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By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, W3C No Comments Tagged with , , ,

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Well, thumb-surfers the world over took a step closer to being able to experience rich Mobile Web applications last week with the release of the Web Integration Compound Document (WICD — pronounced wicked). I wrote about WICD in InformIT almost two years ago. It’s taken that long to shake out the bugs in the specification. In the mean time, a lot has happened on the mobile Web front, but the WICD specification is more important than ever. Why? Because it promises a predictable environment for creating rich Web applications across browser implementations that integrate rich vector-based graphics and animations that can scale to different screen sizes and layouts. It’s like Ajax on SVG steroids. Opera already provides partial support in Opera Mobile (and has committed full support), but in order to truly deliver on that promise, it needs to be deployed across multiple browser platforms. Now that it has gone to “Candidate Recommendation” stage in the W3C, it will have that chance.

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web 3 Comments Tagged with , , , , ,

[ad] James Pearce (CTO of dotMobi) wrote a great article yesterday about the impact of the iPhone on the industry and what it means for them. Of course, he’s right. What the iPhone is doing is helping the Web along to become a mobile medium. Does this make dotMobi or efforts like the W3C Mobile Web Initiative obsolete? Let me pose the question another way. In 5 years’ time, when the majority of Web usage is from mobile devices, will we all be using the browsers on these devices to pan, scan and zoom around pages that were designed for large screen desktop PCs? I think we can agree that this would be a kind of dystopian vision of the future of the Web. Apple certainly agrees. That’s why they released a set of guidelines on ptimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone. These guidelines, while developed by Apple in house specifically to match the capabilities of the iPhone browser, bear a striking resemblance to the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices and the dotMobi Developer Guide in their approach, language and purpose. All these documents are trying to change the mind-set of developers to get them to think about both the technical differences between mobile devices and PCs (for example, Apple saying “a touch-screen is not a mouse”) and also the differences in usage and behavior that need to be taken into account in designing for mobile use. The main difference between the Apple guidelines and the dotMobi and W3C documents are the level of browser …

The iPhone, dotMobi and the Future of the Mobile Web Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, Mobility No Comments Tagged with ,

Why not? I live in Europe so I don’t have access to any iPhones today but here are my €.02 for what it’s worth: The iPhone is already catalyzing a sea-change in the mobile industry. This change is primarily about form factor, user interface and the Mobile Web. In terms of form factors, we will see a slew of touch-screen devices coming into the market, but it won’t stop there. Manufacturers are going to take all kinds of form factor innovations off the shelves and start flogging them to operators and consumers. Similarly, there will be a revolution in device UI. We will see lots of “fluid UI” iPhone rip-offs from other manufacturers but also other UI concepts. At our last Mobile Monday London on mobile gaming, I was very interested to see people like NVidia talking about the use of 3D acceleration technology not just for games but for all kinds of immersive user experiences (see the podcast). Finally, the iPhone will have a huge impact on the mobile Web. First of all, people in the U.S. will stop looking at you funny when you talk about using the Web on your phone. But more important is what Steve Jobs announced at the end of his keynote regarding development of applications for the iPhone. He talked about using standards to develop Web applications as an alternative to the “traditional” mechanisms for mobile app development. So it’s not just about “keyhole browsing” (zooming and panning around Web pages built for PCs). This is a neat trick, …

The iPhone: My Take Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, Mobility 1 Comment Tagged with , , , ,

Whether we like it or not, touch-screen phones are on the way in. Apple iPhone has made sure of that. There were some out there in the market already but by far the one that’s gotten the most press has been the Prada Phone. So I had an opportunity this week to handle a Prada phone. It’s a slick little phone. I like the UI — the way it animates between different states (for example, from main menu to phone book). However, some of my theories regarding the utility of a touch-screen phone definitely played out. First of all, I was handling this thing during lunch and it picked up a lot of grease – to the point where I didn’t want to touch it any more. The touch screen has the kind of finish that looks great in a crystal display case in Harrods, but the minute it touches the open air and starts getting used, or (gasp) being pressed up against your face, it starts to get really gross. I think this will be a problem for the iPhone as well. So — what about the browser? I fired up the default browser on the thing (Obigo). It took a while to load up but when it did and it started to display content, I got a real shock. I tried “tapping” on a link — no response. I tried scrolling the page by sliding the scroll bar — no response. What the heck? They I looked down at the bottom of the screen …

Prada Phone Browser Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web, Mobility No Comments Tagged with , ,

Great presentation on use of the Mobile Web in combination with geospatial information to turn your mobile into a “spatial information appliance.” Not only is this work using location, device orientation combined with building geometry information harvested from Google Earth in a completely innovative way, but the presenter also made reference to the Mobile Web Best Practices and specifically to thematic consistency. Awesome.

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web No Comments Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

On Sunday I head off to Banff, Canada for the WWW2007 conference. This is going to be one busy week — I’m attending and giving a “lightning talk” at the W3C Advisory Committee meeting, then co-chairing a workshop on the role of the Mobile Web in the developing world with Rittwik Jana from AT&T research, then speaking at the conference itself on the progress and future of the Mobile Web Best Practices working group and finally chairing a panel on Mobile Ajax before heading back home. In between all this, I’ll be trying to soak in some of the raw innovation and excitement at the WWW conference. The thing about WWW is that it’s not a glitzy place where you go to mix with rockstars and digerati. It’s where academia and industry meet to hash out the future of Web technologies. I am really looking forward to it.

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web 3 Comments Tagged with , ,

Most surprising presentation (at least for me) at the Forum Oxford event was from Jeff Sonstein at Rochester Institute of Technology’s “Center for the Handheld Web.” Center for the Handheld Web? I couldn’t believe my eyes — these guys have been dealing with all the issues that we’ve been working through in the Mobile Web Best Practices group and it seems like they’ve come to many of the same  conclusions. They’ve gone one step further though and worked through some recommendations regarding the use of scripting in the mobile context (read: “Mobile Ajax”). Very cool stuff. Well done Ajit and Tomi for putting together a great event!

By Posted on Posted in mobile 2.0, Mobile Web 7 Comments Tagged with , , , , , , ,

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the mobile user experience, particularly the experience of the Web on the (typical) mobile device. I say “typical” because I’m not talking about the iphone here — I’m talking about the kind of mass-market device that billions of real users hold in their hands every day. Increasingly these are devices that are capable of a reasonable data services experience, but they are still not being used to their potential. What is the new user paradigm that will truly kick start the mobile Web? The essential innovation of the Web itself was putting together two existing technologies: hypertext and the Internet. Hypertext had been around for a while, in library-science and computer science circles and even in such products as Hypercard. Likewise, the Internet was around and widely used (mostly by academics and students) through well understood but essentially plain text paradigms such as FTP, Telnet and Gopher. Both these technologies by themselves were limited in their appeal. But somehow, layering Hypertext on top of the Internet (the Web) created something that was greater than the sum of its parts, and the Web as we know it was born. Yes, there were other factors at work in the birth of the Web but I believe it was the marriage of these two technologies that was the crucial factor. When we come to the mobile Web, however — that is, usage of the Web on devices which are intended to be used one-handed, often with a four-way rocker switch instead of …

Wanted: a New User Experience Metaphor for the Mobile Web Read more »

By Posted on Posted in Mobile Web 1 Comment Tagged with , , , ,

Wow! Just sitting here in Brian Fling’s presentation on the Mobile Web. I know Brian because he spoke at mobile2.0 last year, but I’ve never heard him speak at length on the future of the Web on mobile. Brian definitely gets it. Not only does he have at his fingertips the specifics and standards involved in developing Mobile Web content, but he deeply understands the problem space and the opportunity. It’s elating sitting here and listening to someone speak so eloquently on these topics and referencing work that I’ve been part of driving for the past three+ years (such as the Mobile Web Initiative). And judging from the rapt audience here (filling up one of the larger rooms at the conference) I think people are starting to listen! By the way, this post was written by Opera Mini. (And then edited later on a desktop browser to add the image and clean it up. Unfortunately there’s still a limit to what you can do on the mobile side Flickr – even though their mobile site works well. It amazingly allows for photo upload from within the mobile browser but you can’t do much with the photo after that. Blogging from your photo once you’ve uploaed it would be a great feature, for instance.)