With the recent launch of the iPhone in the UK, suddenly we’re getting a spate of “we’ve optimised what we do for the iPhone” announcements.
For example, Sky News has an iPhone friendly home page, while the BBC has streamlined its podcasts page for iPhones.
A couple of things to say about this:
1) Isn’t the point of the Safari browser on the iPhone that it can handle ordinary webpages without them having to be specially formated?
2) Why does the iPhone get special attention? Surely these sort of optimisations should be happening for all mobile clients?
OK. So both the BBC and Sky already have excellent mobile versions of their websites, and I know that producing these pages is probably just a little tinkering with some previously created templates via their content management systems.
But we’re entering dangerous territory if we’re expecting website creators to launch new versions of websites for every new devices that hits the market. I quite fancy one of those Asus Eee PCs which have very small screens. They’re selling bucketloads, so can everyone please make their websites look nice for that device – making full use of the screen’s fairly limited real estate? The BBC blog notes that other devices are coming soon. So which device has more in the market in the UK currently? The iPhone or the PSP? And which one has gets the new podcast page. Hmm. It’s not like anyone’s going to be downloading podcasts on the iPhone via EDGE anyway…
And no, this website is not optimised for the iPhone or any mobile device. There’s a very slow redesign happening, and a mobile version may or may not be part of it depending on how hard it is to read. Let’s face it, you’re reading this text via your favourite RSS reader anyway!
Not Optimised For The IPhone
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3 responses to “Not Optimised For The IPhone”
The iPhone interface, the first product of FM&T A&Mi’s 10% time, was designed in such a way to make adding other devices very easy. The reason we did the iPhone first is related to the massive media interest surrounding this product, but we’re now adding PSP, etc, support to our scheduled tasks, so your PSP will be supported shortly.
And your website might not be iPhone-optimised… but http://james.cridland.net/ looks lovely on one.
Of course I can quite understand why the iPhone was the first device considered. It’s had a ridiculous amount of PR.
Fundamentally, though, there’s something wrong with having to optimise websites for different browsers or devices – at least beyond a “rich” version and a “cut down” version of any given website.
I’m with you on this Adam. If the BBC uses public money to produce anything optimised specifically for Microsoft products, they get slated for playing into the hands of corporate monopoly. But doing the same thing for the iPhone is apparently “cool”.
Still, at least it isn’t their first foray into small-screen device. I’ve seen some design blogs that seem to think using the web on a iPhone is the first time you didn’t need a steam-driven valve-powered monitor to look at teh interweb.