Skip to main content

Stop making Apps please and just fix your web pages!

Santa brought me a lovely new Andoid phone - a Samsung Galaxy S and I am learning to love  and hate the world of mobile phone apps. An app is nothing more than a software application for a phone but Apple has managed to turn a simple concept into a phenomenon their Iphone App store and Google is doing its best to imitate this with the Android Market.

The rise of the app store has meant an explosion of free and low priced software for smart phones. As long as your exercise a little common sense with regard to security and privacy this is a good thing but there is one particular type of app that really annoys me: The apps that are designed to replace internet browsers.

I am talking about facebook apps, Youtube apps, Google and Gmail apps and so on. There are apps for just about every major web service and now even minor players are jumping on the app bandwagon. My local library has an app, so does my local traffic authority (for telling you about speed cameras).

Why oh why do we need these apps? Every single smart phone has a functioning web browser and all of these services can be accessed with a web browser.The web service app was a stop gap solution dating from the days when mobile phone browsers were not up to the job of displaying web content but phone browsers are getting more and more capable all the time yet the explosion of web service apps continues unchecked.

One reason why such apps are a retrograde step compared to using a web browser is that the apps rarely give full access to a sites facilities. For example the You Tube app on my phone hides all comments on a video by default  and does not allow you to leave a new comment.

Another key problem is the proliferation of mobile operating systems. We already have Iphones, Android phones, Symbian phones, Windows Phones and yet more types are on the way. Instead of wasting time writing an app for just one of these operating systems why not fix your website so it can be used viewed by a wide range of phone browsers.

While I am on the subject - making your website compatible with mobile phone browsers does not mean forcing the viewer into a cut down "mobile" mode. While some mobile browsers have limited viewing area many modern ones are full featured with excellent zooming tools. My Samsung with Android 2.2 even has Flash 10 capability. If you do offer a low resolution viewing mode for mobile users make damn sure it is optional at the users preference and please please make sure that it still offers access to all of the websites normal features. There is nothing worse than be forced into viewing a kinder-garden "mobile" version of a website and not even having access to the features you intend to use.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein
51 comments
Read more

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p
1 comment
Read more

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get
13 comments
Read more