Fast forward two years and the iPad and we’ve dusted off iLoquax and made it more useable for the iPad generation. It ties up our competition tracking system (quacker tracker), allows users to login, and has incorporated some bits and bobs for Facebook and Twitter. It seems to have more purpose now in terms of being part of the site- and if people do start using iPads more at least we’re in a good position now.

Note that if you want to see your logo on your iPhone/iPad or get your users to bookmark it. Just create a 60×60 button and call it apple-touch-icon.png and save it in your home directory. That way you’ll have a shortcut to your site enabled. It also looks like you’ve been clever and developed an app too, plus there’s a nice bit of branding to boot.

Our iLoquax version is still in Beta. The discounts section hasn’t been touched for almost two years now, and there’s some quirkiness with the tracking system. It works, but the duck seems to get stuck until reload.

However, what it shows is that it can be quite easy to convert a database driven site into a simple but usable format. As we’ve stuck to just putting it into a browser we’ve not had to worry about apps, app stores or figuring out what we’d need to do if it was an app. After seeing this blog from Fred Wilson tweeted by Patrick Altoft it seems that going this way wasn’t too bad an idea.

The big question is, and the same no doubt applies to apps, is will people use it?

There are at least a few people who will – and that’s the people who run and manage Loquax. We’re all iPadded up and not only do we have the user version but our own admin setup so we can do a few site tweaks whilst on the move. For example we can now tweet competitions or send them to Facebook at a touch of a button. Although the iPhone is ok for this, the iPad gives us a better sized window in which to work in.

What we’ve found in recent years is that we don’t want to be tied to our desks all day every day. The iPhone gave us a bit of freedom, but the iPad should be able to offer us much more in terms of being able to do work on the move. With the developments we’ve done back office wise then they could be paying for themselves very quickly indeed in terms of flexibility.

Of course, we’d love our current and future users to use it but to enter competitions via Loquax you need to be online and visiting lots of other sites. Because of this we expect laptops and PCs will always prevail. However, if you’re on the move and want to see what’s new or what’s closing soon on Loquax then it’s ideal and more flexible for reviewing than say the www based version of the site.

We’ll continue to develop the version, tidy up the few bugs and hopefully get some user feedback to continue to improve things.

If you have time do check out A4U’s post Publishers Must Evolve for the iPad Generation. It’s important for publishers/affiliates to adapt and evolve. What this blog hopefully shows is that it’s not too difficult to get started.