A quick heads up from our Making Things Easier Department: We've tweaked our header a tad to make things faster, better, and faster. (And also better.) One side-effect of this is that we've moved our log-in button behind the hamburger menu, which has itself moved to the left-hand side of the site. (Where all good hamburgers spend their days.)
If you need it — and I do recommend signing up and logging in, since that's how you can comment and enter contests and interact with our more than 2 million other awesome members — that's where it is. (Oh, and there are fewer ads for those who are logged in. That's always a good thing.)
Reader comments
FYI: We've cleaned up our header a tad!
Great, Opera 12 is completely useless for this site now rather than just being partially useless. Oh, well. It's what I get for my illicit love affair with software from a small-time company. It looks good in Firefox, though! I wish more people would opt for simplified, less busy presentations.
Won't this make it harder for new users to be able to sign up? I know I don't like searching everywhere for the sign in page. Also, it seems to me that if you are a new user then you may not know about the hamburger menu.
Posted via the Android Central App
Hmm. So I now have to click the hamburger menu to find out whether I'm logged in? I can't see any other indication. I do like to stay logged in, but if I don't use my PC for a while I find I get logged out. I guess I'll just have to keep clicking to check, or wait until the extra ads get too annoying. It would be nice to have some indication of logged-in status in the main header.
I like the new header, was wondering what was different until I noticed that the avatar disappeared from the right side of the screen. Now to check how it looks on mobile....
It's ok, feels a bit strange with the hamburger menu now in the upper left, but I'll adapt to it. What I'd really like to see though is an option to stop the hide/unhide behavior of the header (as I've detailed numerous times in the forum thread link here: http://forums.androidcentral.com/androidcentral-com-site-news-feedback-h...
On a regular PC the way the header will hide/unhide itself (as you scroll or refresh the page) is mildly aggravating as it will often get in the way of an area of the screen you were attempting to read or worse were about to click on which then takes you away from the existing page as you inadvertently clicked something on the header. But this is exponentially worse on a mobile device such as my Note 4 which due to the larger screen and S-Pen otherwise works great with the full desktop site (please don't suggest using your app, not a fan when a web browser does the job just fine). On said device the hide/unhide behavior of the header is so pronounced it almost constantly pops over part of my screen with the slightest movement of the page or if the S-Pen gets anywhere near it. It's quite maddening at times, in particular when I'm trying to type up a post and get taken away from the page by inadvertently clicking something on the header. Thus I've grown to despise that damn thing! It's the bane of your website to me. If I could only make it stay at the top out of my way!!!! Grrrr
Can you guys clean up the center section of the main page?
Having ads in between every article with no real break in between makes the ads seem like articles when they're not. I know that was the sole purpose of that design, but its pretty intrusive,
12 or so hours later after my first comment, and the cleanup you've done to the header (which I never pay attention to anyway) might have resulted in the site looking a little better, but only barely. The different size pictures is annoying and confusing. I just want a consistent delineated start/end to each article (like the ac app), and to not have to fight that dang ad at the bottom from scrolling up when I'm just trying to scroll down to see the next articles. Also, prefer the old way of getting to past articles that let me go to previous/newer instead of this "load more". And finally for m.ac.com to stop being so jumpy/janky/flaky. Perhaps chrome beta on my Nexus 7 is part of the problem, but m.ac.com is worse than any other tech site I visit. And I visit it 20 or 30 times a day. Thanks.
I liked the old one where you would get a dropdown of all the Mobile Nations websites. I could navigate with just a click, now I'll have to type in all the websites and go I guess. And it was a good feature to because new members or new traffic to the website would know there are more websites from the Mobile Nations.
Similar to the verge: I quite like the site on my big monitor but on my tablet it's horrible so I load up the app. Which ironically for an android blog is not optimised for tablets in any way.
Posted via the Android Central App
In the forums it uses the wrong picture for the new Moto X. It shows a different picture for the Moto X. Not sure what phone it is but it is not the new Moto X. Its just something that has bothered me for a while. Besides that I do like the look. It is definitely improved.
So what about the mobile ads? I'm pretty much at the point now where I won't open AC articles on mobile at all. Twice in the past few days now the AC site has forcibly redirected feedly's browser to a facebook page that insists on popping that "are you sure you want to navigate away?" dialog. One time it made my phone vibrate each time I tried to go back. Nope!
Why wouldn't you use the app?
Because I don't want to have to go to Yet Another Place for my news. From Feedly I can browse through all of it from multiple sources.
Though having said that, it occurs to me that I could use the AC app as my intent target when opening an AC article in Feedly. So I'm going to give that a go. Thanks for the hint!
I mean this in the most constructive way possible. The header looks like a banner ad, so I never actually see it.
Not sure yet how much better this is using Chrome beta on my 2013 nexus 7, but I'll continue to monitor it. That said, the change you made a few weeks ago, was by far the worst! Was about to give up on Android Central because of it, and I can't really use the AC app due to an eyesight issue (need pinch to zoom).
Maybe it's just me, but has anyone been able to pinch & zoom in the app? I have that setting and have never been able to do so.
Where did the little marker go to allow us to visit your other sites easy? You used to be able to click on it and go to Crackberry, Windows Central and I More. Where did that go?
on the same menu, but at the bottom. On my screen, I need to scroll down. It was better for me to just hit the down arrow and select the other site I wanted. This adds an extra scroll...so, not faster for me.
Thanks. I prefered it when I scrolled up a bit, and the header would appear, and I could just click on the arrow to go to the other sites.
Now pick a left OR center justification and ONE size picture. No idea what you guys are thinking with this site redesign.
Agree, see how it works on a large screen, like at work, but a mess on a 15" laptop.
It's a mess on an 11", 17", and 19". I don't think it's messiness discriminates against screen size.
I actually prefer having the log-in and thus my user avatar in the header - so I know if I'm still logged in.
Yup!
That's the first thing I looked for. You never know when you aren't logged in. Sometimes you go to comment and you're logged out.
Agreed. (Sorry - hadn't seen this when I left my comment below.) The point about wanting to comment but finding you're logged out is valid.
I had no idea that symbol was called the hamburger. Learn something new every day.
Posted via the Android Central App
+1
Posted via AC app on my X 14
+1
Posted via the Android Central App
Thank you very much, appreciated
Posted via the AC App on Note 4 N910F
Nice Phil! :D
Android M(uch improved!)
Next can you fix the commenting system on mobile devices...like Android phones. It is almost impossible to edit posts or reply to people.
Yep.
Especially that I rarely visit your website - not on the computer that much and when I am it's for business.
via the AC App on
VZW Moto X 2014/DE 2013/N7
Can you make it so that pictures in the forums that users post are able to be clicked on and enlarged? Thanks :)
Posted via the Android Central App
I likey! Gud Job!
Faster, better and fewer ads is always appreciated.
...and more Jerry.
MOAR JERRY!