Category Archives: Content Adaptation

Sprint OpenWeb Update

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I’ve found out a little more about the OpenWeb transcoder that US CDMA/EVDO provider Sprint is rolling out which I wrote about last week. If you missed that piece, Sprint has added a transcoder from OpenWave called OpenWeb to at least some of their WAP gateways. The stated purpose of OpenWeb is to transform full web pages that wouldn’t be usable on handsets into something mobile friendly. The problem is that the OpenWeb software modifies the browser’s http headers, removing … Continue reading →

Sprint’s “OpenWeb” No Upgrade

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Last week Opera released a minor upgrade to the Opera Mini browser. I like to follow the latest releases so I downloaded it to all my phones from mini.opera.com. I used each phone’s built-in browser so Opera could detect the phone model and send the optimal version of Opera Mini. All went well until I tried to upgrade my Samsung A920. I got a message “Your phone model could not be detected” This seemed strange as Opera had recognized the … Continue reading →

WebClip2Go – Web Page Snippets For Your Phone

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If you’re like me, I bet there’s a lot of web content you’ll like to use on your phone but which isn’t available in mobile friendly form. The traditional solution to this problem is to use a full web browser like Opera Mini or a transcoder like Mowser, both of which work pretty well but can still leave you scrolling through lots of irrelevant junk to get to the content. Startup eZee inc has released a free service called WebClip2Go … Continue reading →

The Ultimate Mobile Transcoder

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A bunch of new mobile web related services have got me thinking about mobile transcoders and how web services can enhance the mobile experience. The new services are ShifD, Qpyn, Tapp.it and esyURL all of which combine a web to mobile transcoding proxy with some other service; content synchronization in the case of ShifD, URL shortening for the others. Tinyurl.com‘s free URL shortening service has been around since 2002 but has recently gained new popularity thanks to Twitter and the … Continue reading →

InfoGin’s Mobile Transcoder With (Mini)Map

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InfoGin (m.infogin.com) is the company that provides transcoder technology to AOL and several mobile operators. I never use transcoders anymore, Opera Mini so much better than any of them. But if your stuck on Verizon with just that Openwave browser, a good transcoder can really open up the web for you. I found AOL’s transcoder increasingly unreliable when I was using it. The thing seemed to return an error rather than a page more often then not. Perhaps the errors … Continue reading →

The “Real” Web on Phones and What it Means for Designers

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The mobile web is always evolving and one current trend is the rise of the full web on phone. By the full web, I mean being able to use any and all the web content available on PCs. It’s happening, thanks to better browsers and transcoders that can render almost any page on a phone screen. I’ve still believe that a made for mobile page will give a better user experience than a programmatic conversion of a page designed for … Continue reading →

Vodafone’s Heavy-Handed Transcoder

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Vodafone rolled out a new transcoding proxy a couple months ago in the UK, their home market. Its stated aim is to make the full web available to Vodafone customers by reformatting web content designed for PCs – making it usable on mainstream mobile phones. This is not a new idea, Google has been doing this for six years. There are many other mobile transcoders, I compared 6 of them two years ago. I’m in the US so I have … Continue reading →

BareSite – Another Mobile Transcoder

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BareSite.com: (baresite.com) is another mobile transcoder. I like the name,  it may sound like  a porn site, but at least you aren’t likely to forget it. Mobile transcoding is a crowded field with some tough competition. I don’t use transcoders much any more since the advent of Opera Mini but new ones keep popping up and for good reason. There are millions of BREW phones from Verizon, Alltel and US Cellular that can’t run Opera Mini so there is a … Continue reading →