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Tag Archives: WebOS
How to Use IPhone and Android Webapps in the Opera Mobile, N9, Windows Phone and Other Browsers
There are a lot of wiz bang new webapps that use rich graphics, fancy JavaScript effects and HTML5 features like geo-location and local storage. But if you have a BlackBerry, Windows Phone, N900, N9, Symbian or WebOS phone or you're using Opera Mobile or Firefox Mobile, you probably aren't seeing them because they are only served to IOS and Android devices
Opera Mobile and Firefox Mobile and the browsers on other smartphone platforms are often as poweful or more powerfull than iOS Safari or the Android browser. But they don't have the market share and designers (and the bean counters who control development budgets) could care less about low market share platforms and browsers. I can't really blame them, it's not cost effective to develop for or test against a platform that accounts for a single digit percentage of traffic.
Fortunately, some web publishers do expose URLs that will let you load the bleeding edge webapp goodness on any device. I've started to try to find as many of these URLs as I can and test them against all the reasonably capable browsers I have access to, which is currently the Symbian Belle browser, Opera Mobile 12.0 on Symbian and Android, Firefox Mobile Beta 11.0 on Android, the WebOS 1.4.5.1 browser, bada 1.0 browser and Opera Mini Next on Android and Symbian.
I'll be adding the URLs of Android and iOS webapps that work on one or more of my alternate browsers to the WapReview Mobile Directory. To distinguish them from legacy webapps from the same Publisher I'm adding "Touch" to the site's name. Today, I added the following Touch apps to the Directory. I'll add more in upcoming editions of the regular "Found on the Mobile Web" feature here on WapReview.
Facebook Touch touch.facebook.com Advanced mobile version of Facebook that's served to the Android, bada and iPhone browsers by default. Also works in Firefox Mobile and Opera Mobile, the Symbian browser and, except for the check-in feature, the WebOS 1.4.5.1. (Pixi, Pixi Plus) browser (the WebOS browser has no geoLocation support).
Google+ Touch m.google.com/app/plus/?force=1 The rich mobile web version of Google Plus with check in and the ability to create circles, which are missing in the basic mobile version. Served by default to Android, the iPhone and Firefox Mobile. Also works well in the WebOS, Symbian, bada and Opera Mobile browsers. There's a link to this version at the bottom of the basic mobile version (m.google.com/app/plus/x/) that's served to unsupported browsers.
Google News Touch www.google.com/news/i The iPhone and Android version of Google News. It uses geolocation to serve local news based on where you are and has a a more attractive layout, more content per page and more and larger images than the basic mobile versiion at news.google.com/m/news.
IPhone, Android, WebOS and bada browser visitors to news.google.com are redirected to this touch version. But it also works well in Opera Mobile, Opera Mini, Firefox Mobile and Symbian browsers it you enter the URL
Mail-IM-Talk-PIM/Productivity and PIM
Google Calendar Touch www.google.com/calendar/gp Google Calendar optimized for advanced mobile browsers. Looks and works more like a native calendar app with separate day and month views. Served by default to the iPhone, bada, WebOS and Android browsers. Works well in the Symbian browser. Minor rendering issues but usable in Firefox Mobile, Opera Mobile and Opera Mini.
Google Reader Touch www.google.com/reader/i/ Enhanced mobile version of Google Reader served by default to Android, bada, iPhone, WebOS and Firefox Mobile browsers. Also works well in Opera Mobile and the Symbian browser. It's usable in Opera Mini but slow because expanding items requires a server round trip
Not everyone of these iPhone/Android apps works perfectly in every unsupported browser. There can be, mostly minor, performance or rendering issues, but I generally prefer these Touch webapps to their legacy equivalents in all the browsers mentioned in this post.
Posted in Browsers
Tagged bada, BlackBerry OS 6, Firefox Mobile, HTML5, N9, N900 and Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, webapps, WebOS, Windows Phone
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Carnival of the Mobilists #252
Photo: Fabiana Zonca - Some rights reserved 
Welcome to the latest edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists, a recurring showcase of the best recent blog posts on mobile topics. This month's Carnival offers a fine selection of posts from all areas of the mobile ecosystem.
In The End of Cross-Platform Mobile Operating Systems Richard Monson-Haefel at Ambient Strategic Mobility argues that tightly integrated mobile ecosystems à la iOS are the key to success for mobile platforms. Agree or disagree?
Sachendra Yadav at Technology, Mobility, Usability and other Musings analyzes UX issues in a popular iPhone RSS reader app and offers suggestions for fixing them in How NOT to design for multiple screens: Pulse iPhone App Usability issues.
Which world city makes the greatest and most sophisticated use of mobile technology? The mobile city project – the blueprint of a truly mobilized city by mobiThinking's Andy looks for the answer.
At Mobyaffiliates James Coops argues that for mobile publishers, admob's best days are behind it and the upstart mobile ad network mobfox is the new admob.
Musings of a mobile marketer's Helen Keegan looks at "App Overload" and the difficulties users have finding quality apps relevant to their needs in The trouble With Apps.
Helen also alerts us that the Vodafone Smart Accessibility Awards are open for entries. Prizes totalling €200k will be awarded to the apps that best enable social participation, independent living, mobility and well-being for disabled and elderly individuals.
Peter-Paul Koch (ppk) at [quirksmode] looks at why and how any new WebOS owner or licensee will need to engage and enable Web developers in Twelve steps for saving webOS.
MediaNama's Nikhil Pahwa presents some ideas for encouraging India's mobile services ecosystem to government regulators in MediaNama’s Final Recommendations To TRAI On Regulation Of MVAS.
At MobileGrove Peggy Anne Salz interviews Ogilvy's Rory Sutherland who tells marketers that the best way to get consumer's attention is by providing real value. Peggy's Rory Sutherland Tells Mobile Marketers: Focus On Value Exchange & Consumer Experience is a must read for mobile marketers.
Also at MobileGroove, Charles Knight looks at recently acquired Goby, an app that helps you find things to do nearby and interviews Goby's CEO in Mobile Search App Goby Finds Fun Stuff Nearby; Acquired By TeleNav.
At SmartMobs Judy Breck explores the unlikely reason that Martha's Vineyard residents warmly welcome the president of the United States when he vacations there. It's because Obama brings cell power to the Vineyard.
WapReview's contribution to the Carnival is GetGlue's Mobile Webapp Lets you Check-in to Books, Movies, Music, Baseball Games and More, my review of the trending mobile media check in service GetGlue.
Mark Bridge at the TheFoneCast presents an Interview with Neal Fullman, CEO of Get Taxi about the startup's plans to use an app running on a dedicated mobile device to revolutionize the way London cabs are dispatched and booked.
My Post of the Month pick goes to ppk for his suggestions for saving WebOS. I hope someone does pick up HP's cast off mobile OS and that they take the suggestions to heart. We need more, not less mobile ecosystem diversity and WebOS is arguably the most interesting and innovative of the current crop of mobile operating systems and too good to die.
The Best Post by a New Carnival Participant honors go to Richard Monson-Haefel for his well reasoned analysis of the relative merits of a closed, integrated mobile ecosystem like the iPhone vs. the Windows PC/Linux/Android approach of supplying a platform to multiple hardware vendors.
Watch for a new Carnival of the Mobiliists next month a site to be announced. If you write about mobile topics of any type consider submitting you best post to the next Carnival. It's easy and will bring new readers to your blog. Just send your entry to: [email protected] Anyone writing about mobile is welcome. For more about the Carnival visit mobili.st.
Posted in Carnival of the Mobilists
Tagged accesibility, Apps, India, Mobile Advertising, mobile and society, mobile marketing, mobile platforms, mobile UX, WebOS
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Google Plus Web Apps For Every Mobile Browser
Google Plus, the search giant's latest try at social media, seems to be taking off. I'm not going to try to explain Google Plus here. If you need an introduction to it a couple of good ones are Google's interactive tutorial and and Paul Boutin's clear description of the basics. This post is a look at the available options for using Plus on a mobile device.
The richest Google Plus experience is with the official Android app which requires Android 2.1 or latter. Almost as good is the iOS app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch running iOS 4.0 or latter.
For everyone else there are two mobile Webapps which Google calls "Mobile" and "Basic Mobile". I'm going to call the "Mobile" version "Rich Mobile" to more clearly distinguish it from the "Basic Mobile" one. The table below from the Google Plus online help summarizes the features of each version:
| Feature | Android app (1) | iPhone app (2) | Mobile Web app (3) | Basic Mobile web app (4) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huddle |  |
|
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| Instant upload | |
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| Share in the stream | |
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|
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| Nearby* stream | |
|
|
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| Create circles | |
|
|
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| Check-ins* | |
|
|
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| Moderate comments & posts | |
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|
Desktop only |
| Post & delete photos | |
|
||
| Push notifications | |
|
||
| Posting widget | |
- Available for Android phones (2.1+).
- Available for iPhone and iPod Touch (iOS 4+).
- Access the web app by going to google.com/+ on an Android device (1.5+) or iPhone and iPod Touch (iOS 3+).
- Access the web app by going to google.com/+ on a BlackBerry (6.0+), Nokia/Symbian, or Windows Mobile device.
*Note: Location support may vary based on your device.
Google's help suggests that the web apps only work on a limited number of smartphone browsers. That's not true. I Google is being much too modest about the great cross platform support in the Google Plus Web Apps. I tried Google Plus with a variety of browsers with the following results:
Basic Mobile: It's as basic as the name implies but doesn't require JavaScript and worked well with every mobile browser I tried including Opera Mini 3.1 and latter, Opera Mobile and even the basic Myriad WAP browser on a cheap prepaid feature phone. The images above show this version in Opera Mini 4.3. Note the link to the (Rich) Mobile version at the bottom of the page in the right hand image.
Rich Mobile: Requires JavaScript. Worked flawlessly in most of the WebKit based browsers I tried including the WebOS 1.4.5.1, Symbian^3 and bada 1.0 browsers. It loaded in Opera Mobile and Opera Mini but there were serious rendering and usability issues with all the Opera versions and even the Firefox and Opera desktop browsers. The images at the top of the page show the rich Mobile version in the Symbian browser on a Nokia N8 running the old (pre Anna) firmaware.
When you visit google.com/+, or the easier to type plus.google.com, with a mobile browser you should get redirected to one of the mobile versions. Android, iOS and bada devices get the rich mobile version by default and all the other browsers I tried get the Basic Mobile one. The defaults are mostly reasonable - although Symbian and WebOS users would be better served with the rich Mobile version. Google provides links at the bottom of the Basic Mobile version that let you switch to the rich mobile one (or the desktop version which didn't work very well in any of the mobile browsers I've tried and gave an "unsupported browser" message in the Symbian^3 browser). The rich mobile version doesn't have a link to the basic one but you can easily switch to it using the url: https://m.google.com/app/plus/x/
Actually you can force any browser, mobile or desktop to try to load any version of Google Plus by using the appropriate URLs as follows:
Rich Mobile: https://m.google.com/app/plus/?force=1
Basic Mobile: https://m.google.com/app/plus/x/
Desktop: https://plus.google.com/?fd=1
However, the only unsupported combination that I found useful was using the Rich Mobile version in the Symbian^3 and WebOS browsers.
Found On The Mobile Web #241
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 2343 mobile sites.
Web, Mobile Development www.blog.highub.com Shi Chuan is a mobile web developer and contributor to the HTML5 Boilerplate and Smartphone front-end Matrices projects. His blog covers mobile and web design and development topics and includes lots of tips and tutorials.
Content: 
Usability: 
wappstart www.wappstart.com (for Web App Start) is an attractive new mobile portal listing a good selection of well chosen mobile web apps. Listings include a description and screenshot. Registered users can create a personal "wapplist" of their favorite web apps and can leave public comments on individual apps.
Wappstart is intended to be cross-platform and to support both feature phones and smartphones. Unfortunately, JavaScript, which isn't supported by many feature phone browsers, is required.
Content: Usability:
ComputerWorld m.computerworld.com Computerworld is IDG's long running bi-monthly print magazine and website targeted at high-level enterprise IT managers. The site's mobile view, which was created by Mobify, features IT news, features, blogs, tech reviews and career advice.
Content: Usability:
InfoWorld m.infoworld.com Another IDG "world" site targeted at IT managers, InfoWorld provides news and analysis of new technologies and trends from the world of enterprise IT.
InfoWorld recently launched a slick new mobile view designed by Mobify. It's packed with hundred of news articles and reviews as well as InfoWorld's blogs.
Content Usability
NetworkWorld m.networkworld.com is a free weekly "controlled circulation" print newspaper and web site targeted at IT networking professionals. The Network World mobile site (designed by Mobify) features news, reviews, buying guides, editorials and forums. Free registration is required to see the full content of articles.
Content Usability
WebOS Internals en.m.webos-internals.org WebOS Internals' Wiki is one of the leading independent resources for WebOS developers and the vibrant homebrew community. HP and Palm have been quite supportive of users who want to access Linux (aka root) and hack their Pres, Pixis, Veers and TouchPads. HP even donated a $10,000 server to WebOS Internals to better host the site.
The mobile version of WebOS Internals has selected content from of the full version of the Wiki.
Content: Usability:
See Washington DC seewashingtondc.net/mobile/ Mobile version of the See Washington DC travel guide to monuments, memorials, museums, attractions and things to do and see in the nation's capital and Northern Virginia. Also includes a hotel search form with (non-mobile optimized) online booking.
Content: Usability:
The Do's & Don'ts Band www.escortsdosdonts.com/index-mobile.html The Do's & Don'ts are a 50's & 60's Rock and Roll oldies band that's been together for over 50 years. They are an Iowa Rock 'N' Roll Music Association Hall of Fame Inductee. The band's mobile site has photo's, fan comments, a sample mp3, click to call contact number and schedule of upcoming appearances.
Content: Usability:
GamePro Mobile m.gamepro.com Gamepro Magazine's mobile site covers video game industry news and has reviews of games and game hardware for all platforms including PC, console and mobile
Content: Usability:
Pocket Gamer www.pocketgamer.biz/m_homepage.asp Pocket Gamer covers games for mobile phone and handheld consoles with the latest news, previews, reviews, tips, features and practical guides for gaming on mobile phones, PSP, DS, DS Lite, GBA and N-Gage.
Content: Usability:
