Can Joey Make Mobile Browsing Better?

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13294' target='_blank'>http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=13294</a><br /><br /></div><i>"One of the latest projects out of the Mozilla Labs is Joey, a Firefox extension designed to solve this problem by taking snippets of a web page from the desktop and, through a mobile formatted portal, make the text or media available in a mobile friendly and usable way.Here's how it works: someone can use Firefox to send text clippings, pictures, videos, RSS content, and Live Bookmarks to a phone through the Joey Server. The Joey Server transcodes and keeps all of the content up-to-date. The person can then use the phone's web browser or the Joey application on the phone to view and manage what has been uploaded. "</i><br /><br />An interesting approach to mobile content - basically the angle is that if your favorite site doesn't offer a mobile version, Joey will create one for you. Anyone tried this out? I may do so if I get some time at the end of the week - after all, anything to make pages look better!

[johnm]

Not to be negative but I don't think having to preload the content I might 'want' to view is going to cut it. When I'm mobile I'm usually looking up stuff that I forgot to bring anyway. It would be more useful if you could just 'surf' through the server, accessing any content you wanted and re-formatting it on the fly. Hmm, reminds me of some previous attempts at solving this.

[Frankie1]

Not to be negative but I don't think having to preload the content I might 'want' to view is going to cut it. When I'm mobile I'm usually looking up stuff that I forgot to bring anyway. It would be more useful if you could just 'surf' through the server, accessing any content you wanted and re-formatting it on the fly. Hmm, reminds me of some previous attempts at solving this.

Agreed. It's these types of applications that make the windows mobile environment so cumbersome and unattractive to new users. "Oh you want to view that website? All's you do is this: Try to remember what website you might want to view on your phone, download this application to the computer your using at the time, send the webpages there, now download another application through your phone and use that application to view the webpages that you MIGHT want to look at later. Simple!"
The user responsds:
"No thanks, I'll just get an iiPhone"

[johnm]

A mobile browser, especially one on a powerful device with a large screen like a pocket pc, should just work. If anyone doubts that it is possible, go to your local Apple store and surf on the iPhone. I am frustrated and more than a little ticked off that in all the years that PocketPCs have been around MS could not be bothered to develop a mobile browser that worked effectively. I have spent more money on alternate browsers and PIE extensions over the years then I care to admit (or want to think about). I'm still searching. Opera Mobile 9 is my last hope, and I have no idea when that will be available.

[Frankie1]

A mobile browser, especially one on a powerful device with a large screen like a pocket pc, should just work. If anyone doubts that it is possible, go to your local Apple store and surf on the iPhone. I am frustrated and more than a little ticked off that in all the years that PocketPCs have been around MS could not be bothered to develop a mobile browser that worked effectively. I have spent more money on alternate browsers and PIE extensions over the years then I care to admit (or want to think about). I'm still searching. Opera Mobile 9 is my last hope, and I have no idea when that will be available.

I agree again. "IT SHOULD JUST WORK!"
I swear, over the last 2 years I have spent over $3k on devices and I hate when someone comes up to me with an iPhone and show the webrowsing capability to show me up. I have nothing to say to them, especially when no matter what measurements I take I can't get MSN.com to come up as it should it automatically loades a mobile version. My HTC universal with the "High Resolution" option but it still can not compete with the iPhone browser. I'm going to get the HTC Advantage and if that does not work then i don't know what to do.

[Frankie1]

Oh When the **** is the Deepfish browser coming out!

Post edited for content by mod JR