Web Browser?

[Tilman Baumann]

Jose Manrique Lopez de la Fuente wrote:
> 2008/4/7, Tilman Baumann <tilman at baumann.name>:
>>  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.
> 
>  On my Maemo devices I usually use 'mobile' versions of some websites
> because they provide better user experience (it loads faster i. e.
> compare how much take to load google reader)

Mobile versions for certain pages are a reasonable choice. But nothing 
you can depend on.
The Web[tm] just is not mobile. At least not yet.
This is the reason why there is no alternative to a full blown working 
browser.
And there is a clear trend for mobile sites. They are not some WAP crap 
with no layout at all but full html with limited design. Like no 3 
column layout, default fonts maybe smaller pictures and so on.
This is technology that scales.
That's just design optimized for mobile usage based on current technology.
Nothing wrong with that. In fact it is a good idea.
But changing the web on the browser side (too much) is plain stupid.

So i think it is just futile do argument which feature a mobile browser 
should support and which not. (besides some minor .css aadjustments to 
reflect the limited screen estate)
It just needs to be complete. Crippling pages can only be optional. 
There will always be a page that just needs to be rendered as it was 
intended.
There is for example nothing wrong with a mobile site that uses AJAX.
And a stupid complex site which does not work well on mobile devices is 
probably more defect after converting it so some limited mobile 
rendering as it would be with just leaving it as it is.

Just my 2 Eurocents
  Tilman