load times dramatically.

Lead Developer and Co-Founder Duane Storey benchmarked Infinity Cache on his travel blog, The Migratory Nerd recently, and got some startling results:

MOBILE PAGE LOAD

Infinity Cache Off

  • Transaction rate: 6.34 trans/sec
  • Transaction rate: 6.85 trans/sec
  • Transaction rate: 6.63 trans/sec

Average: 6.61 trans/sec

Infinity Cache On

  • Transaction rate: 30.77 trans/sec
  • Transaction rate: 30.30 trans/sec
  • Transaction rate: 32.26 trans/sec

Average: 31.11 trans/sec

Improvement: Nearly 5x faster!

Use Infinity Cache and Responsive Images together to maximize your WPtouch Pro-powered mobile WordPress website page speed and size— you’ll be amazed at the results. No other mobile solution for WordPress offers this kind of power, flexibility and ease-of-use.

Mobile Content — Swap Out Content For Mobile Visitors (All Licenses)

screenshot- 2013-09-18 at 3.29.02 PM

With the Mobile Content Extension you can easily add a text area meta field to posts and page editing screens in your WordPress admin and show custom content only displayed to mobile visitors, instead of your desktop content.

Most of the time you want the same content showing for both mobile and desktop visitors. For many posts and pages this is the preferred and simplest way to use WPtouch Pro.

Though sometimes you want mobile visitors to see something different. Formerly, you could use WPtouch Pro’s shortcodes to display mobile-only content. With the new Mobile Content Extension, you can now just enter the separate content easily in its own text area on your posts or pages. It’s the best of both worlds.

Now Available!

WPtouch Pro 3.1 is now available to all customers!

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