iPhone : Look at the web differently

Browsers August 12, 2007

I've been spending the last couple days playing with the iPhone, browsing websites that have been "iPhone-ized" and trying to develop iPhone versions of existing sites of mine.

My thoughts? If the iPhone is as successful as people predict and the network/comms technology industry moves more toward mobile devices, then there will be a huge wave of a new kind of web development.

Currently, you can view all the regular websites with the iPhone, in a zoomed-out view that forces you to have to double-tap and zoom in to be able to read things, use forms, etc. However, sites that have already started developing versions for the iPhone have realized that people don't want to have to zoom in and out. So, the new apps are developed so that they fit in the 320 or 480px wide view, no zooming required.

They've also designed the UI so that it mimics the iPhone interface: glossy buttons, a lot of Javascript animation, background images, etc. In fact, sometimes you can't even tell you're looking at a webpage.

In these new versions, there's no such thing as a "webpage" anymore. Websites basically become an array of interactive menus, where one button leads to another menu, etc. But the possibilities seem endless of what can really be accomplished with this new way of designing sites and I look forward to examining that more.

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