Too bad so sad, no specific (Google, Yahoo, MSN) pages for Nokiausers!

Yahoo is now ramping up with its iPhone specific web apps. This is
interesting. It was google all the way; now that yahoo is following
suit, I am sure MS will join the race sometime soon.

Too bad so sad, no specific (Google, Yahoo, MSN) pages for Nokia
users!

Over to Yahoo: oneConnect—a revolutionary social address book that
brings together your people, your life, and all the ways you
communicate. Yahoo! oneConnect makes it easy to stay connected and in
the loop from a single application.

Listed Features:

Get a full-featured phone book that can integrate contacts from your
Yahoo! Address Book, iPhone, and your social networks.
Connect with your friends via Yahoo! Messenger or SMS. Have fun with
emoticons, avatars, and photos.
See what’s happening on your favorite social networks with an at-a-
glance view of status updates, photo uploads, and more.
Find your favorite people quickly and call, message, or send an e-mail—
with one tap.

http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylt=AkAsxb5...1970154%26mt=8

At 11 Sep 2008 03:57:19 -0700 4phun wrote:
> Yahoo is now ramping up with its iPhone specific web apps. This is
> interesting. It was google all the way; now that yahoo is following
> suit, I am sure MS will join the race sometime soon.


They did- they gave you Exchange over Activesync! The only reason
businesses can even look at adopting the iPhone, at least until RIM decides
to port Blackberry Connect to it someday. ;-)


> Too bad so sad, no specific (Google, Yahoo, MSN) pages for Nokia
> users!

Why would Nokia (or Samsung, or LG, or RIM, etc.) need a device-specific
web page, when the regular "mobile page" already works? (Other than as a
marketing ploy to make you feel "special.")

Most of the "iPhone-specific" pages I've looked at are simply the same info
and links as the site's regular mobile page dressed up to look more like an
iPhone UI menu.

Assuming the web needs to be fractured into a "real web" and a "mobile web"
is one thing, but subfracturing the mobile web into 50 different pages for
different models of phone is just silly! iPhone specific pages are
gimmicks that allow websites to issue a press-release to drive traffic, and
get guys like you to blog or post about it.

It does beg the question of how's that "real web" working out for you
(other than looking good in commercials) when websites are falling over
themselves to make iPhone-specific pages? Apparently pinching and
spreading are too much work?

That's not a serious question of course, since Apple or iPhone users have
no control over what website designers do, which leads me to today's gripe:
let those of us with Smartphones "opt out" of the "moble web" when we need
to.

Google is excellent at this- their mobile home page lets you select "view
Google in Classic mode" if you want the full page. Other sites detect your
user agent and force you into their mobile site regardless of any attempt
you make to circumvent it- Infoworld does that, and to make matters worse,
their mobile site is so crappy it doesn't parse "full site" links, so when
you click on a link to go to a particular Infoworld article, it redirects
you to the mobile front page, rather than the mobile page with that article
on it!
T-Mobile's account access page is almost as stupid- it has a "go to the
real site" link, but when you tap it, the same UA detection code that sent
you to the mobile site in the first place re-intercepts you and sends you
right back to the mobile page!

Only by playing the "let's alter the device's UA to trick site so-and-so"
game can I opt out of forced mobile surfing on many sites- a trick probably
not available to iPhoners, at least not without jailbreaking, I assume.
And I'm a big fan of the mobile web- generally I prefer to use mobile-
formatted websites on my phone- less bandwidth, better layout for small
screens, etc.- I even use a few on my PC as an "advertisement/pop-up
avoidance system." My plea to web designers is simple, however- give us a
link to get on the "real" site when it's necessary (that actually works!
I'm talking to YOU T-Mobile!)

Todd Allcock <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in
news:gabfnq$1bu$1@aioe.org:

> Most of the "iPhone-specific" pages I've looked at are simply the same
> info and links as the site's regular mobile page dressed up to look
> more like an iPhone UI menu.
>
>

I thought it looked like....well....er, ah.....WAP!