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Using Netvibes on a mobile device

If you are one of the new migrants to Netvibes you may not realise that it has several mobile clients. You may want to try them all out before choosing the one which suits you best. I mix and match depending on the deice I am using and the quality of my internet connection. To get each version just type the url into the address bar of your browser.

wap.netvibes.com This text only version of Netvibes looks really ugly but I find it very useful useful on my phone. It gives you the information you need with no extraneous distractions and you can always click the header of a post to get to the original webpage if you need more. Great if your internet signal is weak because it uses almost no bandwidth. It only seems to show RSS feeds though so any fancy Netvibes widgets don't show. It doesn't seem to be able to judge screen size so be prepared to do a bit of manual zooming to use this.


mobile.netvibes.com This is the official Netvibes entry point for all  mobile devices. It is supposed to direct you to the correct version for your phone or tablet . I prefer to just choose my own version.

android.netvibes.com, iphone.netvibes.com I am pretty sure these used to be different but now they both seem to direct you to exactly the same client. In fact I can use android.netvibes.com on my wife's iphone and iphone.netvibes.com on my android and I cannot tell the difference. It is a lot prettier than wap.netvibes.com and uses an iphone like interface. Apart from looking prettier the main advantage of this over wap.netvibes.com is that it has an extended feed reader view where you can see the first line of a post without clicking it. This is my least favourite client though and I rarely use it. I notice that it doesn't work on the Firefox browser but it does work on Safari, Chrome and Dolphin. I think this means it uses webkit.

ipad.netvibes.com At one stage netvibes were working on an ipad client but I cannot find it. It just redirects to www.netvibes.com for me. I don't have an ipad so that could be the problem but I have tried changing my user agent to ipad and it still doesn't do anything.

www.netvibes.com If all else fails why not use the desktop client you are already familiar with. This works great on my 7" tablet and is quite usable on my 4" phone as long as I have a decent data connection. I notice that some behaviour changes slightly depending on the browsser you use (things like whether or not clicking an entry opens a new tab). Dolphin is my favourite Android browser and Netvibes works great on it.

What about the Netvibes App? If you are an app addict you may be disappointed to find that the only apps netvibes makes are something to do with shipping timetables  (Edit: almost certainly a different Netvibes) but lets face it, Netvibes is a web portal you are going to need a web browser to follow those links anyway. If you really want a button on your  home screen which opens directly into netvibes then make a bookmark.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
I am not sure the Netvibes company that make the ipad app is the same as the Netvibes website. The first one is from nederland while the second is a french company.
10:51 am
mbp said…
Good point. It seems like an entirely different business.
12:11 pm
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