h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just wondering if there will ever be a hg2g iPhone application?

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I'd love for this to happen. There's no plans to do it in-house at the moment but after the site re-fresh I'm going to push for it. Cheers.

I know this is an old suggestion, but, is there an API that a third-party could use to develop a mobile app for the site?

I'm afraid not.

There's a set of APIs, but to be honest they're not really very good, and there's no proper documentation. We've got a new front end that we should be rolling out before the end of the year (when I finish building it) and then we'll be working on a new set of APIs to replace what we've currently got.

What would you look for in a mobile app for the site though, that accessing the website couldn't provide? ( serious question so I know what to build )

Only got Android, which I know is a totally different kettle of fish, but it would be simpler to find stuff if the Edited Guide/Forums/Write an Entry chunks of h2g2 had their own separate tab, rather than scrolling down?

Android and iPhone really aren't that different when you get past the branding

and the cost of course.

The only real issue I have with the site on a mobile browser (regardless of branding) is that the site seems a bit cramped on such a tiny screen. So really, just stripping the interface down a bit if a mobile browser were detected would be sufficient. I know there used to be a PDA version of the site sometime during the beeb's ownership, but I doubt that's been maintained at all. I think it's been close to a decade since I used that version.

We've kept the old skins kicking around (we've not finished adapting the new version yet, out from the bbc code) so you can find them here:

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/home
http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/home
http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/home

and...

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/plain/home

I have to admit I've not had a chance to properly test plain to see if we transferred it out okay.

There did used to be a wml/wap version of the site, but we didn't get the code for that when we bought it unfortunately.