Mobile Web

I wrote a couple of times about the upcoming cupcake update for the T-Mobile G1 Google Android device and it now looks like this updated may be coming to us in April. According to Pocket-lint T-Mobile confirmed to them that the update is coming to G1 owners soon. There was no confirmation on the rumored G2 that may also be coming in April, but I will be at CTIA later this month and we may see more news about this non-keyboard device then.

Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions.

We hear your words. Why another JavaScript framework?! When development of PhoneGap was under way we noticed slow load times for modern JavaScript frameworks (such as Prototype, MooTools, YUI, Ext and (yes) even jQuery. A big reason why these libraries are so big is because is mostly they contain a great deal of cross browser compatability code. The mobile space has less browser implementations (so far) and different needs. Thus XUI. XUI strives to be a framework for first class mobile device browsers such as WebKit, Fennec and Opera with future support under consideration for IE Mobile and BlackBerry.

Web designers know that the industry involves plenty of change, and continuous adaption and development of skills is required in order to stay up to date. In the past few years, one of the biggest areas of change has been the amount of Internet users who are accessing websites via phones and mobile devices. As a result, Web designers have a growing need to be educated in this area and ready to design websites that accommodate this audience. Because designing websites for mobile devices brings some unique situations and challenges into play, the subject requires a strategic approach from the designer and developer. In this article, we'll look at the subject as a whole, including current trends, challenges, tips and a showcase of mobile websites. Plenty of helpful resources and articles are also linked to throughout the post, so if you're interested in learning more about designing for mobiles, you should have plenty of information at your fingertips.

The Palm Pre smart phone and the company's much-anticipated new operating system-called webOS-are among the most buzzed-about products to come out of CES this year. Despite staging its splashy launch, Palm has been a bit secretive with the device-reminding us of a certain company in Cupertino. But PC World had the chance to sit down with the company and delve into the OS everyone is talking about. And though we had very limited time with the Pre and WebOS, we can tell you what we liked-and what we didn't.

Did Apple's unrelenting advertising campaign for the iPod touch as a game machine ("The funnest iPod ever") pay off this holiday season?

Among the many websites that are out there, few are standards-compliant. Among those few, only a handful sport style sheets adjusted to the needs of handheld devices. Of those which do offer styling for handhelds, not all will fit the smallest, lowest-resolution screens without presenting the user with the ultimate handheld horror: namely, horizontal scrolling. The Opera browser runs on handheld devices of all screen sizes and resolutions, some of them only 120 pixels wide. We work for the company that produces Opera, so we can offer a degree of insight into the functions of Opera for handhelds. In this article, we've prepared a set of general suggestions for creating a handheld-friendly style sheet, along with a few Opera-specific pointers that you may find useful.

Too often, when companies decide to make a mobile version of their application, they take their desktop application or site, decide which features work for mobile, and then convert those features to a mobile language or two. Through this method we get flight times, stock prices, checking email, checking calendars, local weather, and several other useful but limited applications. These applications do not fully meet user needs. To do anything in particular, the user has to visit several applications, one after the other, remembering data from application to application.

The past couple of years have seen numerous new web-capable mobile devices arise, including Apple's iPhone and its Safari browser, the creation of Google's Android platform and Webkit-based browser, the rise of so called "full web" browsers (Nokia's S60, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, among others), the early development of Firefox's mobile version, and more. These mobile browsers improve users' experiences, giving them access to websites formerly off-limits to most mobile devices. Indeed, as a 2008 Nielsen Media Research report highlighted, mobile devices have increased traffic by an average of 13% across several popular websites.