Pocket IE ‘gets’ mobile browsing

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There are new mobile browsers popping up everywhere, all bringing their flavor of desktop browsing to the tiny screen, and it has opened up the majority of the Internet for access by our devices.  So then why is getting information from the Internet still so painful using a mobile phone.  Like everyone else I love when an app brings new features to the table, but I think in the case of mobile browsing most of them are missing the mark.  Desktop browsing on a mobile device seems to be more of a "because we can" feature than a "needed” product feature. 

Being a developer myself, I understand when you have a new product the best and easiest way to get people to use your program is to do something better than everyone else and to do it flashier.  The problem is that with most of the new browsers it doesn’t help the experience much (I will admit it is much more fun though).  It might distract you while you are stumbling around trying to find what you’re looking for, but it doesn’t do much to make it a more enjoyable process.  For the most part I still find myself using Pocket IE as much or more than any of the other options.  Hit the jump to find out why…

The thought of desktop browsing from such a small device sounds like a great idea, and I really liked it at first.  I mean who wouldn’t want to be able to get to almost any content on the Internet from anywhere your phone gets coverage.  After using a few of them for a while I can honestly say that I prefer Pocket IE.  It’s not that Netfront’s multitude of viewing options don’t bring something to the game, or that Skyfire doesn’t provide a great service with their rendering and zooming.  Opera actually has two products for Windows Mobile that look better on paper than IE.  The problem is that no matter how many features or viewing options you stuff into an application it is still a small screen with limited input options. 

All of the added features just make using it more complex and require more convoluted input tasks to get to the content we are looking for.  As an example to check email through Google takes 2 clicks in IE, 5 in Opera, 6-11 in Netfront depending on where my bookmark stack is, and so many in Skyfire that I won’t even use it for that anymore.  Strangely enough, after spending an exclusive week with each option I was almost relieved to be able to add back the option to use IE. 

This is definitely not an IE lovefest, as I will be the first to admit that it is about time for Microsoft to devote some resources to Pocket IE or it will become the laughing stock of mobile browsers, but for getting the information I use most on my phone it is just the easiest and best option.  To start with I’m not really talking about “sitting in the Doctors office with nothing to do” browsing.  In situations like that I don’t do much browsing; I will usually play a game or catch up on email, or update my schedule.  What I’m referring to is the I am not at my computer and I need to get some piece of information for something I am doing type browsing. 

That sort of browsing is what I use my device for most and why I use a browser in most cases.  In this situation I want to get to the information I need quickly and easily and get back to what I was doing.  Ideally, everything would be on my mobile home page but I realize that isn’t possible.  The next best option is to give me a relatively short and easy path to what I might be looking for and keep the interface out of the way. 

A few years ago when Opera was the only other game in town they were going down this path.  They worked on rendering things better, making the interface more palatable, and generally trying to beat Pocket IE at its own game.  But then the Iphone came along and wowed everyone with the ability to browse the "real Internet".  It got alot of hype and was one of the "killer features" that put Apple in the upper echelon of mobile experiences.  Soon after every one else started working on the same thing by bringing a new twist to it, but the irony of it is that many IPhone users I know love the interface and the "shininess" but don’t care for the amount of effort it takes to handle simple browsing. 

The problem in this isn’t even so much with the browser makers as it is with the content publishers.  Mobile browsing is one of the biggest growing sectors in any industry and it only seems to be going higher.  Why then are we stuck with about far too few really good mobile sites on the entire Internet, and even more so why isn’t there more work being done to fix the parts that don’t work rather than add new features that cover up the problems.  I don’t think the vast majority of people that browse from a mobile phone really want the "full Internet experience", but rather want to get a small nugget of the Internet that is optimized for the device they are using. 

Mobile browsing is not about fitting the “desktop Internet” to the small screen as much as it about making the content work on the small screen.  This means that you have to design your mobile portal to the capabilities that mobile phones have, and the content that mobile users are looking for.  Simply running the same content down a longer column isn’t going to work.  Extraneous information should be removed, and even the main content should be scrubbed to make it work.  Too many sites fail to recognize this and the product suffers. 

There are some sites that have done a great job of creating a useful mobile portal, and when a site is designed well Pocket IE is just as good as any other and takes little to no resources.  I don’t have to install anything extra, and it doesn’t require me to switch modes or toggle any settings.  I usually don’t want to browse through everything a site has to offer, but instead want a quick and easy way to find the bit of information I am looking for.   The first really good mobile site that comes to mind is the weather.com portal.  The picture below is the Pocket PC format, and they even have a smartphone/regular phone version that is even more slimmed down for the even smaller screen.  Weather.com just gets what mobile browsing is all about. 

This is a nearly perfect presentation, and they even manage to work in a little unobtrusive ad space.  The main page does not require me to enter in any information (if I have previously saved my location), and does a great job of presenting me with exactly what I want when I first visit their site.  They have links to a few other things that I might be looking for (hourly, 36 hour, and 10 day forecasts), and I can even change my location and get a different forecast in a single click all from the first screen loaded with no scrolling.  Weather.com did a great job of designing their mobile portal, and an even better job of getting rid of unnecessary content. 

When I am visiting the site from my mobile phone, they recognize that I am probably not interested in their main weather story or looking at the multitude of other features they run.  They know that a mobile user is probably checking the weather on the way to work, or a day at the park, or a game and wants to know what the weather is going to be like.  If they wanted weather news or other features they would have looked them up on their desktop before they left. 

Another fairly good example is FoxSports (since the redesign).  I won’t call this one the best, but it is a good example of meeting half way.  If you go to Foxsports.com from your desktop there is a ton of content all over the home page.  There is no way I am interested in seeing half of what is there on my phone even if I am at the bank, in a long line, and bored.  What they did was pare the content down to the top headline, and the other 10 top stories they are running.  You can still dig deeper into the content by choosing categories, but the information you are originally looking for is probably on the main screen a single click away.  The only thing that could make this page better is if they had a small ticker at the top and allowed me to choose what teams I want to see, but as far as a content site goes this is an above average implementation.  I can still get to alot of their content using the links for the different sports at the top, but I don’t have to wade through screens and screens of zooming in and out of the desktop version, and it is relatively nice looking. 

ESPN has a rather average (and due for a redesign soon) mobile portal, but were one of the first to create what I would call a true mobile portal.  Their mobile site has not changed much but does a great job of getting you to your content quickly and with a minimum of flash (and they have mobile Euro 2008 coverage!!!!).  I would like to see them redesign this site and make it a bit more appealing, but functionally it is still easy to use and nicer than trying to use SI from a mobile. 

There are a lot more sites out there that do a good job of trying to meet a mobile users need, but by far, the vast majority are hoping you will get a desktop browser squeezed onto your phone and endure the pain of trying to navigate the desktop version of their site.  I can honestly say that I am much more partial to content providers that have a real mobile portal, even when it comes to browsing on the desktop.  It shows that they understand their customers and for that I will understand them. 

If you ask me it is time we stop worrying about browsing the desktop web from your phone and start telling our content providers that we want a real mobile web. 

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