What’s Wrong With the Mobile Web? (Part 1)

What's wrong with the mobile web? Quite a lot. Over the next few posts, I'll discuss issues from a variety of industry player perspectives - including the W3C. First, of course, we address users and user needs.

There are two main camps in the mobile web:

1. One Web. The Internet is the Internet, and sites should run well on all devices. Optimization should be based on CSS and device detection, but should not change site function or content beyond the necessary.
2. Mobile Web. The mobile is a different platform with different capabilities and different user needs. Sites should be optimized for mobile in many (but not all) cases.

One Web advocates talk about use of standard technologies and the growing number of people who use, or will use, their mobile phone as their sole web access. We should listen to these core concerns.

Mobile Web advocates talk about differing user needs, connectivity costs, and device capabilities. We should listen to these core concerns.

One Web advocates riposte with the assertion that the Mobile Web concerns are temporary: connectivity and device capabilities will improve, and if the mobile is the primary access to the web, than the users need everything that a desktop site needs.

It's not that simple. Imagine, if you will, a world in which users of personal communications devices are attempting to do all the work with web sites that desktop users do now. Further imagine that the devices have twice the battery life, high speed downloads, and plenty of processor power and memory. In short, imagine the world that the One Web advocates believe to be the future.

A personal communications device (a category that includes mobile phones, Sidekicks, BlackBerries, and future devices) is strongly controlled by The Carry Principle. In particular, a small device strongly implies a single window interface.

Okay, so what about the users? Users need a way to manage several information sources simultaneously, both within sites and between sites.

Desktop applications and web sites have since the 1980's been designed assuming multiple windows. If you want to get information from another application, just open it. Browsers can have multiple windows open. This is particularly important in our current world of online applications: I can have my email window open, my business networking site open to research somebody in my email, and my calendar open - all in separate windows. Mobile phones do not support this cross-site fertilization. Instead, only one "window" can be viewed at a time.

For "one web" can become a reality, browsers must become adept at handling multiple tasks. This, by itself, is inadequate. High-end phones (variously called "smart phones" and "PDA phones", usually with an operating system like Symbian, Windows, or Palm) have rudimentary multi-tasking - but on an application level. Multiple browser tasks must become easy; switching between pages must become easy; split-window viewing must become possible.

Browsers must become adept at handling multiple simultaneous tasks in the same way that messaging applications are adept at handling multiple conversation threads, except that users will want the information either simultaneously or with rapid switching. The browser will have to be re-engineered, from the ground up, to truly embrace the mobile environment rather than being a miniature desktop browser.

I am not confident that all of this will become possible. I am firmly in the "Mobile Web" camp, in which mobile browsing of the future will be based on "mashups", RSS feeds, and mobile web sites with full access behind it. Mobile Gmail, for example, allows an optimized experience while giving me the control to view all my content with a few extra steps.

Even in this future, the browser has to be re-engineered. Mashups should be buildable on the fly. Voice and camera input should be built in. And a whole mishmash of usability improvements need to be made.

Next topic: what browsers need to do - today - to support mobile users

I’m for one web for all. As a matter of fact I’m using the mobile phone right now (N70). The mobile device possibilities are growing very fast and a multiple windows are already present in smartphones which are constantly replacing ordinary mobiles. Also the no limited data plans are cheaper and cheaper. My cost 10??? a month. Making 2 different webs is simply stupid.

You raised some interesting points. The truth, however, is that there are several smart mobile devices that already meet the criteria involved. I have used the Sony Ericsson P800, the Nokia 9500, and currently the Nokia E61 (all smartphones) as my primary access to the internet for over 3 years now. They have all done admirably well handling the tasks I do on a daily basis.

Web-related tasks I do with my mobiles? Domain name registration; online banking; web host management; web page design, editing and publishing; and related tasks.

Multiple windows, applications handling (e.g. openeing a .PDF attachment while browsing) in a multi-tasking environment, and all that have been in existence for years and in my experience are not complicated. On most devices, you need to push not more than two buttons and you are on the other window or application.

Honestly, my view is that what we call smartphones today, plus or minus some adjustments, is the future of the mobile phone.

Part of the problem of the “mobile web” concept is that people have to remember a special URL for the mobile site of their favourite websites. Then the .mobi concept came along and messed it all up some more.

I asked a friend recently what happens if different people own www.yomi.com, www.yomi.org, www.yomi.net etc. Who gets to use www.yomi.mobi, and what happens to the others? No; I don’t think the dual web and .mobi ideas address the problems.

And yes; I believe that smartphones will become the standard for what we know as mobiles today, and that will solve the issues raised by proponents of the “mobile web”. Its good we are discussing the issues all the same, as that will undoubtedly help in eventually determing what path to take.

I completely agree that smart phones can indeed view the entire web, and effectively. There are issues with it (see the next post), but it is possible on a daily basis. It is more complex than it needs to be, due to device design, but it works. Instead, I argue that the web either needs to be adapted for mobile – and mobile tasks and constraints – or have a mobile optimization.

I also completely agree that .mobi is not a solution. Device detection or mobile subdomains (or PC subdomains!) will both work. A new top-level domain simply adds complexity.

I strongly believe that the near future will have each of us carrying what I have been terming a “personal communications device”, which is a multi-purpose device that allows us to communicate with others and control aspects of our world. However, since multi-purpose devices are inherently suited to one type of function the most, we have to be very very careful with the design. This series of posts is moving towards what the Internet experience should be on such devices.

I am in agreement with Yomi’s comment that the use of .mobi only adds to the complexity of the mobile web, I also think it threatens to further the divide between wired and wireless at a time when organizations such as the W3C’s mobile web initiative are calling for 'one web’

As for mash-up, yes that is the way forward for the near future until it evolves. Having an interface or even a personal type of page that allows a user to create its own 'quick finds’ and content based around the user experience will help; this would of course include RSS feeds, links to identifiable mobile friendly sites etc.

I agree with you about mashups, but also about the other comments about smartphones being fully capable now. I agree that it is the mass market that is of most importance (currently non-smartphones). The improvements you seek in multi window viewing and mutitasking are basically just a software problem, though obviously a bit more memory and processor power in non-smart phones would help, but that is an inevitablity in the near future.

If you look at Nokia’s non-smart phone OS, series 40, it is half way to becoming a smartphone already, and will not take hugely more to become fully fledged. I suspect other manufacturers will have to remain competitive. However, I think ease of use will remain – the mass market will stick with Series 40 and it’s ilk, rather than everyone jumping ship to Symbian/Series 60, unless of course Symbian becomes cheaper, faster and easier to use (though it’s still the best smartphone OS currently by far). The wildcard is Mobile Linux, which has much potential I think to answer the deficiencies present in other phone OSes in terms of ease of use and technical functionality – it will be interesting to see where it goes.

.mobi will peak now then die a slow death – it is inevitable – it doesn’t fit in at all with the future path of mobile – shame the people behind it didn’t have the foresight to see that.

Finally on mashups, if only we had a common standard for data exchange and integration between sites (as you suggest, building them on the fly would be ideal) then I think mashups would explode in popularity.

Agree with Barbara! The worst things to happen is the “one web” scenario. Because then we will loos the specificities of mobile, and we will try to tight on PC UI. Multiple window, key input, cut and past, etc…are easy to use on PC, but not on mobile. Voice input, gesture, picture, movement are hard to achieve on PC, but much more easy on mobile.

Does not mean that we should not be able to access to the entire Web on mobile, but just that creativity should not belongs only to Web, but also on mobile…

While I realize this entry and comments were from a few months ago, I think they remain interesting.

dotMobi has addressed a lot of these comments on our blog, particularly in our Misconceptions series at http://dotmobi.typepad.com/dotmobi/misconceptions/index.html.

One interesting question Yomi raises is, “What happens if different people own www.yomi.com, www.yomi.org, www.yomi.net etc. Who gets to use www.yomi.mobi, and what happens to the others? ... I don??t think the dual web and .mobi ideas address the problems.”

.mobi, like all domains, sets a specific expectation about content. If we only had .com up to this point and no other extensions, I’d understand some of these arguments. But amazon.jp is different from amazon.fr or amazon.co.uk, yet they’re all part of an amazon.com experience. Why should amazon.mobi be any different in how amazon.com extends it brand?

(And who should have rights to the *.mobi domain if two are in conflict? The ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy is designed to help resolve those issues. And is it a different issue for a .mobi domain than for someone having a .com versus a .net conflict?)

And to respond to Vince’s comments, I don’t see how “the use of .mobi only adds to the complexity of the mobile web.” Knowing that if I type amazon.mobi on a mobile phone is going to bring me to a site that will work is not making my life more difficult. What has made my life difficult is guessing whether or not a site will work on a mobile phone … a problem I’ve had far too many times.

To another of Vince’s comments ??? “I also think it threatens to further the divide between wired and wireless at a time when organizations such as the W3C??s mobile web initiative are calling for one web” ??? dotMobi is a sponsor of the W3C MWI, and the standards behind the .mobi domain are based on the work of the W3C MWI. That’s just one of the many ways that dotMobi works with companies in the complete mobile value chain to ensure that the web, as accessed from a mobile, becomes a reality.