David Berube’s OLD Blog

Everyday I read of someone saying the iPhone’s ‘real’ web browser will somehow save the mobile web in the United States. Or someone proclaiming that the iPhone or similar devices with a ‘real’ web browser will somehow make the mobile web work in the United States.

“There is anecdotal evidence things will change quite rapidly when we have mobile handsets with real browsers showing up in the sales isles. One such device [iPhone] is already showing its impact.”

From Om Malik in regards to this New York Times article.

I disagree. I’ve used Safari on the iPhone and I regularly use Opera Mini 4 on my Blackberry. They do make viewing non-mobile-friendly sites a bit easier but it doesn’t entice me to use my mobile phone to browse the web, not the least bit.

What does entice me is a mobile-friendly site. Which is why I read Richard MacManus’ Read/WriteWeb every day on my Blackberry. Richard has setup a mobile-friendly version of his blog using MoFuse at http://m.readwriteweb.com.

When I’m browsing the web on either the iPhone’s Safari or Opera Mini I still have to scroll left and right and the ‘zoomed-out’ view of the entire page is still unreadable and it’s a best-guess as to where the content you want to zoom-in on is located. It usually takes me about 3-5 tries to get it right or I just zoom in at the top and scroll around like I would if I was using a regular WAP browser.

So, in my opinion, will iPhone’s web browser of Opera Mini ’save’ the mobile web for the US? No, absolutely not. What will increase the usage of the mobile web in America is mobile-friendly sites.

These websites were designed for screens 15″ and larger not a 3″ or less mobile screen and that’s something these browsers can’t overcome!

So why has the mobile web usage increased since the introduction of the iPhone, albeit a small increase? My guess is because the iPhone heavily advertised browsing the web on the device, making it a top feature on the phone. Most mobile phones don’t advertise their web browser so most consumers of the phone never really open it up and take it for a test drive.

Creating mobile-friendly websites to go side-by-side with your ‘full’ website will bring the mobile web to America, not creating browsers that try to shrink 15″ designs into a 3″ screen.

You can start to ’save’ the mobile web by creating a mobile-friendly version of your blog or website at MoFuse.