Thanks for the feedback Oliver! We've heard this issue before and it's definitely something to consider.

Note that we're going to start a *complete* overhaul of the Wikipedia reader app in a few weeks, so we'll be wanting user feedback like this for our design planning!

A faster app launch experience is definitely something we want in the new app. We'll be separating many of the user interface components like the search bar out of the web view, which should let the search fire up and be working much quicker, without waiting on the full web view to initialize and render a page.

We haven't yet thought much about what's the best initial view, but possibilities include:

* default to the main page (like the current app)

* show the last-viewed article (like using the web browser)

* show a quick recently-viewed-stuff list

* ???

Whether it ends up selectable or not, we definitely want to make sure it's *fast* -- the ideal is that you don't care what it loaded up because you don't have to wait any extra for it. :)

-- brion

On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 10:42 AM, Oliver Zhu <ollie.zhu@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Mobile List

One of my biggest gripes about the app is the fact that I need to load the front page onto my phone when I open the app up. In my scenario, I will usually pull up the Wikipedia app to look up some facts to settle a friendly discussion; all of my friends who use the app use it similarly.

Since I never use the app to browse Wikipedia like I do when I'm at home at my desktop computer, there's no use in loading the front page. In fact, it's pretty frustrating when the text I'm typing in the search bar lags, or gets reset as I'm typing my entry, and I'm forced to wait for the front page to load first. It sort of defeats the purpose of having quick access to Wikipedia, since the alternative would be to open up a browser and go to wikipedia.org or flip through Google search entries.

(I'm using Version 3.3.1 on an iPhone 4 with iOS 7 if that's relevant.)

I was curious if there has ever been discussion about adding a setting that would allow the user to see the search bar only instead of the front page when she opens the app.

I've already posted about this idea on the Mobile/2013 strategy planning page, but I'm not sure how deep into the idea list people are reading:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile/2013_strategy_planning#Option_to_only_load_search_bar_instead_of_front_page

Apologies if this is not the appropriate forum to discuss this kind of issue. I just subscribed to this list.

Thanks,

Oliver Zhu

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