Web Browser?

[thomasg]

I cannot agree.
We're not talking about the tries to create a mobile web, like wap and co.
did.
They had some good ideas, but the concept was useless, because nobody wanted
to have a second, way smaller net.
We're talking about rendering normal webpages to make them fit the devices
screen.
The neo has a damn good screen and a pretty high resolution, but this will
not be enough for all the crappy designed websites out there. Where ever you
go, you'll find sites with "requires minimum 1024x768"... - this means they
expect you to have your browser window at least 1000 pixel wide. The neo can
do 640 in landscape-, 480 in portrait-mode (I bet the last will be used most
of the time), so there is just no chance to browse w/o zooming or scrolling
in 2D (imho both sucks).
The other thing is, that the neo doesn't have enough horsepower like you
said. In fact the neos cpu is so far behind the iphones (and other powerful
arm11 devices) that you won't see a light.
Check it out yourself with openmoko-browser or midori (both gtk-webkit) -
the samsung will run at 100% while rendering and it takes some seconds for
every site - even simple sites like google.com. Not to mention the heavy use
of ram (at least 15 mb without tabs). Running the cpu at 100% means heaving
very high power consumption - also not that good for a mobile device.
If possible try the iphones browser, too. It's far more optimized than the
webkit-browsers we have on openmoko, it's executed on an arm11 with over 500
Mhz (kicks the samsungs ass) and supported by an dedicated powervr graphics
chip. Even this browser needs some time for rendering - and if you zoom and
scroll it will continuously have to reload tiles.
Then check links. It ignores most of the rendering what kills many of the
fancy layouts with many pictures - but it loads every page in less than a
second (as long the network is fast enough) without tile-refreshing and
things like this. If the webmasters did their job fine, you wouldn't even
have to scroll vertically.
There also is no need to zoom, because the textsize is like you want it.
After all, I think different people like different solutions - but I want to
read, not to wait - scroll - wait - scroll - zoom - watch fancy graphics -
zoom again, ...

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Tilman Baumann <tilman at baumann.name> wrote:

> thomasg wrote:
>
>  In my honest opinion a iphone-browser is not the solution - it's a
> > tribute to bad webdesign, nothing else. Desktop-like rendering and therefore
> > needed zooming is exhausting and is leading rendering to the point auf
> > absurdity.
> > Rendering is used to make things fit - not to make them look the same
> > whereever it's used.
> >
>
> My opinion is just the opposite. There where many attempts to create
> something like a mobile web. And all failed miserably. (wap, imode, crappy
> limited browsers)
> I think it is time to stop making futile attempts to change the web and
> begin to change mobile browsers and how they are used. The iPhone browser is
> a good example and by far not the only one.
> Since mobile browsers take the web as it is, they suddenly became cool.
>
> There is nothing wrong with optimizing the data stream for mobile usage
> (compression, image crappyfication) as long as the page layout stays the
> same.
> But even this constraint begins to fade away since UMTS. (Ok, not for the
> Neo/Feedrunner)
>
> Neo has enough horsepower and pixels to provide a decent web experience.
> I have tested the built in browser (with usb net not GPRS) and it works
> just fine. Stable layout, wonderful text rendering courtesy of the extremely
> high dpi of the screen.
> It just needs some usability tweaks. Like scrolling without the
> scrollbars.
> Like Opera does (not opera mini) on the Nokia N770 and successors. Which
> are by the way a good example for a really good mobile browsing experience.
> They have a larger screen, but not much more pixels than we.
>
> Regards
>  Tilman
>
>
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