Tags: mobile

Every Mobile Social App Site, Ever · Visual Idiot

This is kinda funny (because it’s kinda true).

A separate mobile website: no forking way | Opinion | .net magazine

A great article by Karen pointing to the real problem with the mobile strategies of so many companies: they are locked in by their CMS.

Setting up a mobile testing suite | words from Cole Henley, @cole007

If you’re based anywhere near Frome in Somerset, get in touch with Cole—he’s putting together a communal device testing lab.

Deciding what Responsive Breakpoints to use | Tangled in Design

Another call for design-based (rather than device-based) breakpoints in responsive sites.

Creating a Mobile-First Responsive Web Design - HTML5 Rocks

A great step-by-step tutorial from Brad on developing a responsive site with a Content First mindset.

Mobile Battery Performance

This is my short explanation of Remy’s explanation of a BBC news article which is an explanation of an academic paper about battery performance of mobile devices when accessing websites.

Sex differences in intimate relationships : Scientific Reports : Nature Publishing Group

Albert-László Barabási and Robin Dunbar are among the authors of this paper — it’s the scale-free network equivalent of the Avengers.

The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future - Alexis Madrigal - Technology - The Atlantic

An excellent longish-zoom article by Alexis Madrigal with an eerily accurate summation of the current state of the web. Although I think that a lack of any fundamentally new paradigms could be seen as a sign of stabilisation as much as stagnation.

Nielsen is wrong on mobile | Opinion | .net magazine

Josh responds to Jakob Nielsen’s audaciously ignorant advice on siloing mobile devices. Josh is right.

Nielsen says his research is based on studies of hundreds of mobile experiences, and I don’t doubt it. But because he’s finding tons of poor mobile websites doesn’t mean we should punt on creating great, full-featured mobile experiences.

10 questions about web performance – Jeremy Keith at Clearleft

I had a chat with the guys from Pingdom about performance’n’stuff. If I sound incoherent, that’s because this is a direct transcription of a Skype call, where, like, apparently I don’t, y’know, talk in complete sentences and yeah.

A Furniture Manifesto | Roseology

Taking apps out of phones and embedding them in the world around us …there’s a lot of crossover with what Scott Jenson has been writing about here. Good stuff.

The Future Friendly Campus // Speaker Deck

It’s great to see the Future Friendly call-to-arms being expanded on. Here it’s university sites that are being looked at through a future-friendly lens.

Media Query & Asset Downloading Results | TimKadlec.com

Tim has published the results of a whole bunch of testing he did on how different browsers deal with hidden or replaced images.

Mobile Device Testing: The Gear | Bagcheck

An oldie but a goodie: this Bagcheck blog post contains a whole bunch of useful links to lists of mobile device testing suites.

Testing For Dummies | Testing

An in-depth look at the BBC News mobile testing process. I think it’s great that people are sharing this kind of information.

BBC - BBC Internet Blog: BBC News on mobile: responsive design

BBC News are using the mobile subdomain to plant the seed of responsive design. It’s a smart move that’s been really nicely executed.

What’s in a Name? | The Intercom Blog

The hitherto unnoticed connection between the names of Android phones and the names of condoms.

scottjehl/Device-Bugs

Scott has created a one-stop-shop for documenting browser bugs in mobile devices. Feel free to add to it.

Content Parity | Brad Frost Web

Yet another great post from Brad:

Whenever I think of the concept of “One Web” and providing universal access to information on the web, I tend to break it down into something much simpler: give people what they ask for.

Goldilocks and the Three Device Pixel Ratios [Legends of the Sun Pig - Martin Sutherland’s Blog]

A great examination of the default settings for pixel density and how it can effect reported device width values on mobile.

We need a standard show navigation icon for responsive web design | Stuff & Nonsense

Andy documents the kinds of symbols being used to represent revealable navigation on mobile.

Video, Mobile, and the Open Web | Brendan Eich

Mozilla will be supporting H.264 …but they’re not happy about it.

I won’t sugar-coat this pill. But we must swallow it if we are to succeed in our mobile initiatives. Failure on mobile is too likely to consign Mozilla to decline and irrelevance.

Jordan Moore | Web Design, Northern Ireland, Bangor, Freelance

A sweet little meditation on the nature of the web and responsive design.

First thing you should do to optimize your desktop site for mobile « Cloud Four

Jason reiterates Bruce’s rallying cry: Performance First!

If you could only do one thing to prepare your desktop site for mobile and had to choose between employing media queries to make it look good on a mobile device or optimizing the site for performance, you would be better served by making the desktop site blazingly fast.

Bruce Lawson’s personal site  : What Users Want from Mobile, and what we can re-learn from them

Bruce hammers home the importance of speed and performance on mobile (and frankly, everywhere).

So perhaps some of the time and effort put into media queries, viewports, avoiding scrolling, line length would actually be better employed reducing HTTP requests and optimising so that websites are perceived to render faster.

LukeW | Vector Images for Mobile

Luke rounds up some of the alternatives to bitmap-based images—an increasingly important topic for “resolutionary” “retina’ displays (bleurgh!).

Adobe Shadow | preview mobile web - Adobe Labs

Adobe have launched their version of Weinre, the tool that allows you to refresh and debug iOS and Android browser views from your desktop computer.

Browser Support? Forget It! – David Bushell – Web Design

A great post that discusses exactly what we mean when we talk about “supporting” different browsers.

Apps vs The Web

Some interesting ideas on the commonalities and differences between native apps and the web.

LukeW | Which One: Responsive Design, Device Experiences, or RESS?

Luke outlines three different solutions to delivering a site to multiple devices.

Ringmark

An acid test for mobile browsers. Point your device at rng.io and it will report on how much or little mobile shininess is available.

What We Don’t Know // Speaker Deck

The slides from Chris’s presentation on the known unknowns of the web.

The mobile question: Responsive Design | Government Digital Service

DirectGov is switching from a WURFL-driven separate mobile site to a responsive solution. Good move.

Sirens | Aaron Mentele

Some very interesting results from testing background image downloads contained within media queries or overridden with media queries: it turns out that, in iOS at least, the browser is getting smarter and smarter.

The developer’s guide to mobile frameworks | Feature | .net magazine

Jonathan gives a thorough overview of the various tools and frameworks out there to help build native, hybrid and mobile web apps. He also shares his decision-making process on when to build what.

A Fix for the iOS Orientationchange Zoom Bug | Filament Group, Inc., Boston, MA

That Scott is one smart cookie. He has come up with a workaround (using the accelerometer) for that annoying Mobile Safari orientation/zoom bug that I blogged about recently.

I still want Apple to fix this bug as soon as possible—the fact that such smart people are spending so much effort on ingenious hacks shows just how much of a pain-point this is.

A plea for progressive enhancement | Stephanie Rieger

Yes! Yes! Yes!!!

Progressive enhancement is the only sane approach to today’s massively divergent landscape of devices. It can’t be repeated often enough.

On designing content-out (a response to Zeldman and others) | Stephanie Rieger

Stephanie details all the things we have to know about when designing for today’s broad range of devices: performance, capabilities, form factor, pixel density, and network latency.

These are all good points but I worry that if we just concentrate on the current device landscape, our processes won’t adapt to the future.

Leaving Old Internet Explorer Behind — Joni Korpi

Joni points out a great advantage to the mobile-first approach if you choose not to polyfill for legacy versions of IE: you can go crazy with all sorts of CSS3 goodies in the stylesheet you pull in with media queries.

The ‘trouble’ with Android | Stephanie Rieger

Stephanie focuses on Android but this is a cautionary tale about trying to impose control over what you’re sending to the multitude of mobile devices out there.

Designing to fixed screen sizes is in fact never a good idea…there is just too much variation, even amongst ‘popular’ devices.

How To Build a Modern Website in 2011 - Tom Milway - Blog

A good round-up of what web development means today …and what web developers need to do to keep pace.

Support Vs Optimization | Brad Frost Web

Brad is on a roll. He knocks it out of the park again, this time talking about the difference between supporting the huge range of mobile browsers out there compared to trying to optimise for them.

Position: fixed revisited - QuirksBlog

PPK tests the various ways that mobile browsers handle position:fixed, complete with videos.

The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history | VentureBeat

Some future-friendly musings on mobile from Mozilla and Yahoo.

Mobile content strategy link-o-rama 2011 « Karen McGrane

A great round-up of links and posts relating to the increasingly-important role of content strategy and structured content in our multi-device, responsively-designed online world.

inessential.com: Apps and web apps and the future

Brent Simmons follows up on that Dave Winer post with some future-friendly thoughts:

If I had to choose one or the other — if I had some crazy power but I had to wipe out either native apps or web apps — I’d wipe out native apps. (While somehow excluding browsers, text editors, outliners, web servers, and all those apps we need to make web apps.)

That’s not the case, though. Nothing has to get wiped out.

I think instead that we’ll see a more tangled future. Native apps will use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript more. Web apps will appear more often on smart phones as launchable apps.

Scripting News: Why apps are not the future

Spot. On.

The great thing about the web is linking. I don’t care how ugly it looks and how pretty your app is, if I can’t link in and out of your world, it’s not even close to a replacement for the web. It would be as silly as saying that you don’t need oceans because you have a bathtub.

The Mobile Case for Progressive Enhancement | Brad Frost Web

A great, great reminder from Brad on the importance of progressive enhancement especially on mobile. There seems to be a real mindset amongst developers working on mobile sites that JavaScript is a requirement for building anything (and there’s a corresponding frustration with the wildly-varying levels of JavaScript support). It ain’t necessarily so!

Jeremy Keith - There Is No Mobile Web - BD Conf, Sept 2011 on Vimeo

The video of the opening keynote I delivered at the Breaking Development conference in Nashville earlier this year. It expands on the One Web presentation I gave at DIBI, focusing on the language we use to talk about our approaches to web development.

iOS scale bug stays (mostly) « « David Goss David Goss

Well, this is very intriguing: it turns out that the infamous orientation/scale bug in Mobile Safari isn’t present in in-app browsers (UIWebView). Most odd.

Athena - MediaWiki

Documentation of an ongoing project to create a mobile-first responsive MediaWiki theme.

Responsive Design Essentials: Look Great on any Device - Facebook developers

The process behind the mobile-first responsive design of audiovroom.com.

Fixed Positioning in Mobile Browsers | Brad Frost Web

Brad takes a detailed look at mobile browser support for fixed positioning and how it intersects with page zooming.

LukeW | The Web OS is Already Here…

Luke points out that the web is everywhere: it’s accessible through the browser but also through many native applications. This is the real Web Operating System.

The Web (browser) is inside of every application instead of every application being inside the Web (browser).

The mobile web splash screen antipattern [Legends of the Sun Pig - Martin Sutherland’s Blog]

Excellent points, eloquently delivered, on why sites shouldn’t be shoving their native Apps in the face of people who just arrived at their website on a mobile device.

Putting up a splash screen is like McDonalds putting a bouncer on the door, and telling customers who just parked their car and want to enter the restaurant that they should use the drive-through instead.

You Say Responsive, I Say Adaptive | Sparkbox

On the importance of using a fluid grid in responsive design.

The Myths of Mobile Context by Josh Clark

A PDF of the slides (with copious notes) from Josh’s brilliant presentation. I love this guy!

Mobile web content adaptation techniques | mobiForge

This is article is mostly a decent round-up of development approaches to mobile but the summary lets it down by assuming that desktop users couldn’t possibly want the same functionality as mobile users — in my opinion, inferring people’s desires based purely on their device is extremely dangerous and downright patronising.

BlackBerry Future Visions 2 - Leaked Video - YouTube

Possibly the least imaginative concept video ever made, this piece commissioned by Blackberry shows a dystopian near-future ruled by security departments run by people with very, very tired arms.

#816: Revert mobile-first media queries and remove respond.js - Issues - h5bp/html5-boilerplate - GitHub

This thread on whether HTML5 Boilerplate should include Respond.js by default (and whether the CSS should take a small-screen first approach) nicely summarises the current landscape for web devs: chaotic, confusing …and very, very exciting.

the understatement: Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of Support

A damning indictment on the lack of any upgrade path for most Android phones. It’s disgusting that most customers have contracts that are longer than the life cycle of their phone’s operating system (and crucially for me; their browser).

zomigi.com » Essential considerations for crafting quality media queries

A wonderfully in-depth article from Zoe on all the practical aspects of using media queries for layout.

One Hundred Percent : Jonathan Stark

An excellent point from Jonathan: both native apps and web apps require an internet connection …and both native apps and web apps can be made to work without an internet connection.

This might sound obvious, but the myth that “only native apps can work without an internet connection” is surprisingly widespread.

WSOL :: Envisioning a Responsive Future :: Design Beyond Device

A great collection of the future-friendly techniques of today: progressive enhancement, mobile first and responsive design.

For a Future-Friendly Web | Brad Frost Web

A terrific presentation on progressive enhancement and mobile web development from Brad at Web Design Day. You can look at the slides, read the notes and watch the video.

Crap! It doesn’t look quite right, or, how I learned to stop worryi…

Looks like Lyza’s presentation at Over The Air at Bletchley Park was really excellent.

Interview with Lyza Danger Gardner - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Set my Mobile Web Sites Free - Ubelly

A great little interview with Lyza, wherein she outlines her future-friendly attitude to web development.

Responsive IMGs — Part 1 « Cloud Four

Jason takes a high-level look at tackling mobile-first responsive images (his next post will dig into the details). This is a really good summation of current thinking. Be sure to read the comments too: Andy chimes in with his experiences.

Of Web Apps and HTML Apps : Jonathan Stark

A real-world anecdote from Jonathan illustrates some of the misconceptions around using HTML instead of going native. A lot of people don’t realise that web apps can store data offline.

Mobile Apps Must Die | Blog | design mind

Scott writes up some of the things he talked about at the Breaking Development conference: the just-in-time interactions that are inevitable in a heavily-instrumented world.

The web is a different problem | Web Directions

John pushes back against the idea that browser innovation is moving too slow.

Future Friendly | Brad Frost Web

Brad documents his time at Mobilewood and cast his gaze to a future-friendly horizon.

Future Friendly at Mobilewood (Global Moxie)

Josh sums up the Mobilewood experience wonderfully. He also makes it clear that futurefriend.ly is just the beginning:

This stuff is hard, and we need to do it together. This is a time to be generous, and it’s a time for conversation. Let’s get after it.

LukeW | Future Friendly

Luke beautifully encapsulates the forces that drove the creation of the futurefriend.ly site. I feel like I should be standing on my chair, declaring “Oh captain, my captain!”

mobilewood - a set on Flickr

We are preparing to launch.

How the Boston Globe Pulled Off HTML5 Responsive Design

I’m sitting here in Nashville with Scott, who has been answering questions from Read Write Web about the Boston Globe launch. Here’s the resulting article.

beta.boston.com - Building the new BostonGlobe.com

An overview of the strategy behind the fantastic Boston Globe website.

The technology behind the new BostonGlobe.com on Vimeo

A slick little video that goes behind the scenes of the Boston Globe site.

BostonGlobe.com | Upstatement

A lovely responsive portfolio showcasing a lovely responsive site. Responsinception!

Mobile Web Best Practices | Helping people make mobile websites

A handy set of guidelines from Brad Frost. It’s still a work in progress but it’s got some good tips for mobile design and development.

LukeW | Breaking Development: There Is No Mobile Web

Luke’s notes from my talk at the Breaking Development conference in Nashville summarise my points nicely.

HTML5 vs Newton: The Boston Globe | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

This photograph made my day: the brand new Boston Globe site running on a Newton.

Progressive enhancement. It works.

Mobile HTML5 - compatibility tables for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, iPad and other mobile devices

This just launched at the Breaking Development conference: another site that uses the term HTML5 to include CSS and Ajax. Still, despite its inaccurate nomenclature, it’s a useful compatibility table of device support in mobile browsers.

Pragmatic responsive design

I’ve just seen this incredible presentation from Stephanie Rieger at the Breaking Development conference in Nashville. It’s absolutely packed full of fantastically useful ideas. You really should’ve been there, but these slides can give you a taste of the presentation.

Responsive design and JavaScript - QuirksBlog

Unfortunately this article from PPK is flawed from the start: his first point (upon which all the subsequent points are based) is fundamentally flawed:

Right now responsive design is graceful degradation: design something for desktop and tablet, and remove stuff for mobile.

That’s not the way I’m doing responsive design. Responsible responsive design marries it with a mobile first approach (or more accurately, content first).

Update 2011 Conference Recap :: Freelance WordPress Developer Amber Weinberg

I’m loving Amber’s detailed write-up of the Update conference, especially her description of the panel discussion as me versus everyone else.

LukeW | RESS: Responsive Design Server Side Components

Luke proposes a development approach that marries the best of responsive design with content negotiation. It makes a lot of sense. I like it.

Mobile Web: Taiwan, Opera and WebOS

An eye-opening insight into web usage on mobile devices in Asia from Paul Rouget.

LukeW | Why Separate Mobile & Desktop Web Pages?

Luke enumerates the reasons why Bag Check has a separate desktop website rather than one responsive URL for desktop and mobile. They’re good reasons but I think they could all be addressed with some clever conditional loading, especially seeing as the site was, of course, built mobile first.

Of Sites and Apps « James Pearce

James attempts to tackle the thorny question of what makes something a web “app” (rather than a web “site”). It reminds of the infamous definition of obscenity:

I know it when I see it.

In short, the answer to the question “what is a web app?” is “fuck knows.”

How Responsive Web Design becomes Responsive Web Publishing - AQ » Blog

Some interesting questions (and one or two answers) about how responsive design affects publishing on the web.

The One Web: don’t write for devices, write for people | Opinion | .net magazine

A great opinion piece from Addy Osmani prompted by the panel discussion I took part in at the Update conference.

mySociety » Blog Archive » Mobile operators altering (and breaking) web content

In an attempt to “optimise” performance, T-Mobile and Orange are actually breaking jQuery.

Structured Content, Shifting Context: Responsive Design, Content Strategy

The importance of structured content for longevity and responsiveness.

HTML5 Rocks - HTML5 vs Native: The Mobile App Debate

An even-handed weighing up of the pros and cons of native and web app development for mobile.

2011 Mobilism workshops announced · Blog · Mobilism

Stephen and PPK are taking their two-day mobile workshop on the road, including two dates in the UK (one of which is Brighton!). There’s a welcome emphasis on testing.

An iPhoneography and Mobile Photography Conference

The world’s first mobile photography conference will take place in San Francisco on September 24th this year, featuring Dan Rubin, Jessica Zollman and more.

How to fail at mobile web [Legends of the Sun Pig - Martin Sutherland’s Blog]

It’s a provocative title but I certainly agree with this post’s premise. And the situation it describes is all too familiar.

Mobile-First Responsive Web Design | Brad Frost Web

A nice round-up of responsible responsive web design techniques, ‘though I would go a bit further and suggest that the rallying cry is not so much about Mobile First but Content First.

Which Fish

A handy mobile-friendly list from Mike Stenhouse of which fish are currently having their stocks depleted. It uses offline storage so once you’ve visited once, you’ll be able to pull it up anywhere.