iOS app really buggy and frustrating

I like Dynalist, but on iOS it’s really frustrating and I hate using it. Since I’m at least 50% on an iPad Pro and iPhoneX, this makes dynalist hard work.

  1. Search. Clicking the search icon and then the world icon for global search often results in text entry in the search field not being possible. You have to click back and then try again. This can happen a number of times in a row.
  2. Searches cannot be added to bookmarks, a continual pain to have to create the search online or on the mac.
  3. The sidebar menu window often flickers in when clicking the hamburger, but doesn’t display. It often needs two clicks to get up and running.
  4. I have the font set to large and on some documents the title reflows to the next line on top of the text in the note section.
  5. Date searches often do not work. I have to exit the app and restart and then it works. I find date searches on iOS generally buggy not giving the same intended result on iOS as on my mac. within:0d Does not work period.
  6. It’s great having date specific searches, but the results are not in date order. This means you’ve still got to look down the whole list. If you have a lot of dates you’ve either got to create more detailed searches or chance missing something in a long list.
  7. Not having per device settings really is a problem. 27”, 12.9” and 5.8” screen sizes have very little in common. Having to css everything in a tiny custom css box (just look at the ridiculous size in an iphone) is next to impossible.

The long and short of it is that many more people are now tablet or mobile devices first. The web dev community has had a mobile first philosophy for many years. So many iOS apps including Dynalist have a very poor ios offering in comparison to the desktop. This makes it really hard for mobile first users.

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I have to say, I entirely agree. I have only just found Dynalist and I love it on the computer, but the iOS apps are almost unusable.

I understand why devs decide to use these kind of “web wrapper” experiences, but they are a poor alternative to native apps. Obviously, creating a high-quality native iOS app that offers all the features users expect is time consuming and expensive, but I have to question the wisdom of providing an app that denies its users the chance to explore the full extent of the Dynalist platform.

The Workflowy app is no better, of course, and is one of the reasons why I jumped ship.

For many of us, iOS is our primary platform. It is where we get work done. If only Dynlalist could have an app that could compete with Ulysses, Bear or Drafts…

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Quick tip here for IOS user :
Open dynalist in mobile safari is more usable than download the app from App Store. For extra convenience, you can add the webpage into the IOS home screen to make it more like app.

In other notes. I hope that Dynalist would figure out a way to create a much more usable mobile app, as at one point, this would be a point that separate a good app with the great one.

This doesn’t really help as you need to be online. If you’re offline you have to use the app. As I’m on iOS 50% of the time my usage of Dynalist is massively reducing and being replaced by other apps. The irony is that Workflowy’s iOS app is far more mature and pleasant to work in.

It’s the path of the less evil in iPhone XR.

Dynalist iOS App is borderline unusable for me. The keyboard panel doesn’t even show in the app, where in the browser at least I can type consistently.

And if I have to choose between stay online all the time, and can’t type anything? Well…

My iPad Pro is my tool of choice when I go to meetings. Internet access is not always assured.

I’m currently using Drafts 5 on iOS as Dynalist is impossible to use. Once Dynalist renewal comes round in a few months I’ll make a choice based on where the iOS app is at.

I’m assuming iOS app development is on going as it is not specifically mentioned on their Trello roadmap.

Interestingly I remember the exact same issue with Workflowy development. Dynalist is no quicker at sorting their iOS app than Workflowy were.