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2009-03-09
, 07:38
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Posts: 3,790 |
Thanked: 5,718 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ Vienna, Austria
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#82
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The workflow of a mobile browser is just doifferent than a desktop browser. For this one has to adapt and relearn a different albeit more efficient workflow.
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2009-03-09
, 08:05
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Posts: 3,397 |
Thanked: 1,212 times |
Joined on Jul 2008
@ Netherlands
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#83
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2009-03-09
, 08:22
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Moderator |
Posts: 7,109 |
Thanked: 8,820 times |
Joined on Oct 2007
@ Vancouver, BC, Canada
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#84
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The Following User Says Thank You to qole For This Useful Post: | ||
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2009-03-09
, 08:59
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Posts: 3,790 |
Thanked: 5,718 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ Vienna, Austria
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#85
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Usually pages have a specific page for a mobile version of their website. Sometimes these are optimized for phones with keypads, sometimes for smartphones/mids/tablets/netbooks. These pages start with http://m.website.invalid or have http://invalid.mobi..
With intended audience I refer to people who do not wish to mimic their desktop browser experience on their mobile device. Instead, they will use the pros and cons of the mobile device and adapt the mobile browser to that.
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2009-03-09
, 09:02
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Posts: 3,790 |
Thanked: 5,718 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ Vienna, Austria
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#86
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2009-03-09
, 11:35
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Posts: 3,397 |
Thanked: 1,212 times |
Joined on Jul 2008
@ Netherlands
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#87
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Established web technology offers enough mechanisms to detect the capabilities of a browser/device and deliver content accordingly.
Putting "mobile" versions off to their own domains is a little bit like WAP.
What are the "pros and cons" of a "mobile device"? Comparing my three cell phones and the tablet (all of which are mobile devices), they don't have a lot in common.
Also, how would working on a mobile keep my brain from thinking "Hey, the bottom of this page doesn't render correctly, go look at the HTML source to find that one link you're looking for"?
It would be one more item in a sub-menu; how could it make a UI more complicated?
And if I want to examine the source of a boken page, why would I want to wait the whole weekend until I return to my desktop? I bought a mobile device so I wouldn't need to return to my desktop for such tasks!
The assumption that people "simply don't do" things on "mobile devices" isn't logical. So the idea to strip away functionality from a mobile browser isn't, either.
You don't design a user interface by not offering anything that would need a user interface in the first place.
That's not designing a user interface, that's not accepting the challenge. (Like: Want to improve the UI for MS Office? Oh yes, just remove all functions except "File|Open" and "File|Save". Great! Such a simple, easy to use interface!)
I know. In my wording, though, a "beta" is supporsed to be more or less feature complete, at least the UI and the overall look&feel should be. Otherwise there'd be no point in testing.
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2009-03-09
, 12:59
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Posts: 3,790 |
Thanked: 5,718 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ Vienna, Austria
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#88
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Its been going on ever since day 1. Some pages were still in HTML 3.2. We had WAP indeed. We had JS and Flash while many were still in dial-up. That too, broke the web. There is no 1 web. There is no 1-size-fits-all.
The content matters. The content is similar or the same. (Some heavy bandwidth stuff is left out). The layout is indeed different.
I outlined some in my previous post, but I don't think you want to see these points.
They have tons of things in common especially when comparing them with desktops and laptops. They're all running a RISC processor, probably all ARM.
There are ofcourse differences in a touchscreen mobile device and a non-touchscreen mobile device
Normal users (the goal of RX-51 and Fennec) don't have this strange obsession. They just want to look something up on the web. When it looks odd, they might start to wonder.
I can't seem to explain this to you. You don't seem to want to understand.
And, I feel sorry for you, because this is what mobile devices will move towards. They will adapt to 1) the hardware (which, like I said, has pros and cons) 2) what users want to run on it.
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2009-03-09
, 14:54
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Posts: 3,397 |
Thanked: 1,212 times |
Joined on Jul 2008
@ Netherlands
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#89
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WAP did, yes. JS and Flash are bad habits, but don't break the architecture of the web.
I don't have to. Your browser tells me.
Not breaking the web means that, for example, when you're on WLAN, a browser on a Maemo device could request a full desktop version of the site, while it could specifilally request a mobile version when on a slow data connection like GPRS. It would always do so, not needing to know whether the mobile version is available at all, if it's domain.mobi or m.domain.com or www.domain.com/mobile/ ...
The architecture of the web says that this should be done using specific MIME-types in the HTTP-request and/or loading the mobile style sheet rather than the regular one. The URI should remain the same, though. Creating domains/subdomains/... for what should be handled in the HTTP protocol is not The Right Thing. Instead, my mobile browser on low bandwidth should send a request for www.domain.com, saying it would, if available, please prefer a mobile-friendly version, in German, if possible, encoded in UTF-8. It's as simple as that.
Which doesn't affect my browsing experience much.
Except that my N800 has a relatively large screen. Remember "desktop-size" was 640x480 not so long ago.
That's exactly the point. You have cell phonesThe challenge for the UI is not the fact that they are mobile devices (which cell phones, of course, are). The challenge is that for each of them, you need to find user interfaces and workflows that best adapt to their specific input capabilities. For a touch screen without any hardware keys this will need to be radically different than for a phone that has no touch-screen, but QWERTY plus 10 additional function keys.
- with touch screen and no hardware keys
- with touch screen and some hardware keys
- with touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard
- without touch screen and some hardware keys
- without touch screen and a full QWERTY keyboard
- ...
You consider looking at the HTML source a "strange obsession" that "normal" people don't have.
Me not being normal aside
what you say here just backs my original claim:
Reduced functionality has nothing to do with mobily use.
If I have this bizarre fetish of looking into the HTML source, I will want to do it regardless of which device I'm at.
Those who don't do it in the first place would also accept something like Fennec as their desktop browser, because they don't even realize there's something missing.
So the point remains that Fennec is a stripped to the bare minimum browser that maybe appeals to a certain type of users. Its user interface is in no way optimized, though, for mobile usage, as "mobile usage" as such doesn't mean less functionality, but only a different UI.
No, that's what a mobile PC is for.
rdesktop would require me to have my desktop PC up and running and connected to the net plus i'd need a way to get around the dynamic-IP-stuff... why would I want that if all I need is right in my hand?
Mobile devices are the hardware, they don't adapt to it. And the hardware is getting more powerful with each generation.
I don't see my laptop moving in this direction (it is a mobile device, isn't it), I don't see netbooks moving there... And as for the tablets: Yes, we see some strange things coming in the Maemo5 UI, but then: I can use any decent browser on it the same way I can use Claws instead of Modest. It's not a matter of "the device". It's a matter of software. And Fennec isn't particularly good software.
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2009-03-09
, 16:59
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Posts: 3,790 |
Thanked: 5,718 times |
Joined on Mar 2006
@ Vienna, Austria
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#90
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How has it improved since the last alpha?