Google updated its webmaster recommendations for smartphone-optimized websites. You may need to change your site HTML and server headers to help Google's various crawlers find your smartphone content and better associate the same pages optimized for various screen sizes.
Research firm Nielsen released updated statistics on smartphone application usage in the United States. The average Android and iOS user installs 41 applications and uses these applications 39 minutes each day.
Google's mobile search engine crawler now uses an updated User-Agent string designed to trigger iPhone-specific renderings of web pages.
Content developed exclusively for the iPhone helped web publishers rethink content display beyond the desktop browser. Reimagining web content for small screens with bandwidth, latency, and interaction constraints provided publishers with an introduction to widget concepts and a broader web strategy. iPhone OS 2.0 ignited new mobile development in 2008, which should carry over to new platforms in 2009.
The Exceptional Performance group at Yahoo! just released a detailed performance analysis of web applications on the iPhone. Yahoo! analyzed the full capabilities of the iPhone's Safari browser including browser cache and transfer speeds. The iPhone cache is much smaller than a desktop browser, and web developers should adjust their targets accordingly.
Widgets are coming to Series 60 handsets this Fall, bringing tiny pieces of content onto the application menu of the world's best-selling smartphone OS. The S60 Web Run-Time builds upon the existing open source technologies in the S60 browser and provides a development experience very close to Apple's Dashboard widget environment. The widget software will be available in version 3.2 of Nokia's operating system due out this Fall. The Series 60 operating system is currently installed on over 85 million mobile devices produced by Lenovo, LG, Nokia, and Samsung. S60 widgets are marked up using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript...
Nokia announced a new mobile feed reader focused on video today at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. The Nokia Video Center comes pre-installed on new Nokia Series 60 devices such as the newly announced N95 and N93i but is also available as a separate download for compatible devices. You can load videos onto the phone through your home computer or receive updates over-the-air at HSDPA speeds or using open WiFi while you're on the go. The Video Center software supports H.264 videos, meaning videobloggers have even more reasons to create specially formatted and mini-sized (320x240) versions of their show...
The Bluetooth SIG announced wireless transfer of contact, calendar, and notes information via what it's calling TransSend. It implements the OBEX standard you may have used to "beam" someone your contact information in the past. You can send vCard, vCal, vNote, plain text, or image files from a PC to supporting handsets. An ActiveX plugin for Internet Explorer lets users send content from a web page to their mobile phone. You can send driving directions, your contact info, or event data. Sounds cool, but it looks like the plugin is relying on proprietary markup for recognition instead of using...
Google Reader Mobile is now available on your mobile phone. The pages are served using XHTML 1.0 for mobile, including access keys for each list item. The mobile reader is a good blend of what you would like to configure on your desktop but still access on a more limited input device such as a mobile phone. The mobile interface is purposefully barebones but utilizes features made possible by the full desktop experience such as browsing tagged posts....
Nokia announced an upgrade to the 770 Internet tablet operating system and bundled hardware this morning at the VON Europe Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. The new operating system, now named Internet Tablet OS 2006, features Google search and IM functionality built-in, including prominent display on the homepage and task bar. Nokia 770 owners can now chat with friends using text and voice from their Internet tablets. Nokia developed the IM and VoIP based on XMPP and Google's libjingle extensions. The voice and text screens are branded with the Google Talk logo, including the beta designation. The Gizmo Project will...
Niall Kennedy is a software engineer in San Francisco, California in the United States. I am very interested in the world of... MORE »