One of the more popular trends on the web now is for iPhone specific webpages which eliminate the horizontal scrolling that looks cool in demos, and gets old very quickly, at least for me. I also find it a bit ironic that many mobile gadget sites on the web use the latest formatting standards which many mobile devices either can not render, or can only view with extensive horizontal scrolling. With the explosion of internet capable mobile devices, there should be more generic mobile sites. I much prefer using the mobile NYTImes site over the full NYTimtes site on small screen devices. Mobile Safari, NetFront, Mobile Opera, and Opera Mini can all render the full NYTImes site fine (except for the front page flash video), but too much horizontal scrolling is required to find what you want. The mobile site has basically the same info as the full site, but eliminates the dreaded horizontal scrolling.

I think it’s good the general public is becoming more aware of the possibility to use the Web on your mobile device, but really, this has been possible for a few years. As mentionned above, Opera Mini has allowed me to do this for some time. Granted, Safari and Opera Mobile do offer a richer experience.

I did not know of your existence a while ago but when I heard the news that Gigaom brought you I thought of reading your blog jkontherun, now I am your daily visitor and find your writings really interesting and and and I love he iPhone too.

I’ve been using Opera Mini the same way. With Opera Mobile 9.5’s release the Java browser has really been overlooked.

to bad its a locked down device that initiates this change…

I agree with @PJE, your site could benefit from a little bit of reformatting since it is a mobile tech site. As for other people’s website, think about the growing use of mobile devices (WM and iPhone) and cut down on the use of Flash since I can’t see it on my mobile device. Also, some of the comment schemes on blogs are virtually impossible to use from an iPhone.

Still, these are but niggles, and I heartily agree with the premise of your post.

Taxman

I have tested myself and find I can type roughly as fast on my iPhone as my BlackBerry, Mogul, Treo, and Advantage. I have heard the ‘No Real Keyboard’ comment before, but, at least in my case, it is not a real criticism.

I have exactly the same experience. Despite having numerous alternatives, I keep reaching for the iphone, particularly for my google reader work.

Having said that @PJE’s comment about Flash and the keyboard is very true. I find the keyboard great for relatively simple emails etc, but too slow for note taking. However, my N810 combined with the Logmein client and Nokia’s bluetooth keyboard seems to work as an excellent complement. If only I could have everything in one device!

All true… But the lack of any real keyboard makes it a consumer device…not business equipment. And lack of flash…I read your exellent post and right under it was the hated little cube which says “sorry…I can’t read this content”. Bluetooth keyboard and flash would answer these objections.

James, I was looking at your site viewed by the iPhone and was wondering it were possible for you to halve the width of the right-hand orange column? This would allow the site to be viewed on many mobile devices without needing to zoom in and out.