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

Hi there.

As I read the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy I accurately looked at the descriptions of the device, namely the guide, itself.

It is veeeery similar to the iPhone.

Wouldn't it be great to have a mobile version, like this one, which works with those other baby phones, that runs on the iphone, with a slim and nice userInterface, which allows one to search for anything in h2g2?

I would be very pleased if BBC would make an iPhone version of The Guide (which would be a nice name for the application).

By the way, I am an iPhone developer, and I could program that kind of app, if you (BBC) will.

I'm looking forward to getting answers from you!

Me

Hi,

I'm also interested in this and like AssAKING would love to have a go myself.

As it is right now the only way to do this would be to scrape the served HTML for the article and represent it in whatever form on the iPhone/iPad.

Does the BBC have any plan to provide an API for accessing h2g2 content? Maybe through a SOAP interface?

We do have a mobile version that puts the Edited Guide into the palm of your hand:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/h2g2

... although I understand the new design incorporates useage on other devices too.

I'm imagining (no, really - have a look at me. See? There I am, imagining) with the private ownership this is going to take a big, fat and possibly hairy step forward. I mean, apps scream h2g2. It's what the whole site has been moving towards since forever, and no, the word 'wap' does not belong in this conversation.

Could not agree more. The whole brilliance of Douglas Adams was that he pretty accurately predicted smart phones at a time when digital watches were pretty cool

It's almost painful that a mobile app doesn't already exist!

Honestly - I don't think it needs an app.

A web app, maybe. But as mobile devices can now cope fine with full HTML, I don't think the wheel needs to be reinvented. Mobile style sheets would be more than sufficient.

I use h2g2 on my iPad and the full website is fine. On the iPhone the site is too wide but different style sheets would sort that.

One very minor thing I'd like is an iOS bookmark icon so that the h2g2.com link from my iPad home screen has the h2g2 logo
Instructions here: http://osxdaily.com/2011/02/09/set-apple-touch-icon-png-to-customize-a-websites-iphone-bookmark-favicon/

I was thinking more of a version of h2g2 that didn't have the behind the scenes stuff - just the edited entries. Otherwise there doesn't seem a huuuuge amount of distinction between those and other articles, and therefore any point to them. So in my fantasy/near-reality app, there would be a search function and not much more. No user spaces. Some kind of feedback facility, though.

Also (sprach Zarathustra), an app rather than simply using the internet, which everyone already can, means publicity, because you have a product that you have to get. And, it means money.

I admit that I would quite like a version for my Android.

Mind you there's two markets here - the readers, who are more likely to want the Edited Guide/Underguide/ThePost, and those who join the site and talk and write who may want an app to post to conversations, write Entries, etc..

Yes. Good point. Two ways in which people would want a quicker, neater way to use things than normal Web access provides.

D'you know, strangely enough I can also build apps. Not just web development for this geek, no. In fact at the moment I'm building two native java apps for clients.

We did build a prototype h2g2 app for the bid, it didn't get used but it did work.

As Peregrin says though, a mobile friendly style sheet should sort out most access issues to h2g2, but there's more that an app itself could do. And it would have to really if we were to charge you for it to cover the costs of building and maintaining it. And those costs include my bar bill, so it won't be cheap

Has there been any progress with this concept?

I'd be REALLY interested in this, I'd also be interested in designing and building it

If anyone has actually come up with a demo could I possibly have a try? Pretty please?

At the moment we're rebuilding a lot of the back-end of the Guide, the APIs send out huge amounts of data which while okay for broadband / desktops really isn't suitable for mobile devices running potentially on 3G or possibly sporadic connections.

Plus we've got a very limited base of developers at the moment who're all volunteers, so we've having to be very careful about prioritising workloads.

It is in the pipeline though, the work we're doing for the Guide itself is being planned so that it'll also power apps.

I just noticed the "designing and building it" part of that message, have you had any experience building apps / websites / etc?

I've had experience building websites full sized as well as mobile. I've not had a go at building apps yet.

What sort of developers do you need?

At the moment it's mostly PHP as the new site is written in that. But there's a fair bit of html/css/js coming up, especially when we move towards the app stuff.

Let me know, I'm more than happy to help.

Drop us a line at tech@h2g2 dot com (because that *really* stops spam bots) and I'll make sure to keep you involved!