Comments on: iPhone browser drives development & New Site Announcement

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:07:21 +0000

Yes I think a well designed site will work on a mobile device.

The key to developing for an iphone is to use good block structure.

The way the zoom works, is that it zooms in on whatever block you’re trying to zoom in on (p tag, div, form, textarea, etc)

So using a css driven layout instead of a table driven layout, paragraph tags that close instead of br tags, etc will help.

As for detecting it, yes you can. Most browsers pass it over in the headers that they’re a mobile browser. Google is using this technology on google reader to take you to the mobile version. I think there’s even a css method of doing so as well.

By: Alexander

Alexander — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:02:07 +0000

Hmmm interesting. Do you think it’s true to say that a well-coded, well-designed page will work perfectly well on a mobile device, or do you think we’ll always have to make allowances, have a separate stylesheet or have a completely separate site to serve to handhelds?

Anybody know if there’s any reliable way to detect a mobile device is being used to view your page, and serve up a different stylesheet accordingly?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:34:46 +0000

Al, that’s the point that Berners-Lee is making. Theoretically, the web should be the web.. When you start making special versions things get ugly.

To an extent, he’s right.

The problem with the mobile web though is size. You just can’t show a full version of something on a tiny little screen. The coding standards allow for it, but most designs don’t.

What I’m doing with some of my .mobi sites now is just sizing stuff so that it fits better. You’ll notice the noslang version loses the main menu in favor of text links, and ditches the ad / what’s new features on the right.

as for the more money, .mobi domains are freaking expensive. I’ll never make back $20 from that rpsgame.mobi domain (mostly because I have no ads on it).. so I have to think of it as a hobby.

NoSlang.mobi has ads, but I’m willing to bet that nobody clicks ads on their cell phone… and that the ad landing pages look like shit when they get there.

How long until ad companies let me say “don’t show my ads to users on mobile devices”

By: Alexander

Alexander — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:04:51 +0000

My point is – why are they ghetto-ising web for mobile devices? Wouldn’t it be better to create devices that can use the www as it is now?

It’s not really cool for everyone, because companies have to pay twice to get a web presence on the www and now a .mobi version. It’s cool if you’re a web developer, I suppose, because now you have another revenue stream.

With the resolution and interfaces at their disposal, I’m struggling to find any reason why mobile devices have to have a special version of the web just for them?

By: James

James — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:03:22 +0000

To Alexander: I don’t know what “proprietary crap” you mean.

.mobi sites encourage the use of XHTML, CSS, and W3C Best Practices. All fairly non-proprietary last time I checked

In general I agree that the iPhone has swivelled the spotlight around onto the whole mobile web medium. Which has to be cool for everyone…

http://dotmobi.typepad.com/dotmobi/2007/07/does-the-iphone.html

By: Alexander

Alexander — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:09:59 +0000

This is all wrong – Apple should be making their browser conform to web standards, not introducing more proprietary crap. If Microsoft had done this, everyone would be up in arms about it.

By: Paul Levinson

Paul Levinson — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 04:39:52 +0000

The boom in blogging about the iPhone is just one facet of the iPhone's boon to literacy - with all the images and sounds, text is still the currency of the Web...