I have been reading the excellent article by @brad_frost a couple of times and reflecting… Even if I may represent the “mobile old timers” who still know how to write WML, I am 100% in on RWD, html5 and all that buzz (unlike some others). It is bound to happen and it is good for mobile.

However, the message in the blog post cant be emphasized enough:

RWD as defined does not really solve any problems for the mobile end users. 

RWD is solving the developers problems (…or creating new). Users don’t care. And suddenly, everyone who can do RWD claims to be mobile experts… And to my experience so far, most RWD sites done by some these experts give a worse end user experience when it comes to relevance, speed and “snappyness” compared to mdot sites or device experiences. And again, as Brad and Jason points out, speed and snappyness is what the end user really want and need to perform the task. Current RWD tend to provide the opposite.

This is the web. The web is the ultimate platform. Diversity is not decreasing, it’s increasing. In RWD, you don’t know who or what you are talking to. Finding out may cost the end user valuable time.

I am still in the “do stuff server side” camp, but of course, use use fluid grids, flexible images, media queries and any other suitable techniques to make the end user return to the site again. That’s what it is all about.

Read: Responsive Web Design: Missing the Point | Brad Frost Web.

Opera, I guess means Opera Mini. Together with UCBrowser, proxy browsers basically rule the world over all. Webkit in western market tho,…

From Browserrank.com

I am still the lucky owner of the first generation iPad. It’s a great device and the only think that is kinda annoying is the weight. It is too heavy to hold in one hand reading stuff over time. Even if my current iPad is the 3G one (730g), I had that feeling with the wifi only device too (which I gave away). And that device was 680 g heavy….the new iPad is 662 g (4g).

So, not going to buy the new iPad, I think. I want a lighter and thiner thing. I am sure they will be around soon…or should I buy an iPad2 while they are still around?

iPad2 spec

New iPad spec

Server side, client side, RESS, RWD, Progressive WHAT…? Drizzle some HTML5 on top, and confusion is complete.

Here are a few good posts bringing clarity to the different approaches.

• Mobile Web Content Adaptation Techniques.
  From Mobiforge.
• Which One: Responsive Design, Device Experiences, or RESS?
  Luke Wroblewskis take on the different approaches.  Also worth a read is post at Facebooks HTML5 blog where he explains “Device experiences”.
• Future of the mobile web.
  The output of The Future of the Mobile Web event.

Still, most of these techniques are about presentation only, which of course is very important and useful in many cases, but I still believe that the next step for making content and services independent of how they are consumed, we need more intelligence throughout the entire value chain. I know, we are a bit into the future here, and maybe too philosophical.

Still, it is a huge mistake to think that Responsive Web Design, as defined, is the answer to independence, whether we are talking mobile, desktop, tablets, TVs or toasters. Same goes for many of the other techniques described above.

I am still a firm believer in finding the perfect mix between doing adaptive magic server side and client side. So currently, and in the foreseeable  future, there is no way around some kind of server side device detection, using WURFL, DeviceAtlas or similar DDR.

Using some kind of server side logic will also pave the way for a more intelligent value chain which is needed to take independence of presentation to the next level (I acknowledge that the title of this post was a bit off…).

Where are the CMS vendors in this discussion? They should be very much involved! Now, the mobile sphere and the forward-leaning web developers are very engaged, but the real enabling party here is the CMS vendors. The CMS is where you make your content smart, and it is also where you empower the people creating the content to make smart decisions. The different approaches outlined in the links above are all good in certain contexts. Imagine if the content it self knew which of these techniques (or mix of techniques) it needed to make sense of it self in the different presentation contexts…. That would be cool. And it is possible to do today.

Where are you CMS vendors? This must be a golden opportunity!

Thank you @dmolsen for inspiration.

• The German mobile retail market grew by 112% in 2011
• 25% of European Xtreme shoppers shop using mobile phones or tablets more than in the past51% of US Xtreme shoppers use search engines as shopping tools
• 58% of European Xtreme shoppers use search engines as shopping tools
• 33% of retailers operate a mobile channel, up from 12% in 2010

I had the pleasure of attending Mobile Retail Summit in London yesterday. An OK event, but kind of missed the innovative ideas to how mobile can bridge the gap between online and offline shopping experiences. Especially from the tech vendors and agencies that are supposed to help retailers in the right direction. So I was pretty surprised when Duncan Hallas from Netbiscuits stated

“HTML5 is fantastic, but it’s a web standard – not a mobile web standard”.

WTF? You lost me…

“HTML5 is fantastic, but it’s a web standard – not a mobile web standard.”-Duncan Hallas, Netbiscuits#mretailsummit

— Mobile Marketing (@MMMagTweets) January 26, 2012

So Netbiscuits is relying on mobile web standards like XHTMLMP?

Even if I am still not quite comfortable with how W3C defined the term “One Web” HTML5 is for sure one step in the right direction. If us mobilists denies HTML5 as a web standard, for all capable devices, we are pretty stupid! HTML5 is all good for mobile! HTML5 is the first standard that really is taking mobile seriously (…at least when we speak of HTML5 as an umbrella term covering CSS3 and device APIs) enabling fantastic things on hand held devices!

It is true that HTML5 does not solve all problems in the mobile web space, but, dear Retailer, if your vendor tells you that HTML5 is not good for mobile web, ditch him!

The latest Facebook app for iPhone adds some interesting metadata to the user agent sting. The user agent in the web view part of the app, that is (when you follow a link in a status message).

Picture above shows the user agent and more (captured here).

The extra stuff is:

• FBAN = Application Name
• FBAV = Application Version
• FBBV = Build?
• FBDV = ?Device??
• FBMD = ?
• FBSN = ? Obviously something to do with the OS/platoform
• FBSV = ? Can it be OS version?
• FBSS = ?
• FBCR = Carrier
• FBID = ?
• FBLC = Language code
• FBSF = ?

Don’t know what it all means but some are obvious. Anyone know the rest?

Today, most people are talking as if Androids and iPhones are the only phones around. That’s not the case as this brilliant work from asymco shows.

Read more here: The US smartphone landscape | asymco.

The history of the iPhone

iPhone-evolution-gem-1.jpg 610×319.

So what will happen to WebOS?

• Bought by Facebook?
• Bought by Google (patent shopping)
• Bought by Samsung or HTC?
• Open Sourced? The new Symbian?
• …. Poor Nokia…. You missed this opportunity too…