News

TouchArcade App: An iPad Version, the Back Button, and Some Tips

With the launch of the official TouchArcade App last week, we’ve been fielding some common questions and feature suggestions through our support line. If you have any issues or requests, please send them to [email protected].

In the meanwhile, we’d like to address the most common comments/questions we’ve seen, and offer some tips to new users of the app.

iPad Version

It seems we weren’t clear enough about it before. Yes, an iPad (Universal) version is in the works. We have beta builds of it already. So, it’s coming — and sooner rather than later. We’ll release screenshots in the near future.

The Back Button

Another common question has been how to quickly navigate back to the main app from the forums.

In designing the forum interface, we chose to go with a single unified back button (see right). That button serves as both a browser back button as well as the App’s own back button. While it does buck the tradition of giving the user a second Browser-specific back button at the bottom of the screen, it avoids another common issue — where you accidentally hit the App back button destroying your entire browsing session history.

Regardless, here’s the solution to get back to the App quickly from deep in the forums:

1) Press and hold the Back button or
2) Triple tap the Back button

General Usage Tips

As you start to explore the app, here are some tips on how to best use the app.

If you are looking for fresh new games, be sure to check out the Hot New Games sidebar and section in the App. This is a weighted list of recently released games that are being actively discussed in our community. We should point out that not every game in this list is guaranteed to be good — in fact, some may be actively discussed because they are bad. But, this list can be used as a great starting point to see community reviews, screenshots and videos of the latest games, so you can make your own decision. In fact, games will frequently appear in this list before anywhere else.

If a game looks interesting, but you haven’t yet been convinced to buy it, you should add the game to your Watch List. The Watch List will then notify you when we publish an official review of the game, or if the game has any other major activity, such as price drops or updates.

Similarly, you can “Watch" upcoming games highlighted in our News section. This allows you to easily follow the entire lifecycle of a game — from preview, to release, and to review.

If you haven’t tried it out yet, give the App a try, and we’ll provide more updates and tips in the near future.