The Mobile Web - Fronteers 2009

The Mobile Web
(or the masochist's guide to gleeful
self-flagellation)
Peter-Paul Koch (ppk)
http://quirksmode.org
http://twitter.com/ppk
Fronteers 2009, 5 November 2009
Hell is other browsers - Sartre

1588
The Most Catholic King
is not pleased with the
Queen of England.
She is the only major
opponent of victorious
catholicism left in
Europe.

1588
The Spanish armies are
invincible. The English
won't stand a chance.
But England is an
island. Therefore a
different strategy is
required.

1588
We'll build a fleet;
one that is so large
that it
can't possibly fail

The Invincible Armada
20 galleons, 4 galleys, 4 galleases,
about 100 smaller and supporting
ships.
The first ever really big Atlantic fleet
bound for the first ever really big
Atlantic sea war.

The struggle between the Armada and
the English fleet was the first modern
naval battle in history.
There was just one slight problem:
Nobody had the faintest idea how to
conduct a modern naval battle.

Shooting
Shooting the other side's ships to bits is
a vital ingredient of any naval tactic.
Both the English and the Spanish were
aware of that.
What they didn't
know was how
to pull it off.

Shooting
These two ships can fire until all powder
and balls are spent, but they'll hit each
other only by luck.
They're not
close enough.

Shooting
It was only in the
next century that
they figured out
ships had to
approach closely,
and then fire all
cannon
simultaneously.

The first modern naval battle in history.
Serious mistakes were made; mistakes
that later generations found odd.
That's exactly where we are with the
mobile web right now.

The Mobile Web
Mobile is the single most fascinating
development on the Web in many years.
Problem is: we don't have the faintest
idea what to do with it.
Yet.

Case study: Liever.com
- Browse through photos of interior
design.
- Create a scrapbook with stuff you like.
- Use site to get directions to nearest
shop.
Now which mobile strategy should
Liever.com use?

Mobile strategy:
Allow users to put their scrapbook on
their phone so they can take it to the
shop and show what they want to buy.
Mobile strategy is about context, and
this is context ... isn't it?

Allow users to put their scrapbook on
their phone.
How?
a) An application
b) Web

Applications
Writing a mobile app seems to be a
good idea. An app can tie in with the
phone OS and use its strengths.
Geolocation might be useful: where is
the closest shop for product X?

Applications
So let's write one for the iPhone
And one for Android
And one for Blackberry
And one for Symbian
And one for Windows Mobile
And one for Linux
etc.etc.
Interoperability: 0

The Mobile Web
The other option is to create a website.
Or rather, to make the already-existing
website safe for mobile devices.
That means we have to take a closer
look at the mobile browsers.
Freak show time!

Mobile browsers
- Android WebKit
- Opera Mobile
- NetFront
- Safari
- MicroB
- Blackberry
- S60 WebKit
- IE Mobile
- Palm WebKit
You may groan now.
- Iris
- Bolt
- Skyfire
- Obigo
- Fennec
- Teashark
- Ozone
- Opera Mini

Mobile browsers
- Android WebKit
- Opera Mobile
- NetFront
- Safari
- MicroB
- Blackberry
- S60 WebKit
- IE Mobile
- Palm WebKit
Default browsers
- Iris
- Bolt
- Skyfire
- Obigo
- Fennec
- Teashark
- Ozone
- Opera Mini
Non-default

Mobile browsers
- Android WebKit
- Opera Mobile
- NetFront
- Safari
- MicroB
- Blackberry
- S60 WebKit
- IE Mobile
- Palm
These are all WebKit browsers.
- Iris
- Bolt
- Skyfire
- Obigo
- Fennec
- Teashark
- Ozone
- Opera Mini

WebKit Mobile
There is no WebKit on Mobile.
There's iPhone Safari (2 and 3),
and Android (1.0 and 1.5)
and S60 WebKit (v3 and v5)
and Iris, which was bought by Blackberry
and Palm
and Bolt, Ozone, Teashark, and a few more
These WebKits are all different.

There is no WebKit on Mobile.
Exhibit A: http://quirksmode.org/m

Mobile browsers
The main battle on mobile is now
between “WebKit” and Opera.
WebKit is free, but that means
everybody creates his own version.
Opera costs money (for vendors), but
there's some central planning, and
therefore less differences.

Mobile browsers
- Blackberry browser is dead; they'll
switch to WebKit instead
- Mozilla is very late to the game
- NetFront is not very good
- IE ... is IE (IE6, to be precise)
- The minor browsers are even worse

Safari iPhone 2.2
Zooms out and
shows entire page.
Width about 900px

Blackberry 9500
(Storm)
Same, but with a
few bugs.

NetFront 3.2 on
Samsung F700
Yeah ... right ...
But what if we
switch it to
landscape mode?

NetFront 3.2 on Samsung F700 landscape

Opera Mobile 9.5
on HTC Touch
Diamond
(Win Mob 6.1)
Footer not visible;
otherwise OK.

Opera Mobile 9.5
on HTC Touch
Diamond
(Win Mob 6.1)
Footer not visible;
otherwise OK.
But...
This is in desktop
mode.
There's also a
mobile mode.

Opera Mobile 9.5
on HTC Touch
Diamond
(Win Mob 6.1)
in mobile mode.
Totally different.

Opera Mobile 9.5
on HTC Touch
Diamond
(Win Mob 6.1)
in desktop mode.
Basic CSS.

Opera Mobile 9.5
on HTC Touch
Diamond
(Win Mob 6.1)
in mobile mode.
Basic CSS.

Android 1.5
portrait, in mobile
mode.
The 300px wide
box is smaller than
the 330px wide
box.

App problems:
- No interoperability.
- If you update the app, you have to pay
one team per platform to do the work
for you.

Web problems:
- Browsers. That's fundamentally
nothing new, but the details are
different.
- Connections

Connections
If the guy next to you is downloading a
few movies
your network connection will slow down
regardless of how good it's supposed to
be.
I don't see this problem disappearing
any time soon.

Connections
This is a problem on the mobile web,
especially when your site uses 200K of
custom JavaScript plus a few libraries.
They have to be downloaded every time
the user visits your site
and caching isn't always reliable.

Connections
Solution:
Put the core files on your mobile phone
so that you only need to download the
data. Saves a lot of network traffic.
Apps do that. Websites don't.
Enter W3C Widgets.

W3C Widgets
W3C Widgets are local applications
written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
They run in a browser (mainly Opera
right now).
They can do Ajax requests for more
data.

Creating W3C Widgets
- Create 1 HTML page with the CSS,
JavaScript, and images you need.
- Add an icon and a config.xml
- Zip the lot
- Change extension to .wgt
- Upload to a widget-capable phone
- It Just Works

W3C Widgets
Besides...
If I have a W3C Widget on my S60 phone
and you have a Windows Mobile phone
I can send the widget via Bluetooth
and It Just Works
(Really; I've done it)

W3C Widgets
Right now W3C Widgets work in:
- S60 phones with Vodafone Widget
Manager
- any phone with Opera Mobile 9.51+
- Windows Mobile 6.5 phones (well,
almost)

W3C Widgets
In the future they might work in:
- Blackberry (first steps taken)
- Nokia Maemo?
- Palm Pre? (logical extension of webOS)
- Android??
Not on the iPhone, though.
#appleisevil

W3C Widgets
Problems with W3C Widgets:
- Animations. JavaScript gets better and
better, but animations remain a weak
spot relative to other languages
- Access to phone functionality such as
geolocation, the address book, the
camera, and the file system

Device APIs
Context!
In order to serve the mobile context we
need to access phone functionality from
W3C Widgets.
Enter JavaScript device APIs
device.phone.call(
device.addressBook.entries['mom'].number)

Device APIs
- JIL (Vodafone, China Mobile)
- W3C Device API Working Group (just
started)
- BONDI
- PhoneGap (iPhone, Android,
Blackberry); temporary solution

Device API Security
Besides, there's a security problem.
If someone sends me a widget via
Bluetooth,
how am I going to know it isn't going to
steal my address book?
Serious problem. No real solution yet.

W3C Widgets
Still, I believe these problems are
solvable.
I believe W3C Widgets are the future of
the mobile web.
So let's get to work.

Thank you!
Questions?
http://quirksmode.org
http://twitter.com/ppk

The Mobile Web - Fronteers 2009

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