Hi Jesse -- Oh we probably will create a different set of web pages for the phone experience for all the reasons you mentioned, and also because the flow through the app should probably be very different so as to reduce the scrolling on the phone. But a simple proof of concept is what we are gunning for now + getting experience with phone browsers.
We talked to a phone java/BREW person. His basic take on the phone situation is that the phone browsers have come a long way and that it is reasonable to think about offering a phone browser-based solution with just a small team, whereas going native required its own team - even if J2ME was used -there are so many fundamental differences in the J2ME profiles. When it came to the BREW he basically said that it is impossible -- the phone companies throw so many roadblocks in the way. Now this guy was doing games on the phone, which we are definately not doing. So it could be that for our relatively simple apps that we will not have the same problem. However, you ignore an expert's advise at your own peril..... In a year, we could probably revisit this but in the meantime -- way too much on the plate as it is.... -Pat On 2/11/07, Jesse Kuhnert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I've never had good luck trying to make the same html of a web app work on a mobile phone or normal browser. Everything is so constrained / different that I've always ended up creating a separate set of templates that are specifically targeted for mobile devices. You could probably detect the use of a mobile browser and have a different set of html templates used as a result. (I know Tapestry allows for this ability, just haven't had to do it in Tapestry yet) Your users will appreciate this customized experienced anyways. If this mobile browsing capability is more than a "nice to have" addition to your product (ie a core service that people are likely to use on a daily basis ) you may want to investigate how much sense creating a j2me / native app would make. (none if it's not a regular enough thing that would make people ok with downloading an app) Tapestry is great for a lot of things, but personally speaking if it were a critical part of my product offering that people use for more than casual browsing I wouldn't make it a web app at all...(perhaps re-use the same services / etc , but the "experience" is always going to be 10x better when coming in native form on those kinds of platforms...)
