Qonic for mobile use (Tablet)

General
1

Hi all,

I want to start a little discussion to share experience with the Qonic mobile app for Android / iOS.

We have a couple of (basic) android tablets Galaxy A9 with 8GB of RAM. On those, Qonic runs acceptably but only after loading. The loading itself takes 5-10 minutes for a somewhat more complex model.

To compare, I tried on my personal iPad Air (1.5-2 years old) and my iPhone 15 Pro. On both these devices loading goes almost instantaneous, as I am used to from the desktop app and browser version.
Is this an Android vs iOS thing? Of is it because the Android tablets are not powerful enough? Does anyone with a flagship Android model (phone or tablet) use the app and willing to share experience?

2

Some more experience when testing with different mobile devices:

  • entry level Android device is almost unusable with Qonic. Similar to the (cheaper) Samsung tablets I tested.
  • Base iPad 9th gen (2021) works relatively well. It does give a warning message about memory limits. I looked it up, they have only 3GB of RAM memory so makes sense.
    The loading of the models goes very fluently. Unlike the Galaxy Tab A9 I tested.

One really big issue when working on tablet is the offline availability. I can load models when connected to WiFi, then loose connection for a couple of minutes and continue viewing the model. Making sections works, measuring, … So it appears that the models are loaded in the cache (or simply in RAM). However after a few minutes an error message appears. Looks like the app tries to connect to internet and fails, shutting down the model viewer.

=> See also cross-post related to offline working: Offline mode (desktop and mobile app) - General - Qonic

3

Some remarks that are specific to mobile operations (without a mouse) but not specific to a brand of tablet:

  • the menu bar on the bottom is very sensitive. I find it difficult to tap the correct button. I’d rather suggest an alternative to the small arrow buttons: Use long tab/hold to enable the pop up menu. That way the entire area of the icon is available to select the tool. Then when switching tools it is long press. Similar to tool changes in Photoshop for example.
  • Navigating takes some getting used to. I think with the latest update and the “Navigate” button the default behaviour of the mobile app changed too? I find I often need switch between normal selection tool and navigation tool to have all the degrees of freedom that are needed.
  • If by accident I click and hold on a point in the distance that is not part of the building, the view rotates around that distant point. This is already annoying when using a mouse, I find it even more so on the mobile device (maybe because it reacts a bit more slowly compared to desktop use)
  • For clearing object selection i’d like a button that is more easily available. Now it is hidden behind the same tool that enables the select and Navigate tools. On a desktop I don’t care, I use the escape key. But on mobile we don’t have that so a quick “clear selection” would be very useful!