[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

When you open certain websites on your iPhone (Wiki, YouTube, and a slew of others) you get a version of the site which is formatted for the smaller screen. Web-capable phones are a quite recent development, so I understand why some sites haven't gotten around to creating a mobile version. But I find it pretty strange how the official Apple site doesn't default to a mobile version when you visit it on your iPhone.

The screen goes crazy wide. The text font is in the nanometers. It's like trying to read the newspaper through a microscope. Just more trouble than it's worth.

Seems like a pretty major oversight. What gives?

The same is true of a lot of tech sites and Mac-related sites including MacNN.

[ghporter]

I wouldn't call it an "oversight," but rather "a problem that has not yet been overcome."

Rich content sites are not exactly trivial to reformat for mobile devices. We've tried it here and found that the reformatted version was still way too difficult to read and manipulate on an iPhone, which was precisely the platform we were aiming for. The other option for a mobile version is a completely different look and feel, typically done with extremely simplistic formats that limit both the availability of content and the user's navigation options. Where appropriate, mobile versions are the best thing around for an iOS or Android user, but most sites' big draw is their rich and complex content, which just doesn't lend itself to the kind of reimagining that is needed for mobile browsers.

One thing to note: the iOS version of Safari on the iPhone is, in my personal opinion a reach too far. It tries to be a desktop browser in so many ways, but it makes bad choices in rendering content that isn't a good fit for the small display on the iPhone. Until a standard in HTML comes around that allows for dependable "hints" for alternate rendering, it's going to be difficult for iPhone Safari to do a good job at rendering a whole lot of pages.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

I don't really get that.

Isn't it just a case of redesigning the webpage so that less information is displayed on the screen? And then making sure that the rest can be navigated to if the user wants?

Take MacNN for example. Open it on your iMac and there are 20 or 30 links. Shrunk to the iPhone screen its unreadable. So just enlarge the size of the links and arrange them in a vertical column that can be scrolled up and down. Maybe even just use icons for each section. Job's done.... right?

The NY Times app is a good example of that. It's really simple, stylish and easy to use. Just a minimal of readable info on screen at any one time but the rest is easy to navigate to and the whole NYTimes is there.

[Eug]

Apple's site works perfectly on the iPhone, even the video. It is what I would call a properly coded site (at least the parts I visit) for smartphone use.

I personally hate those dumbed down feature-poor and content-poor mobile sites. They should just die. What also should just die are the dedicated apps to surf some of these sites, and the stupid reminders to download that idiotic app whenever you visit their page with a mobile OS.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

Eug, I assume you have microscopic vision and fingertips the width of Q-tips. But what about us human beings?

[ghporter]

The NYT app isn't a web page. Apps can use completely different techniques to get information onto the display.

There's also the fact that not all mobile browsers are on iPhones; some devices have larger screens, others slightly smaller, and if you build a site for just one browser on just one platform, you've spent a lot of time and effort for little payoff.

The point I made about "rich content" is important here. The MacNN Forums main page is quite simple, and yet it's got an awful lot of content that is important to every user. If we were to build a mobile-friendly version, it would either be stark and ugly (driving away visitors) or still very complex and thus still difficult to manage on a small interface-while introducing an entirely new user experience.

If it were simple, easy, or quick (or any combination of those traits), then every non-trivial web site would have a great mobile version. It is none of those things, and so it's a very slow process to actually move in the direction of mobile sites being common and at the same time usable.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream 

Eug, I assume you have microscopic vision and fingertips the width of Q-tips. But what about us human beings?

1. That's the whole point of tap-to-zoom in iOS Safari of course. It works really well... if the website is properly designed to support it.
2. If you're trying to use your smartphone as your sole web browser, then ur doing teh internet rong. Obviously there are drawbacks to using a smartphone for web browsing, but personally I think dumbing down a site usually ends up being a significantly worse solution.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

There's also the fact that not all mobile browsers are on iPhones; some devices have larger screens, others slightly smaller, and if you build a site for just one browser on just one platform, you've spent a lot of time and effort for little payoff.

You don't build for just one browser. You build a single site that works on desktops and laptops with multiple browsers, but which can also work on smartphones, including the iPhone. I am not a web designer, but I think the Apple site is a good example of this.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

I mean, come on.

I know you can tap-to-zoom.

First problem is, sometimes the iPhone doesn't register the double-tap you end up hitting a link. Not often, but enough to be annoying.

Second problem is that when tap-to-zoom works you end up having to swipe-swipe-swipe 25 screen-lengths to get to the part of the page you're looking for... but where is it again? Now you're zooming out to relocate it... double tapping to get back in... but opps you hit a link.

Trying to read a newspaper through a microscope.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Eug 

You don't build for just one browser. You build a single site that works on desktops and laptops with multiple browsers, but which can also work on smartphones, including the iPhone.

Exactly my point. Without some standard in the HTML spec, you either build a site that can be effectively read on every platform you can get your hands on (and take advantage of tricks when you can), or you may as well not try.

[Eug]

I often read The Globe and Mail using the full sized site. Tap to zoom works fine.

I will admit their mobile site can offer some advantages, but that's because IMO their full site is a bit too crowded, even on a desktop. News sites are often the most guilty of this.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

I don't see how displaying less info on the screen at one time is dumbing down the webpage when the rest can be navigated to.

Check out this screenshot of the NY Times app.



All the sections can be scrolled through and all the articles are there. IMO something like that would work for Apple and MacNN too.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream 

Check out this screenshot of the NY Times app.

I can understand an app for a store or a function requiring a secure login or something, but if it requires an app just to surf the website, then they've already failed.

For casual surfing, I'd usually rather just go somewhere else than exit Safari and load their dedicated but dumbed-down app.

I've long since deleted the NY Times app and the Globe and Mail app off my iPhone.

However, I don't use the NY Times page on my iPhone much because their page is far too crowded. They try to cram way too much junk onto their front page IMO.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

The NYT app isn't a web page. Apps can use completely different techniques to get information onto the display.

I don't know jack about designing websites but I do know that the mobile version of the YouTube webpage is almost identical to the YouTube app so clearly there are analogous techniques that can be used to achieve the same result on both platforms.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

Eug, please enlighten me: How is displaying less info on a screen dumbing down a webpage when the rest of the info can be navigated to? Basically, all you're doing is cropping a larger picture and organizing everything outside the frame into a scrollable column.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream 

Eug, please enlighten me: How is displaying less info on a screen dumbing down a webpage when the rest of the info can be navigated to? Basically, all you're doing is cropping a larger picture and organizing everything outside the frame into a scrollable column.

Most of the time, there are big chunks of the content missing. The mobile sites are usually so dumbed down that it's hard to navigate to content because you don't even know it exists. How do you get to a sub-site link, when the sub-site isn't even listed on the mobile site?

OTOH, one of the biggest offences of news sites though is there is too much content on the front page. Looks like ass on a netbook like the 11" MacBook Air, and only just tolerable on a desktop. NY Times is a perfect example of this. Maybe that's why you like their mobile app so much.

Check out News, Toronto, GTA, Sports, Business, Entertainment, Canada, World, Breaking - thestar.com

They have a mobile site, which I think is pretty useless, but their full site works fine on the iPhone, because it's not so overcrowded like the NY Times is, and it's mostly organized into 3 columns.

[Spheric Harlot]

I HATE mobile sites.

I *especially* hate it when the ****ing site defaults to the mobile page and doesn't give an option to switch back to the regular version, or when it doesn't respect my settings the next time I visit.

I do not visit sites that do that.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

Sure some are crap but then some websites are crap too.

You'd honestly rather view the regular Wiki or YouTube site on your mobile?

[Spheric Harlot]

I use wikipanion and the YouTube app.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream 

You'd honestly rather view the regular Wiki or YouTube site on your mobile?

Yes and no.

YouTube is a video site, so that's a different story. The good news is that for embedded YouTube videos, you can maximize them to fill the screen. As for Wikipedia, it's not ideal either way, although its mobile site is better than most.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

I just test drove Wikipanion, which I'd never heard of before.

The Wiki app bundled with the iPhone is better.

Wikipanion has no table of contents which is useful if you want to go to a specific section of a long article.

It still has a few weird bugs (like crashing if a query uses a diacritical mark) for which reason I often use... the mobile site. It's perfectly fine.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream 

The Wiki app bundled with the iPhone is better.

The what?

[besson3c]

There are some weird opinions here.

Because there are bad mobile site versions, website developers shouldn't try to make a mobile version of their site? This doesn't make any sense. Miniaturizing sites is a new skill set to master, so yes there are no doubt plenty of bad mobile sites, and yes it is a mistake to make the mobile version a lite version with less features and capabilities than the big site.

Still, even doing something simple like transplanting sidebars so that the content can take up the entire width when browsing at 320 px wide, making nav buttons bigger, etc. can help a great deal. There is no reason to not think about how to make your site a better experience for 320 pixels, and to serve a separate CSS file for this viewport size.

The problem is that this can take some time and money. In Apple's case though, for the life of me I can't explain why they haven't come up with a mobile optimized version of their pages.

[Spheric Harlot]

Format the page properly, and double-tap to zoom makes considerations like elimination/transplantation of sidebars or bigger nav buttons quite irrelevant.

[turtle777]

The world doesn't need better mobile sites.

The world needs smarter and better full-featured browsers for smartphones.
Safari mobile is not perfect, but it's pretty good, and much better than any mobile site crap.
I use iCab Mobile most of the time, and I'm pretty happy about its feature set.

If your eyes are too bad for an iPhone, or your fingers too big, get an iPad.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Format the page properly, and double-tap to zoom makes considerations like elimination/transplantation of sidebars or bigger nav buttons quite irrelevant.

On some sites, but it would depend on the design, right? If the design of your site makes using your site on a mobile browser pretty trivial, great! Otherwise, if you can make it better by optimizing it ala the Wikipedia, go for it...

I'm not in favor of special apps to use the website, those are pretty much gimmicks to get the app into the app store for optics, and I'm not in favor of nagging the user about making a decision about using the mobile site or something, but silently making touchable targets an appropriate size for the iPhone, tweaking things a little here and there, sure.

In many cases a site can be vastly improved just with a few tweaks (unless you depend on Flash, a click-based WYSIWYG editor, etc.) - tweaks that I'm confident that very few in here would really object to.

I think we are talking about separate things here. There is a difference between what I've described above vs. simply having an alternate stylesheet for 320 pixels that serves the exact same content on the exact same site with the exact same features.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

The world doesn't need better mobile sites.

The world needs smarter and better full-featured browsers for smartphones.
Safari mobile is not perfect, but it's pretty good, and much better than any mobile site crap.
I use iCab Mobile most of the time, and I'm pretty happy about its feature set.

If your eyes are too bad for an iPhone, or your fingers too big, get an iPad.

-t

I agree the world doesn't need mobile sites, but sites that have been tweaked to be optimized for smaller displays? Sure. Again, don't conflate these so called "mobile sites" with sites that simply have stylesheet tweaks for 320px - different things.

The world could also benefit from sites that have better code, are accessible for the blind, that can be navigated with a keyboard, that have paid obvious attention to usability, etc. It doesn't mean that every site will deliver on this, but this doesn't mean that these are not worthwhile ideals.

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The what?

Or maybe it wasn't bundled. But I am referring to the official Wikipedia app.

App Store - Wikipedia Mobile

[subego]

Is there some compelling reason to be regularly visiting the Apple site (not counting the store) on a smartphone?

I'll go to to confirm a specification, that's about it.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

Is there some compelling reason to be regularly visiting the Apple site (not counting the store) on a smartphone?

I'll go to to confirm a specification, that's about it.

Apple Discussion Forums, maybe ?

-t

[subego]

Good point.

I wouldn't want to use a forum on my smartphone which didn't have a mobile version.

Oh wait...

[The Emperor of Ice Cream]

^ Trouble shooting, comparing specs, drooling and day dreaming, the forums... did I mention drooling and day dreaming?

[subego]

If you have an iPhone, the dream is already reality.