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Mobile websites & mobile browser features

Jon Ballinger
$organization

Hello,

We are in the process of developing our mobile site, and just wanted to get a sense of what everything thinks of supporting  older mobile browsers.   To give some background we are using jquery mobile which does degrade to lower browers to an extent.  We are using jquery/javascript for some features of our mobile site.   I am thinking I will probally provide an alternate route for some pages  that use javascript.  We are also using cookies as well.

So do you require javascript for your mobile site?

What are some ideas for minimum browser requirements?

And any other thoughts are welcomed.

Thank you in Advance,

Jon

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  • Former Member
    Former Member $organization

    Hey Jon!

    Great subject.  I've always looked at, not in browser features or requirements, but in supported mobile platforms:

    iPhone/iTouch 
    Android
    Blackberry

    Pretty much in that order. 

    To the best of my knowledge, all the browsers that i would want to support, can handle JS, but gracefully degrading is...graceful.

    Are you handling your own transaction path?  I had several great conversations at the conference regarding SYOS mobile, and i still think its a toss-up.  necessary or not for mobile...For launch, I have no objection to best available only.

    What i'm really interested in is a solution to serving up pages for different screen sizes/platforms with 1 code base, and not making a different site for each platform.  but maybe i'm dreaming.  Do you have any plans in that regard?

    James

  • $organization in reply to Former Member

    Hi James,

    Thanks for the input.  Yes we are building this in house and handling our own ticket path.  We are planning to use best available.  The platform I am using for the mobile site is jquerymobile.  Jquerymobile handles alot of different devices and browers.  For eaxample the pages I build using jquerymobile are viewable in my desktop browers (chrome,safari,ie,firefox), tablet, WP7 phone and ipod.  It does degrade gracefully.  

    Out target devices/os are:

    IOS, Android, baclkberry , and WP7.

    I think we are going with the requirement of javascript.  It allows use to have more features and nicer user interaction.  I guess my only concern is making javascript a requirement.  I did research as to the devices that do visit our site currently and they all meet our requirement. 

    Jon

     

  • Former Member
    Former Member $organization in reply to Jon Ballinger

    Cool Jon!

    That is the age old arguement;  how many people have javascript disabled?

    My opinion:  If you do disable javascript, practically the ENTIRE internet will not function as intended, and as a user, you're destined for problems.

    I haven't dug into jqmobile yet, but it looks cool.  I'll have to get there soon enough.  Please keep me/us posted on your progress.  i'd even be happy to do some iphone beta testing if you want an extra eye.

    James

  • $organization in reply to Former Member

    Hey Guys, 

    I've played around with jQuery Mobile a bit before and it looks great. Have you guys heard of a technique responsive web design? The basic idea is that you serve one set of pages that can be viewed by different sized screens. For instance, a two column layout on your desktop might stack up and turn into one column when viewed on your phone. Here's more reading if you're interested: 

    http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

    Also, just found this the other day: http://www.phonegap.com/. Essentially it turns web code into a native app for about 6 different mobile devices including iPhone and Android. Cool idea if you've got a web designer you like but not an iPhone dev, etc. 

    SYOS on mobile would be rad but sounds super complicated (read: expensive). I'd love to hear more about your experiences though!

    Best, 

    Josh

     

     

     

  • $organization in reply to Josh Rowland

    Hi Josh,

    Thanks for the response.  I have  read that article before and his book.  The book is an excellent read and is under 200 pages.    I would suggest it, it is only like $10 as a digital download.  I like the concepts of the responsive design.  I have started to implement some with our existing site . 

    I have installed phone gap before, but never compiled anything.  One of the reasons we decided on a mobile site was because we knew if we decided to have an app we could make a few changes to our mobile site and use phone gap to create an app. 

    A great site to check out what people have done with jquerymobile & phone gap is http://www.jqmgallery.com/.  The are mobile sites and apps compiled to IOS using phone gap listed there. 

    I think SYOS would be neat but not sure how to implement it.  For our first iteration of the mobile site we did not even think about SYOS.

    Thanks,

    Jon

  • $organization in reply to Jon Ballinger

    Jon,I'm in the middle of his book right now. Funny that you've read it!

    I'll check out that link. It's always great to see what other people are doing and try and reverse engineer it, especially from other industries. I've been at the ballet about a month now and definitely have mobile on my mind. So l'd love to hear what anyone else has to say. 

  • $organization in reply to Josh Rowland

    Cool .  I really liked the book I will re-read I am sure.  here is a link of infomation I put together a while ago on mobile sites. 

    http://www.tessituranetwork.com/COMMUNITY/forums/t/3496.aspx

    Jon

     

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