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The future of mobile web

Submitted by MobilizeToday on 2009-06-20 11:47

This world is permanently in the state of changes leading to its progress. These are the circumstances of the evolution having an effect on all of us. The same concerns the Internet which is the most progressing field of the today's world. In this progress one can't but mention the increasing number of the users and devices realizing the access to the Internet. Mobile phones are the most popular among this kind of devices. Conventionally they can be classified into the following categories:

1. Regular cell phones, also known as feature phones. They usually have tiny screens and offer horrible usability, enabling only minimal interaction with websites.
2. Smartphones, in a range of form factors, typically with a mid-sized screen and a full A-Z keypad. These devices sometimes feature 3G Internet connectivity and perhaps even Wi-Fi. They offer bad usability though, forcing users to struggle to complete website tasks.
3. High-end phones or full-screen phones, with a nearly device-sized touchscreen and a true GUI driven by direct manipulation and touch gestures. These phones offer 3G Internet connectivity and even faster speeds when connecting through Wi-Fi. They also offer impoverished usability; only simple tasks are reasonably easy - and only in the case if users are on well-designed sites that are optimized for mobile devices.

Nowadays, high-end devices become more common. Among them the most popular are Windows Mobile devices like the HTC Touch Diamond or Samsung i900, the iPhone, the Blackberry, the Android devices like G1 or HTC Magic and S60 devices such as the Nokia N97.

Let's refer some interesting facts on statistics:

• Almost half of the Earth population has an access to mobile devices and cell phones. That's about 3 billion potential mobile Internet users.
• The turnover rate for mobile phones is higher than the turnover rate for desktop devices. In 2006, Nokia alone were selling on average 11-12 phones a second.
• Blackberry number of users has reached 25 million users with an additional 3.9 million in quarter 4 of 2008.
• Apple has sold a total of 17 million iPhones including sales of both the original iPhone and iPhone 3G thus far, including 13.7 million iPhones in 2008. The Apple iPhone 3G sales are expected to triple in 2009.
• The number of users accessing the Internet from their handheld devices has experienced a 107% growth during the period from January 2008 to January 2009.

It is not difficult to imagine the pattern of the nearest future taking into consideration the above facts. It should be mentioned that probably there will be much more users of the Internet via mobile phones than the users of desktop systems and laptops.

In the view of future changes it is not difficult to assume that the requirements to the modern sites are in the state of changes too. Namely, they should be available for the increasing number of mobile users.

Indeed, there is no reason to disregard the huge audience of the mobile users, more by token that it may be worth giving an enhanced experience to the class of devices that have more processing power, higher definition screens and better quality browsers.

The big advances must come from websites. Sites, including intranets, must develop specialized designs that optimize the mobile user experience. Today few sites have the mobile versions, and those that do are usually very poorly designed, without knowledge of the special guidelines for mobile usability. Perhaps it is the very stumbling block that should be overcome for the new future – the future of the mobile web!