New Nokia Web Tools 2.0 Makes Creating Series 40 Web Apps Easier Than Ever

In my Nokia Series 40 Browser V 2.0.2 Review, I mentioned that the phone supports running Series 40 web apps. They have a look and feel similar to native apps and can use device features including geolocation and messaging. This post takes a look at Nokia Web Tools,  a set of applications for creating, testing and deploying  these apps. Series 40 web apps are built using the familiar web technologies of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. While you  theoretically could  create web … Continue reading

Opera Labs Brings Extensions to Opera Mobile for Android

A few days ago, Opera Labs unveiled an early release of Opera Mobile that adds support for Opera Extensions. These are small user installable programs, similar to W3C widgets, that are built with JavaScript, HTML and CSS and add functionality to the browser. The Labs release of Opera Mobile uses the same extension format and APIs as desktop Opera. Many of the extensions created for the desktop run without modification in Opera Mobile. I downloaded Opera Mobile with Extensions support from the … Continue reading

Bing’s Rich Mobile Makeover

    The mobile edition of Microsoft’s Bing search engine (m.bing.com) was updated recently with a bunch of new features borrowed from Bing’s desktop page and Google’s mobile search webapp including: Background image of the day with floating “Explore” menu Search suggestions appear as you type Location enabled on Android and iOS Image search results as a grid of thumbnails Tabbed results pages with tabs for All, Images, Shopping, Local etc. The new interface shows up on the iPhone and iPad … Continue reading

GigaOm’s New Mobile Template

GigaOm is on my short list of must read tech blogs. Founded in 2001 by veteran technology and business journalist Om Malik (Red Herring, Forbes, Business 2.0) it has grown to become one of the most widely read online journals covering the business of the web and technology. Om, who is one of the most knowledgeable analysts in the industry and a great interviewer, has assembled a team of first-rate writers for the site including Kevin C. Tofel, who specializes … Continue reading

Why You Should Take Mobile Web Traffic Statistics With A Grain of Salt

We’ve all seen charts like the one above from StatCounter, often accompanied by headlines saying things like “the iPhone is responsible for 64% of all mobile traffic”,  “4.5% of all web traffic comes from mobile browsers”, or “smartphones are responsible for over half of all mobile page views”. These reports make interesting reading but I’m not sure how accurate most of them are. The data usually comes from analytics services like Quantcast, StatCounter or Net Applications. These services do a … Continue reading

Mobile 2.0 Developer Day – The Rise Of The Web

I attended the Mobile 2.0 Developer Day in Mountain View today. It was the sort of great event I’ve come to expect from the Mobile 2.0 team of Gregory Gorman, Mike Rowehl, Daniel Appelquist, Peter Vesterbacka and Rudy De Waele,  a fast paced day filled with lively presentations and panels. Mobile 2.0 is relatively unique  among mobile events in being a grass roots operation organized by people working in the mobile field or as Daniel Appelquist, put it “By industry … Continue reading

Found On The Mobile Web #219

Found on the Mobile Web is a weekly WAP Review feature listing newly added and updated sites on the YesWAP.com mobile portal and WapReview mobile site directory. With these latest additions the directory and portal now list 2257 mobile sites. Comics Yellow Peril ypcomic.mobify.me Online office romance comic Yellow Peril and its creator Jamie Noguchi’s blog in a mobile view created with Mobify. The Yellow Peril comics combine several panels side by side in a single JPEG image. Mobify re-sizes … Continue reading

Why Do Mobile Web Designers Ignore Opera Mini?

There’s a lot of buzz these days about how “touch web” browsers, especially the iPhone’s Safari, but also the WebKit based browsers on Android, Palm WebOS  and recent Symbian devices are  revolutionizing mobile browsing.  It’s certainly true, especially in the US and other developed countries, that advanced smartphones with powerful “full-web” browsers have opened a lot of eyes to the fact that using the Web on mobile phones is not only practical but fun and useful. But not everyone can … Continue reading