Why Is There No Empty Closets App?

Whilst an app isn't in development, there has been considerable focus on ensuring that our migration to a new forum platform comes with a compatible mobile skin for those accessing from a mobile or tablet. This skin is going to be very responsive, will allow you to participate on the community with ease, and will allow you to navigate across the site just as easily as you would with a desktop browser.

The development of an app has security issues that need to be weighed up. Most importantly, if a closeted individual was to download this app, it would be documented in an individual's account history. If a parent was to access either the device or the account history, the presence of such an app would be a risk to an individual being outed. Therefore, we have focused our resources on developing a mobile skin so that all individuals on mobile and tablet devices can still access the community without being disadvantaged. Once we have that nailed, we can then look into developing an app, for those who are in a position to have the privacy to use it on their device without risk.

By doing it this way, we're ensuring the first step we take to accommodating mobile users is something that has the capacity to work for everybody. If we started by developing an app, it would only be a suitable alternative for those who have the autonomy to use a device and service account without nosey family members or friends.

 

We ruled out Tapatalk due to security and privacy issues with a third-party app. The new platform has pretty good browser compatibility on mobile devices.

We may consider developing a mobile app at some point in the future, but it's a pretty daunting task.

There are the security issues Martin described, and there are also a nightmare's worth of device compatibility issues. On a browser, device compatibility is handled by the browser itself; with an app, the app must be designed to support all the different variants of devices (many different tablet and phone sizes/shapes, different software platforms, and different versions of each of the various software platforms, etc). It very quickly becomes a situatoin where there are easily over 100 variants. Most companies with complex apps use a pretty large (and expensive) app support company to maintain compatibility. So it will likely be a while, if ever, before we undertake that.

As to our security policy, the issue is that we have many young members, and there are also a huge number of creepers out there on the 'net as a whole... I'm sure you know this if you've ever been on a less-secure community.

While our security policy is strict, one of the side effects is that it pretty much makes EC completely undesirable to creepers, as it's all but impossible for creepers to prey on people in the EC community. Were we to relax the rules even a little bit, it would allow a "loophole" that could allow sophisticated creepers to groom and prey on our younger members. Additionally, we've always avoided setting up age-based "classes" of members (meaning, if your x age, you can post this, if you're y age you cannot), in part because that would simply invite poeple to lie about their age.

So while the rules could be interpreted by some as overly strict for those who are over 18, we've come to find that the overwhelming majority of our members appreciate the fact that EC is pretty much creeper-free, and a large part of our security measures are intended to keep it that way.

 

That's still true. The new platform will also be heavily customized. (There's really no way around it with the special requirements we have.)

An app is not on the radar at present. Are we aware of the requests for it? Yes. But the move to the new platform is where our focus is for the foreseeable future.

 

I can say that the mobile version of the new platform (that's in development) is pretty slick and, while probably not quite as slick as a custom app would be, it's light years better than using the current EC software platform on a mobile device.