With Apple Computer’s 30th anniversary approaching, I thought I’d try to find some Apple specific mobile sites. While there are plenty of good Apple web sites like Think Secret, Apple Insider and PowerPage, I had a hard time finding any with mobile editions or even easily mobilized full<\/strong> RSS feeds.<\/p>\n
I did find one full feed at TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog<\/a> that would make a good addition to an Apple fan’s Feedalot, Winksite<\/a> or Bloglines Mobile<\/a> subscription. It’s a good Apple news blog with concise summaries of the top Apple news from around the web.<\/p>\n
I initially found the design of the MacRumors mobile sites unusual. The stories are published sequentially starting with the most recent. There are no search boxes, jump to page functions, index pages, categories or any of the other navigational elements one typically finds on both web and mobile pages. There are just prev page<\/em> and next page<\/em> links at the top and bottom of each page, that’s it. You start reading with today’s “rumors” and can go back sequentially as far as you want. I’m not sure how far back the stories go, I clicked back though 70 stories, about a month and a half worth, before I gave up. This navigation paradigm works better than I expected. It’s simple, you just read sequentially until you’ve had you fill of MacRumors. I noticed that none other than Dave Winer<\/a> uses the same navigation model for the mobile version of his Scripting News<\/a> blog – which certainly adds credibility to the concept.<\/p>\n
One thing that stands out about MacRumors is the number of comments articles get. Within a day most items have between 100 and several hundred comments. Comments appear in a vBulletin web forum rather than in typical blog comment style. The mobile sites link directly to the non-mobile forum. MacRumors could really enhance mobile usability by adding the WiForums<\/a> plugin which puts a mobile front end on vBulletin. To me, the comments are the best part of MacRumors – too bad they aren’t available in a more mobile friendly fashion.<\/p>\n
While the content is interesting and well written, there are a couple of technical issues which mar the mobile MacRumors experience. The first is that the WAP1 pages don’t validate and will not load on many wml-only phones, especially older ones. The primary issue is the use of unescaped dollar signs. Wml standards require that dollar signs be escaped by using them in pairs, so every $ should be entered in the markup as $$. I do think it’s great that sites still try to support WAP1. Worldwide, wml-only devices greatly outnumber modern (x)html WAP2 ones. Not only do old handsets get a new life in the developing world but even in the US, Nextel is still selling mainly wml-only phones and Verizon only recently moved to WAP2. But please, if you are going to develop wml sites, take the effort to get it right. WAP1 handsets are notoriously fussy that wml be valid and well-formed. If your page doesn’t pass, most wml browsers on real phones will refuse to display it. Http:\/\/validator.w3.org\/<\/a> is your friend. On the other hand, MacRumors’ WAP2 pages are vanilla html and should be viewable on almost any WAP2 or PDA browser.<\/p>\n
MacRumors: html lite<\/a> wml<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With Apple Computer’s 30th anniversary approaching, I thought I’d try to find some Apple specific mobile sites. While there are plenty of good Apple web sites like Think Secret, Apple Insider and PowerPage, I had a hard time finding any with mobile editions or even easily mobilized full RSS feeds. I did find one full feed at TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog that would make a good addition to an Apple fan’s Feedalot, Winksite or Bloglines Mobile subscription. It’s … Continue reading