Movin' to Mobility--what's your take?

[MBScott]

John, you said:

I made the same suggestion Dan did (just with some illustrative code) which you seemed to be very receptive to when coming from him (I am sorry I don't have a banner next to my name but perhaps someday I will be so endowed) -

but if you read what I wrote, you'll see that I'm NOT receptive to his suggestion.

Dan says:

With mobile user agents, it will really depend on what your target audience is.

If the people you expect to be using your mobile site have the latest and greatest in technology, and can actualy support HTML/CSS, then go for it. If instead they're using old clunkers that need a lot of hand-holding, go with the WAP/WML route.

In my target audience, the split is about 50-50. About half of our target audience have the latest and greatest... cell phones, blackberries, pda's that will wipe your butt for you. These will render html just fine. The other half have dash mounted systems (cars, boats, rv's, etc) or handheld systems or custom mapping devices. They render wml.

This is not a design issue. It's not a content issue.

My problem is how to accurately detect which device wants which language.



Missy

[wwb_99]

^^^^Easy enough:

1) If the device gives an accept header for WML and NOT HTML, serve WML
2) If the device gives an accept header for HTML (or both), serve HTML.

If the detection above does not work then it is the fault of the device developers not stating what works with their devices using an industry standard specification (HTTP headers).

Other option: create gateway page in plain text, with urls of WML or HTML version. Most devices should recognize a URL and make it a link. And let users direct themselves.

[Dan Schulz]

^^ sounds like what I'd do in this case.

[HtchHikr]

Say you did create some mware (Like a game) and a site...could you actually sell it to visitors? I really confused how that is going to work.

[I87]

Check out yahoo mail's new version; it brings my fast machine to its knees at times.

Off Topic:


I hate the ajax yahoo and hotmail and AOL

with a 3700+ althon, x850xt and 2gb of ram they all take down my machine to it's knees almost everytime I go on the websites

[Dorsey]

Sorry for the delay in replying. We use WURFL to determine the device (HTTP_USER_AGENT) capabilities and redirect appropriately. We also use other device characteristics to determine image size.

WURLF is a pig, though - it's really huge and that has to be accomodated to get any decent performance out of it. This is not a complaint, we like how comprehensive WURFL is, it's just a warning to those considering its use.

[PaleDavid]

Lately I've been building some mobile versions of online educational content. Using Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile 5, I've found that all my javascript tends to work fine (though the address bar seems to be out of bounds for "javascript:" commands), rewriting your page on the fly with DHTML works happily though it can be a little slow.

Flash works mostly as expected but has three problems:

(1) Flash is not currently installed by default, and many users will not have it available. The install isn't as simple as in a traditional browser, and I think the uptake may be slower on mobile devices.

(2) Sending back data to an HTML page seems to be extremely painful. Many of the ways I use to communicate between javascript and Flash just don't work. I resorted to opening a new page and using a query string to carry my data. I'm sure there's a way around this, but I couldn't get FSCommand or GetURL to work anything like their non-mobile browser equivalents. I'd be interested to hear how others get on with this.

(3) If you have lots of objects being animated, this may well cripple your mobile device. So, reusing old Flash assets may not always work as expected. But, simple games work a treat. Just remember to embed them with no padding or margin and let them take up the whole of the valuable screen space.

The big rule is to test frequently to see if thing are working (I find moving a CompactFlash card between mobile and desktop for offline development is quickest when checking layouts). Images cause trouble, don't rely on them. Make your design work without them. And don't expect your font sizes to be honoured.

Anyway, HTML+CSS with a minimum of table layouts seems to be the order or the day on mobile. Good page structure is vital, and reading Zeldman's "Designing With Web Standards" will set you up with everything you need to know to get things right more often than not.

David

[joejac]

Hello, and have a nice day.

I was searching information on how to develop mobile web applications and I found this interesting thread. I apologize if I can not add valuable information, since I am totally new in this field.

I did a search in Google for: mobile+web+application+tutorial and I got 502.000 results. Being absolutely unaware of this topic, How can I decide if a tutorial is fine and will take me in the right direction to a fast and well done mobile web application?

So for this reason I would greatly appreciate your kind advice to find some links to nice tutorials for beginners that help me to create this type of application from scratch. I think I will be using XHTML, PHP and MySQL, but any suggestions on other productivity tools in this field are very welcome too.

Best regards
joejac

[wwb_99]

I am still in the "use basic, simple, standard XHTML as that seems to be the lowest common denominator on most handheld devices." So basically, make a php website in a minimalist fashion and you should be fine. But make sure to test across available devices just in case something causes issues.

That said, I think the mobile version of SilverLight and/or MoonLight holds the most promise in the long term.