It's a Mean Thing to Say; Is It True?

Submitted by Net Monkey on Mon, 08/20/2007 - 9:53pm

Compiler - Wired Blogs:

Facebook, Netvibes and Meebo all launched new iPhone-optimized versions of their sites this week, and all three of them are very nice. But wasn’t one of the promises of the iPhone that it offered “a real web browser?” If that's so, why all the iPhone-optimized sites? And why are these sites being optimized for the iPhone specifically and not just “mobile optimized?”

The iPhone is Internet Explorer 4 all over again.

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rasman's picture

This is silly. But wasn’t

Submitted by rasman on Tue, 08/21/2007 - 3:49am.

This is silly.

But wasn’t one of the promises of the iPhone that it offered “a real web browser?” If that's so, why all the iPhone-optimized sites?

It is a real web browser in that you can still navigate regular websites and use regular web applications (unlike IE4), but that doesn't exclude the possibility of making an alternate version of a web application that is more usable on a tiny touch screen. That author is missing the point.

And why are these sites being optimized for the iPhone specifically and not just “mobile optimized?”

Because there aren't any other touch screen mobiles out there running full javascript? Duh. As soon as there are, then there's no reason why these 'iPhone optimizations' won't work on them as well.

Even web applications can, and should, be tailored to specific input devices. I think I'm going to start writing all of my web applications for the Wii platform first and then port them back to mouse-click PC-style input.

Lance's picture

I don't know that it's fair

Submitted by Lance on Tue, 08/21/2007 - 9:56am.

I don't know that it's fair to call it silly. For one thing, can we really say that it is a real web browser if it doesn't support flash? And too, why are we assuming that the market is moving towards iPhone's form factor? I had a chance to play with an iPhone this weekend and, even though I was surprised to find that the touch screen's keypad worked better than I expected, I wouldn't trade away my blackberry's tactile keypad (even if it means that I have to watch "Chocolate Rain" on YouTube at 1/2 size).

Nonetheless, I suspect that the Wired author is being a bit alarmist.

rasman's picture

Btw, this blogging

Submitted by rasman on Tue, 08/21/2007 - 3:52am.

Btw, this blogging platform/application kicks ass! What's it called?

Lance's picture

Drupal. It's a quick and

Submitted by Lance on Tue, 08/21/2007 - 9:56am.

Drupal. It's a quick and dirty setup, without a lot of the bells and whistles that make Drupal awesome. I did a lot more with the platform over at BlueNC.com.

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