David Storey
Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:32:20 -0700
let's not forget that the iPhone's browser is (as of right now) the largest mobile browser,
Not true. Opera Mini has more active users per week than iPhones that exist on the market. Apple may have superior marketing, get a lot of free advertising and are beloved by developers (I myself use a Mac and own a iPod), but they are not the number one mobile browser. They may be one day due to some of the things mentioned above, along with the iPhone being a great piece of hardware and software, but not currently, and Opera Mini continues to rise at a very healthy rate.
On 20 Jul 2008, at 17:38, Svip wrote:
Lars, I think you're forgetting an important thing though. The iPhone's Safari is very different from Safari on an iMac or Opera Mini on another mobile 3G device. Point is, while Apple will tell you the Safari on the iPhone is like the Safari you get on your iMac or MacBook, it is still limited by the small screen. So while it still is kilometres ahead of the other devices as to what its browser can deliver, it is still a completely different experience than that of Safari on the computer.
Again not true. Take the HTC Touch Diamond. It has both a superior screen resolution, and similar hardware specs, and a full HTML browser (Opera Mobile 9.5) with arguably greater standards compliance. Opera Mobile 9.5 has basically the same rendering engine as Opera 9.5 on desktop. Opera has been developing mobile browsers for years, and has a lot of that know how in the current generation of the browser. And unlike Mini it has a full JavaScript implementation.
Therefore, I think it is not that silly to name there be currently 2 common devices to interact with a website from, and the mobile category has a subcategory of the advance level browsing that is the iPhone's Safari.
That would be short sighed to do that, like saying one should give a more advanced version of a site to IE in ye olde days. As well as the Diamond I mentioned before, there is an entire class of devices that have similar to better specs than the iPhone that can run a similar to more advanced web browser. Samsung i900 is another example that Opera Mobile 9.5 is running on with the same touch screen style form factor and post 500mhz processor. Ignoring Windows Mobile that 9.5 currently runs on, there is S60, such as the N96 which runs another WebKit browser with the same engine as mobile safari.
Ignoring mobile all together, what about things like games consoles? The Nintendo Wii browser was very popular for Opera. There could be any hit portable (or not portable) device that could come out at any time, with a first class browser and user experience. Designing just for iphone misses out on that opportunity. It is fantastic for lock in though (look what mess that has got us in on the regular desktop web - just ask the IE team and all the issues they are having trying not to break content aimed for their legacy browser versions).
But... let's not forget that sometimes developing "apps" for specific browsers is done purely by the intention of abilities this browser applies. On several projects I don't care if it doesn't work in anything else but Firefox.
Says it all really...
Regards Svip 2008/7/20 Keryx Web <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:Ben Dodson skrev:I don't personally have a problem with having iphone in a URL as it is generally used for applications that are very specific to the iphone.It is 1998 and I am developing an application that is very specific toMSIE... A strategy proved bad!IMO this is *exactly* the reasoning that J. Zeldman, Steve Champeon et al protested against. A protest that started and defined the web standardsmovement.Yes, perhaps there should be versions for other devices (e.g. Nokia) but the reality is that most developers won't bother making specific sites forthese users and instead use a generic mobile stylesheet.No there should not be versions for Nokias or Sony-E's or LG's or any other device. What we perhaps need, though, is a graded browser support chart,like Yahoo has for desktop apps.The difference with the iPhone is that it's the latest bandwagon in town and that the majority of iPhone owners will use the internet on the phone (whereas the majority of Nokia phone owners won't use the web browser on thephone).The difference is that Nokia et al makes several different kinds of phones, not all are smartphones. Every single smartphone owner I know uses the webbrowser on the phone and has been doing it for quite a few years.It is great that the iPhone has made people aware of the mobile web, and lowered the threshold for some to use it. But as developers we should not care about the present, but the present and the future! Locking ourselves in to one device is not a strategy for the future, even if iPhone shows up as the leading mobile device in usage stats today. Remember, there once was a time when MSIE was so dominant that as a web developer it made sense in manyways to develop MSIE only web sites!It also has a very specific style and so companies will try and cater to this (e.g. the facebook web app was designed to look like a native iPhoneapplication).That I predict is a fad that will quickly go away. Site owners will soon see the benefits of designing for the brand of the website, rather than thebrand of the device it is accessed from.Of course, now there is the App store and the ability to run third partyapplications, I'm sure a lot of these iPhone specific websites will disappear as the developers move to offering a built in solution.Hopefully you are right. Off topic: The fact that people will jubilantly welcome a solution that means they are getting locked in to a single vendoris also beyond my understanding...And I am not a Mac hater. I use Macs (as well as Windows and Linux) andlisten with delight to my iPod. Lars Gunter ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************************************************************************** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
David Storey Chief Web Opener, Product Manager Opera Dragonfly, Consumer Product Manager Opera Core, Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group member Consumer Product Management & Developer Relations Opera Software ASA Oslo, Norway Mobile: +47 94 22 02 32 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Blog: http://my.opera.com/dstorey ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************