How to: Add Cruise Critic's Community forums to your iPhone Home Screen

[Charles4515]

3 hours ago, karmamule said:

I found a workaround and that is to use the Shortcuts app to create a Home Screen shortcut and I can  even assign one of my pics to be the icon! A bit more work but that little extra ability to customize makes it worth it. (See the CC Celebrity shortcut below)

 

The only way I can do it is with the Shortcuts App like you did. I could not get another way to work. The only problem is that some users might have difficulty creating a shortcut.  I have created shortcuts before and they are a powerful iOS tool but it is not as easy as the way we used to be able to do add cruise critic links. Possibly Invision made a change to their software. I think websites probably prefer the way it has been changed to since it makes websites like apps.

[Ski Mom 2]

I don't have an Add to Homescreen button 😞

[Charles4515]

2 minutes ago, Ski Mom 2 said:

I don't have an Add to Homescreen button 😞

All iPhones have the ability to add a website to their Home Screen. 

[Ski Mom 2]

I tried on Chrome and it wouldn't work. But then I went to safari and it worked.

[eem]

On 7/23/2023 at 12:50 PM, Charles4515 said:

All iPhones have the ability to add a website to their Home Screen. 

I couldn't find it at first either, you have to scroll down - then there it is.

[eem]

Just now, eem said:

I couldn't find it at first either, you have to scroll down - then there it is.

But how do I get to the Princess Roll Call?  Thanks for detailed steps.  It works on my laptop, but I'd like it to work on my iPhone as well.

[drsel]

On 6/23/2023 at 12:25 AM, Essiesmom said:

I just added it to my iPad ….hope it works.  I never visit forums on my phone…screen is too small and typing near impossible.  EM

Use voice typing or voice to text.

you talk and your phone will type automatically

[MichaelPowell]

Just added it to my iPad! Fingers crossed for smooth functionality.

[photopro2]

On 6/22/2023 at 8:12 PM, broberts said:

If you don't see Add to home screen, there is an app for the page so select Install app.

I think your comment explains something that I've been puzzling over.

Last week I saw a banner on the cruise critic UK website which said "install cruise critic app." which I clicked and went through the install process. Sure enough the outcome was that I got what appears to be a cruise critic app in my apps folder and the app icon on my home screen. By the way I am using Android.

I was surprised that I could not find reference to a cruise critic app in the Google play store.

What confused me was that the "install app" process you mentioned does what it said and created an app in my app folder which behaves exactly as I would expect a cruise critic app to behave. This is very different to putting a simple link on my home screen which I've done before for other sites.

I now understand that I am linking to the web-based forums even though, from my point of view, it looks exactly like I am using an app. 

So two questions:

1 Have I understood this correctly?

2 If I have understood, then the "install app" function you describe allows people to easily have an app style experience of the forums. I was lucky to happen to see the banner on the UK site but I wonder why this simple link is not more widely publicised.

[broberts]

1 hour ago, photopro2 said:

 

So two questions:

1 Have I understood this correctly?

2 If I have understood, then the "install app" function you describe allows people to easily have an app style experience of the forums. I was lucky to happen to see the banner on the UK site but I wonder why this simple link is not more widely publicised.

 

1. I believe so.

2. It's a relatively new feature.

[photopro2]

It seems what I have really is an app and cruise critic have just started emailing information about it to users. 

I understand that this is a link but have not tested it

http://click.email.cruisecritic.com/?qs=b8774010bf9cd1355d8011a5857d086070291bab880b4dcbec5f95910390f5eb2503cff043b03950b68124aa09d4d8d13fcd605c27b064c4abd2a2c954e10940

[Charles4515]

2 hours ago, broberts said:

 

1. I believe so.

2. It's a relatively new feature.

Adding to the home screen is an old feature. I did that ages ago. What is new  that the banner announced is that the icon for the shortcut was a blob thumbnail of the page. The recent change is that the shortcut to the community forums is now a nice Cruise Critic icon (on an iPhone, I don't know what Android users see) and not a blob thumbnail. 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Charles4515