Comments on: Pocket IE ‘gets’ mobile browsing

By: Adan

Adan — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:13:53 +0000

There are a few sites I literally view everyday that PIE is perfectly good for.

m.cnn.com
http://www.diggriver.com
wap.engadget.com
m.facebook.com
http://www.google.com/m?source=mobi
mobile.nytimes.com
mobile2.wsj.com

By: Brian Campo

Brian Campo — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:49:57 +0000

Thank you all for the comments, and to expand on dancnpete’s comments Opera Mobile is definitely a solid second place, but the issues he brought up are the big reason why I find myself using PIE. It is just easier and more convenient when I want to get information and go.

I have thought about it again since writing the article and I wonder if it is not the Microsoft Browser anti-trust issue all over again on a different operating system. If Opera mobile were able to do all of the things mentioned and be integrated with Windows Mobile like PIE I would probably find myself using it more than PIE.

By: Werner Ruotsalainen

Werner Ruotsalainen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:34:35 +0000

Excellent article; will link to it from my next Misc News and probably also the Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible.

By: dancnpete

dancnpete — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:02:40 +0000

I’m sorry I can’t disagree more with this post. I’ve played around with pie, netfront, opera, and opera mini. I can’t stand pie, I’m frequently using my web browser on the go, and while I hate many little things about opera mini (load time, cut in paste, cant replace pie as default) I accept that these are mostly limitations of it being on java and not truly mini’s fault. I’ll take the load time to know that the sights I frequent the content is right where I know it should be as compared to my desktop. In fact the only sight I use pie for is traffic.com which happens to be a mobile optimized sight. Yes if the .mobi ever actually picked up it would be great, I don’t think mobile sites will ever reach the kind of penetration you’re looking for, unless it comes on a top down specification for coding in which optimization for mobile browsing becomes painless and seamless. till then we have to hope for more vga screens.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:40:24 +0000

I’d like the mobile versions, I use Mobile Google a lot. But, sometimes the thing I do want is not available on the mobile version, and I can’t get to the full version of the site.
I would hope the mobile site versions can add links to more of the content from the regular site accessible from the mobile browser.

By: joe

joe — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:26:19 +0000

ESPN actually did just redesign their site, I can get to it from my BlackBerry icon but not when I type in espn.com or espn.mobi on PIE. On inspection, here’s the new url:

http://m.espn.go.com/wireless/

Looks much better than the old site. And I can get to yesterday’s boxscores on ESPN mobile, you go to the scoreboard and click the << link…

By: whydidnt

whydidnt — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:50:12 +0000

I can’t really agree with the content of this post. While I agree that it is beneficial for web sites to provide pages formatted for small screens, too often the “mobile” site strips off information I want. The killer is that in doing so they usually don’t provide a means to get to that information. So, if I want to see yesterday’s box score on ESPN mobile, I can’t for example.

The problem is we are typically presented with an all or nothing solution. The sites display in mobile mode or desktop mode, if it detects you’re using a mobile browser, you get the mobile site, with no possible way of getting to the full content if you want it. Would it be so difficult to for the mobile site to provide a link to the full site for those of us that want more information?

It’s interesting, I find myself NOT using PIE simply because it does such an awful job providing me access to the information I want on the go. No comparison to the experience provided on my iPod Touch and it’s Safari browser. It’s sooo sad that I have to use my ATT Tilt as a WiFi access point so I can use the browser on the Touch when on the go. Why can’t I have a decent web experience on any mobile phone the way Apple provides it?

By: spmwinkel

spmwinkel — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:20:22 +0000

Interesting insights. Mobile versions of websites are extremely useful, I found that out again when checking how Twitter, Plurk and Friendfeed worked on a PPC. However, often mobile versions require more work from the content provider and they may just not care. So of course it remains best if both the browser developers work on better compatibility, and the content/service providers acknowledge that more people use their mobile device to access the internet.

By: Tom Gurney

Tom Gurney — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:48:41 +0000

Brian,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I just recently started using a Windows Mobile smartphone and I thought that I would do everything online and make life easier. The problem that I have run into is that most of the sites that I want to use to access regularly do not work with a mobile device. Very frustrating! Keep beating the drum. I guess I need to ask “my websites” to develop mobile web content that I can use.
Tom