Mobile Web Junkie

Just before Christmas, we mobilized HowToMakeMyBlog.com by installing and configuring the Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress.

I’ve written a much more in-depth article over there about how we did it, but here’s a bite-sized version that you can cut out and put in your wallet:
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Last month we published a new mobile plugin to the wordpress.org plugin repository called WordPress Mobile Admin. It won’t surprise you to hear that it does exactly what it says on the tin and mobilizes your WordPress control panel.
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Overcoming the barriers of mobile web design and development – it’s the tagline of our blog and something that we strive towards each and every day.

We’ve given the development community some amazing tools that allow you to create some fantastic mobile sites and we’ve created plugins, components and classes that help you at every step.

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For the last ten years I have heard someone, somewhere say ‘this is the year for mobile’. It’s become a standing joke in our industry. From SMS to WAP, it seems everything has been tried and failed. Well now it’s my turn and, at the risk of being laughed at, I am going to tell you ‘this is the year for mobile’! We’ve reached a point where 2009 may well herald the ‘perfect storm’ of opportunity for mobile web development.

It’s a crucial time for all kinds of organisations with a web presence to begin implementing ideas on reaching a wider audience by understanding new ways of working with the mobile web. Some key points to consider are:

• Consumer adoption of new digital devices and services
• Consumer perception of value and trust
• The role played by mobile in stitching digital communications together
• Addressable markets and lost opportunities
• Site usability and design practicality

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Building your mobile friendly website is getting easier each day.

We’ve already released plugins and components for a number of different applications – CakePHP, Joomla and WordPress to name a few.

But what happens if you’re not running one of these apps but still need a mobile friendly website? If you don’t have the time or patience to write the mobile tools yourself using WAPL our latest offering might be just what you’ve been looking for!

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IE6 Must Die is a trending topic on Twitter right now. The world is demanding that IE6 support is dropped, effectively forcing the hand of anyone still using the browser and hopefully freeing the internet from the hell that is substandard browser support.

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Mobile Internet is a tricky platform to develop for unless you use the right tools and have the lowdown on what works and what doesn’t.

As there are so many different devices out there in the worldwide marketplace any developer will meet a number of challenges. This mainly concern varying screen sizes, a number of markup languages and device inconsistencies and capabilities.

Obviously, developing mobile internet applications that work across the widest range of devices should be paramount to any serious developer or designer. If your site cannot be viewed on any percentage of mobile browsers then it is unlikely to meet its full potential or any at all.

Often, brand integrity is as important as user experience. This is especially true where mobile marketing meets customer engagement but it is also important to ensure that users have a good experience on even the simplest of sites.

Some older phones have incredibly small screens, while newer smartphones are being released with increasing Read more

The mobile web is a great place for advertising, content, information, social experiences and fulfillment on the go. In fact, what better than the opportunity to connect with users through the device they carry around with them at all times?

Trouble is, developing for mobile browsers is hard if you don’t choose the right tools and technology to help you on the way.

If you’ve ever tried to code for the mobile web in the past (or have been lucky enough to have someone do it for you), you’ll know how hard it’s been to create a mobile site that looks great and provides a great user experience on all mobile devices.

Mobile web development is traditionally very difficult. You are not alone. In this article, I hope to explore some of the troubles encountered and then a really cool mobile publishing solution that will help you develop mobile web sites – your mobile web sites, the way you want them. I’ll also explain how you can do it quickly.

The results will optimize for EVERY mobile browser, perfectly.

Instead of having to worry about a couple of browsers as you would with a desktop browser, you’ve got different screen sizes, firmware, operators, carriers and multiple markup languages to look after – all of which meaning there’s a potential 50,000 devices to support.

That’s a staggering number. If you ever had the problem of making something work in IE6 then multiply that headache by the figure above. It’s brain-splitting to say the least.

There have been tools emerge in the past that have gone some way to helping, but now there is a new service available that has removed all of the problems and barriers to development. It’s called Wapple Architect and by the end of this article you’ll know all about it and how it’s revolutionized the entire web world.

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Mobile Web Junkie

As I mentioned in my article regarding the release of my mobile WordPress plugin, the results of my plugin on a standard install of WordPress are awesome and blogs look amazing on mobile web (as you can see from the screenshot).

But because of the open source nature of WordPress, there are a whole load of other plugins that could be mobilized in order to work in tandem with mine. Content plugins that generate really simple HTML will already be catered for because of checks I perform on the content, but more specific code that outputs JavaScript or something a little bit out of the ordinary will need a little bit more attention to work perfectly.

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So you’ve got your WordPress site running, you’ve installed a load of plugins to do fancy things and there’s a large subscriber base following your every post. However, without realising it, you’re giving a poor user experience to anyone reading your blog on their mobile phone. Have a read of “Why Millions of WordPress Bloggers Need to get Mobile Friendly” to see why this is such a big problem.

To help the community at large, I’ve created a WordPress mobile plugin and theme that provides a perfect WordPress experience to mobile web users and here’s how and why I did it.
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Fact: People are accessing your website URL on their mobile phone!

The latest stats suggest that 5% of traffic to websites now get hit by mobile browsers, even if you promote a separate URL for mobile web.

What do you want them to see? The actual website that takes 20 minutes to load and scrolls to about 10 times the width and height of the mobile? Not likely. They’ll want to see a mobile specific version, running off that single domain, perfectly optimized to whichever handset they’re using, yes, even if they have an iPhone. Read more

Last week something exciting happened inside the colourful walls of Wapple – the latest version of the mobile site was launched. Below are the obligatory before and after screenshots and at first glance you’ll probably notice that they look pretty similar. However, all is not as it seems because underneath the bonnet – everything has changed.

Built with Canvas

Built with Architect

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For as long as I can remember, developing for mobile has been an absolute nightmare. To start with, there are thousands of unique handsets on thousands of operators with different browsers, firmware and capabilities. There are hundreds of different screensizes and resolutions to take care of, flash and java issues, CSS support (or lack of it) and markup languages galore. You’re not going to be able to deliver a great user experience if you can’t optimize to each and every one of these 50,000+ combinations across all the billions of handsets in the world.

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