12-18-2002, 05:21 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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The Web is Not Friendly to Mobile Devices
Yes, that title is an understatement, but let me tell you a little story. A few weeks ago I was out shopping with my wife, and I suggested we stop at a little Peking food restaurant for some Ginger Beef. We placed the order, and sat back to wait. A minute later, my XDA chimed - I had a Microsoft digital video chat to attend in fifteen minutes. 8O We had already placed our order, and I was really looking forward to the food. What to do, what to do?
I had a hunch I knew what the results would be, but I thought I should try - I had the URL of the chat, and I had a fully connected mobile device, right? It might be a s-l-o-w chat with me being on my XDA, but it would save me having to rush home and miss dinner. I went to the URL, and what happened? An error message about not being able to load the chat client software - dead end. No solution. Get the food to go, rush home, do the chat on a "real" PC. The Pocket PC failed me.
Microsoft talks about empowering mobile works, letting them work anywhere - but how much of that is talk and how much is reality? Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that the Pocket PC is the best PDA on the planet right now for my needs, but this scenario was a big let down. Sure, I understand all the technical reasons - Pocket Internet Explorer doesn't support the technologies used on the chat page (I believe it's an ActiveX control for x86 machines). Technical rationalizations ("Maybe next version this will work...") don't help when you need a solution.
As the subject line says, the Web is not a Pocket PC friendly place. Need more proof? Keep reading.
Who Said Online Shopping Was Easy?
The first day I got my XDA, I was out at a local book store. I was going to buy a few books, then I thought "Why not check the prices online, and if they're better, order from there?". Amazon.ca had recently launched their Canadian site, so off I went. Problem one: Amazon.ca has no mobile version of their site. Fifteen minutes later, after much waiting and muttering, I finished placing my order. Did it work? Yes. Did it work well? No. The GPRS was anything but "high speed". The un-optimized site required a great deal of scrolling and waiting. It was painful and required far too much patience on my part. There was nothing "fast" or "easy" about that online shopping experience.
Amazon.com has a Pocket PC version of their site, but apparently the people running the Canadian site didn't think it was important to support mobile devices. And can we blame them?
If They Come, Then You'll Build It
It's a classic chicken-and-egg scenario. Most people don't buy technology - they buy solutions. Sure, the hard-core geeks among us will throw 2 gigs of RAM into our computer simply because we can, but most people buy technology or upgrade their computers to solve problems they have - or to enable them to do new things. If I went up to the average person on the street and said "For $500 you can buy PDA that has GPRS!" they'd stare at me blankly.
If I said "For $500 you can buy this PDA and order books, movie tickets, music, plane tickets, or gamble your life-savings away...while you're standing in line for your Mocha-Frappa-Latte-Slush!" I'd get some interest - and an instant sale if the price were $200. People buy solutions, not technology.
In the case of Amazon.ca, can we blame them for not having a mobile version of their site? Look at the numbers - I'm using one of perhaps a few dozen XDA-class devices in Canada (they're not sold here yet), and I'd be surprised if there were 50K devices used in Canada (whether Palm or Pocket PC) that were capable of a decent online browser experience. In a time where IT budgets are already stretched to the max, how much motivation is there for Amazon.ca, and indeed most sites out there, to spend money on deploying a mobile version of their site? How much revenue will they really generate from it? It's a vicious circle - they can't generate revenue from me, Mr. Mobile Buyer, until they build a mobile site, and they won't build a mobile site until there's critical mass. People like us lose out in that equation.
The optimist in me wants to say that if more and more people buy wireless PDAs, services and solutions will magically appear for them. To a certain extent, that's true - where there are buyers (people with credit cards), sellers will appear, and a market is born. But will people buy these devices if the solutions aren't there? If I try to show someone how "easy" it is to shop online with my XDA, and they see that it's a struggle, will they buy it? Probably not.
Reality Check on Aisle 7
One day I sat down with my XDA and decided I wanted to try out some new software - all from my Pocket PC. I went to Handango's Mobile site and I was quite impressed. Handango has a slick site, perfectly formatted for mobile devices, and I was able to download a few applications. But I noticed that the software selection was quite limited - some of the applications that I really wanted to try out weren't available. A comparison of the Top 10 selling applications on Handango (check out right-hand side bar) with the Handango Best Sellers Over the Air reveals something very telling: most of the best-selling applications are not even available for download! A comparison of the two lists reveals that only three of the ten best-selling applications are available for download. Even Microsoft's own Pocket Streets is missing from the mobile site!
[As a side note, I'm not a big fan of the mobile.site.com concept - how will consumers know that the sub-domain is there?]
Undaunted, I thought I'd seek out the applications directly by going to Web sites of the top Pocket PC developers - and the results were even worse. Of the five or so that I tried, not a single one had a redirect for mobile devices, and none had their software in a CAB format that I could try out. If Pocket PC developers don't have mobile sites for their own customers who they know are using the devices, how can we expect mainstream Web sites to have them?
Is There a Solution?
So what's the solution to this? Although I shudder at the concept, I wonder if we need...a committee. 8O We need Microsoft, Palm, Dell, HP, Sony and every other big-name company involved with mobile devices to sit down, hammer out a reasonable spec that will work with the majority of devices out there, create a toolkit for Webmasters, and start to evangelize it. Target the top 100 Web sites on the 'Net, and encourage them to create self-directing mobile versions for PDA owners. I'm not talking about WAP here - I'm talking about real HTML standards, dished out by normal HTTP servers. Or what if they created a free software gateway that would intelligently serve up mobile versions of a site on the fly? I know there are companies out there offering these services, but if it takes budget, it needs justification, and that's where we get back to being the egg (or was it the chicken?).
Alternatively, what if every mobile device user, whether Palm or Pocket PC, banded together and started an email campaign targeted at one site at a time? If we speak in one common voice, are there enough of us to make a difference?
The Saviour Smartphone
Perhaps, just perhaps, this will happen by default as the number of Smartphones (Windows or Symbian-based) flood the market. Consumers will buy them for the phone part, games, music, and email. And once there are millions of Smartphones out there, the market will form up around them. And, finally, the Web will be a friendlier place for our devices.
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12-18-2002, 05:37 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 55
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Jason, you've said it right on!!!
While I don't have a XDA, I do have a Pocketpc with Wireless CF card, and I surf wirelessly at home, so I don't have to be clued to my computer in the basement.
Through my own surfing experience, I've run into many of the same experiences you've listed. Very frustrating.
Some people might say that this won't happen if I have a laptop or tablet pc with wireless capabilities, but I don't want to carry the bulky (comparing to my ppc) laptop or tablet, and don't want to foot the bill for yet another device.
My hope is that the new Opera (with special formatting features that can render a normal website viewable on a small screen) can come out soon, and the new NetFront browser won't be so expensive.
Pocket IE, when will you ever grow up?
Dave
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12-18-2002, 05:39 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 90
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Deja Vu!!!
Didn't you post this a couple of weeks ago, but then withdraw it or something. I was sure I saw this on the front page on my AvantGo channel, but then when I came to read the full article the next day at my desktop there was no sign of it.
John
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12-18-2002, 05:40 PM
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Oracle
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 864
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Am I having Deja Vu or was this posted at some point earlier this month? :?:
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12-18-2002, 06:15 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 338
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Jason... nice article.
I have run into exactly the same problems... I use a Sierra Wireless Aircard (Verizon 1xrtt service) with my Ipaq, and while some things work great... others don't. (But when I plug that card into my laptop, watch out... I can VPN into work... I can VPN into my home network... I can truly do great things!)
My frustration with the web is that it is promised as the great access tool, but as you point out, it's not ... really... Too many dependancies on the client piece... and this is something that needs to be addressed as we get more and more devices connected to the internet that are of varying backgrounds (and I'm not just talking about differing PCs and browsers - I'm talking about refrigerators, clock radios and others...)
You mention a potential "committee" to set standards, and while I think there would be some merit to that, let's face it, by the time all the companies got together and hammered something out, the standard would be obsolete! :roll: (If not broadsided by some other consortium of companies that wanted to get into their own "standard"!)
I'm not sure what the solution is... but I do agree with you that if the Smart phones start flooding the market it may well solve the problem by sheer force. You get enough of these small, limited capability (as compared to a full PC) devices out in the market, and places like Amazon will have to cater to their needs.
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12-18-2002, 06:28 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 1,768
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Re: The Web is Not Friendly to Mobile Devices
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
The Saviour Smartphone
Perhaps, just perhaps, this will happen by default as the number of Smartphones (Windows or Symbian-based) flood the market. Consumers will buy them for the phone part, games, music, and email. And once there are millions of Smartphones out there, the market will form up around them. And, finally, the Web will be a friendlier place for our devices.
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Which Smartphone? All the different OS (Symbian, Palm, Pocket PC PE, Smartphone 2002) use potentially very different screen resolutions and support a different subset of capabilities. Until there is some size standardizations or one majority form factor, it will still be hard for web designers to create content designed for viewing on such small screens.
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12-18-2002, 06:45 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jwf
Deja Vu!!!
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Yup, you caught me! :lol: I future dated the post, then didn't get the new template working in time, so it "slipped" onto the front page for about 20 minutes before I pulled it. :angel:
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12-18-2002, 06:46 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 145
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You should share your Mobile site code with the PHP community. there are many PHP sites that might enhance their sites with it.
-John
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12-18-2002, 06:48 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Re: The Web is Not Friendly to Mobile Devices
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Originally Posted by JonnoB
Which Smartphone? All the different OS (Symbian, Palm, Pocket PC PE, Smartphone 2002) use potentially very different screen resolutions and support a different subset of capabilities. Until there is some size standardizations or one majority form factor, it will still be hard for web designers to create content designed for viewing on such small screens.
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Hmm...I don't know about that. Most Smartphone devices, whether Symbian-based or Windows CE-based, have resolutions that are "close". They all support basic HTML, which is a good basis upon which to build.
I agree though, it could present problems for more advanced implementations (Flash, frames, etc.)
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12-18-2002, 06:49 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by PhatCohiba
You should share your Mobile site code with the PHP community. there are many PHP sites that might enhance their sites with it.
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You mean our code to re-direct to a mobile version? Sure, I think we can do that...
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