Is there any website that can generate the display of your website in each mobile platform? I want to be able to view this from my computer, I don’t personally own a smart phone. Something like Adobe’s “Browerlab”, but for mobile platforms?
Unfortunately not, but it sure would be great. In Opera you can choose small screen rendering, which is handy, and there is an online tester for Opera mobile. If you have a Mac, you can also download a pretty reliable iPhone/iPad simulator as part of Apple’s developer kit, but the whole thing is about an 8 gig download. There are some other sites that offer things like Android simulators, but I don’t understand them well enough to use that stuff.
One good suggestion I’ve heard, but not tried yet, is to strike up a relationship with a local smart phone retailer and test sites on their phones … maybe in return for some free web design or something.
Thank you Ralph for your reply. This is so frustrating. All the major software companies are pushing mobile apps and everything mobile down everyone’s throat, but yet the people who are building these mobile websites have no simple way of testing how their code renders. You would think Adobe or even Google might be working on something this.
Ha ha, yes, but we would probably want it for free, so why should they bother?
Check out this slideshow, which presents a different way to think about mobile design:
There is a lot of talk about responsive design these days.
Thanks for the links Ralph, I have some reading to do.