iPhone signals “the beginning of the end” for the mobile Web as we know it
Posted by Dr. Macenstein
Forrester Research, Inc., an independent technology and market research company, has come out with a report (subscription required) confirming what we current iPhone users have known for over a month – namely that the iPhone spells “the beginning of the end for the mobile Web as we know it today“.
The report finds the iPhone’s Safari web browsing experience is heads and shoulders above that of competing devices which are only able to deliver “stripped-down sites crammed onto the small screens of devices meant for phoning, not browsing”. Forrester goes so far as to suggest that companies looking to stay competitive in the mobile web game should go get an iPhone and test out the future of the mobile browsing.
As a web designer, I welcome the “mobile web”‘s death fully. Right now it’s a minefield of browsers each with varying capabilities. Quite frankly it sucks to write anything for a broad and varied mobile audience.
Of course, I still think there’s room for special-purpose applications with stripped down information made for small screens, as the plethora of new iPhone webapps has shown us.
This site has been very cool, but lately the sheer volume of iPhone cheerleading is becoming a tad obnoxious. It’s a phone. It browses. It does email. A very nifty gadget, indeed, but I get it already. Heck, I might even pick one up one of these days.
We all knew that cell phones would evolve to function as pocket laptops, complete with browsers of course. 3 cheers to Apple for moving things forward. Sincerely. Yes a more unified standard of code for cell phone browsing will emerge and replace the current mess. This goes without saying.
Now back to more T&A and other Apple news, please or just change the format to iphonenstein and get it over with already. I say this all with much love and respect to all fellow Mac geeks especially the management of this otherwise fine stop on my daily romp through the internets.
Hindsight,
It’s funny you should say that, I got an e-mail just this morning claiming we have been too negative on Apple and the iPhone in particular.
Honestly, we’re a bit sick of the iPhone news stories too, but it is the only thing Apple has put out in the past 6 months. If they give us more to talk about, we’ll talk about it. Please feel free to e-mail us important stories we are missing, we love getting tips!
-The Doc
In all fairness it’s not just you guys, you just caught me at my breaking point. All my Mac haunts are wallowing in it. What I don’t get is the hysteria. The iPod generation, zoinks. Now when they revamp the Mac Pro aesthetics (as if necessary) or something really darn crazy I’ll be the one sporting a tent outside an Apple store.
First off, I’ve always felt Apple has an amazing lock-on to hardware and software design. Their designs are either highly original, or remarkable improvements to existing technologies to the point that it seems original, even when it isn’t. The iPhone falls squarely into the latter category.
The wireless Web has already been evolving at the hands of Danger, the developers of the T-Mobile Sidekick. Yes, the iPhone is head-and-shoulders above the Sidekick in terms of new technology and design evolution, but the shift had already started way back with the Danger startup venture. Which was, interestingly enough, backed at least peripherally by the Woz. (The prototype was designed primarily as a moble TDD device for the deaf; as development went on, the potential for the technology became clear, and the concept evolved into a multifunctional phone and information display device.)
The iPhone is a superb evolution in a shift in mobile technology that’s been going on since Y2K or so. It just takes Apple’s technology and marketing expertise to push it into the forefront of mainstream users.