I live and work in central London, where you would expect a good mobile signal. Yet there are holes in the service all over the place.

We’ve got the devices that can make the mobile web a reality. We’ve got the online services like RSS readers, Twitter and Facebook that make it sticky- something you can dip into when you’ve got five minutes, and will come back to again.

Provided it works.

The weakest link is the networks. All we need them to do is provide network coverage and carry the data. But they seem to be too busy trying to differentiating themselves with services that are tangential to what we pay our bills for.

So right now, while I would like to say that I am my network of Twitterers, my Facebook friends and my favourite RSS feeds, I’m actually just a bloke on a bus playing with an electronic notepad.

How about someone differentiate themselves by providing the best coverage, the most consistent 3G data connection, or the greatest consumer satisfaction? Stop trying to differentiate your service by providing extras, and just provide the basic service that you promised; an Internet connection that’s always on, and 3G that actually has coverage?

Give me the mobile Internet coverage that I’m already paying for- then start worrying about how you’re going to sell all my web-surfing data on to the GSMA. Otherwise, an iPod Touch for a quarter of the total cost of an iPhone will do the job just as well.

(Oh, and while you’re at it, can you get the BT Openzone wifi hotspots to recognize my phone again? After all, that was a part of the deal too. Ta.)

Posted from my home wifi connection which- I believe- is not being recorded for the data to be sold on without my consent.

Don’t build your site for a minority audience- remember most people don’t have an iPhone.

Don’t build a mobile site and not invest the time to detect handsets and serve the correct version for the phone.

The iPhone might be a minority device, but there are a few caveats that need to go along with that point to put it into context; firstly, proportionally more users of iPhones are accessing online services than any other handset. This means both that mobile Internet users are more likely to get an iPhone because of the browsing experience, and that iPhone users who were attracted to the integrated iTunes, big colour screen etc. are more likely to try out the web access. The rate of growth has been phenomenal and from my own experience, even though I’ve had a Smartphone or PDA for about 5 years, I’ve never had even close to the use that I’ve had with the iPhone.

Secondly, every mobile device is a minority device. The market is highly fragmented, and that’s a trend that’s not going to go away- at least, not in the next 5 years. But the iPhone seems to represent a consistent platform; if Apple were to release a new iPhone with a different sized screen (for example), the existing applications and websites would need to be reworked- meaning it’s an unlikely move for Apple to make. Because the screen is a standard size, and the browser implements web standards well (better than Internet Explorer on the desktop, in fact) in developing an iPhone website, you’re not really developing “just for the iPhone”; you’re developing for the web.

The alternative is developing (or trying to develop) for every single minority device. A huge undertaking…

The point of the Web is that it’s a network of documents which can be read on any device, regardless of what sort of hardware, operating system or software it runs. The web page (in HTML) contains the information, a seperate system called CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) controls the way it’s presented, and a third system (Javascript) controls it’s behaviour (features like animation, drag-and-drop or AJAX.) This means that a web page with lots of graphics in the design can have an alternative CSS file to change the way it’s displayed on a handheld device- either because the visual design wouldn’t work on a small screen, or because the graphics would take too long to load on a slower (possibly metered) mobile connection.

Browser sniffing is something different; it means detecting what sort of device someone is using and then serving a version of the web page that’s optimised for that device. In other words, rather than letting the handset decide how a page would look best, according to an established set of open standards, the page decides on it’s behalf- often with no way to override it.

There’s no doubt that the wide range of mobile phone manufacturers, models and software versions make life difficult for mobile website developers, but the idea of browser sniffing goes against the basic idea of the web. A few years ago, the idea of a full HTML page being usable on a phone was virtually unthinkable. Now there is a new generation of handsets with web browsers that do a genuinely good job of making the web on a mobile a genuinely good experience. It’s up to the handset manufacturers- not the website designers and developers- to make the web a standardized platform, rather than the fragmented, unusable mess that much of it currently is from a mobile perspective. If websites follow the trend that we saw in the days of the desktop browser wars, then everyone loses out- especially the end users. Websites will be harder to develop, and new devices that don’t follow established standards will take time to gain support. We already have a protocol for mobile devices that don’t support web pages; it’s called WAP, and it’s a relic of the past. (But it works…)

Seeing this advice coming from a company who happens to have (and sell) a database of mobile devices- just the thing you would need if you were to implement their advice- leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I did learn something interesting on their website though; Japan, the country with probably the most successful implementation of the mobile web, is number 10 on the list of countries with the most registered .mobi websites. Which, considering the subject of my last post, was something I found quite interesting.

But I also love the fact that it takes away your dependance on the phone network.

A few months ago, this was really useful to me when I was in Ireland. Having debated endlessly with my wife (literally until the bags were coming off the carousel) about whether we were going to hire a car or get taxis everywhere and enjoy the Guinness, we found that at the car rental desks that the only ones available were big BMWs and Mercedes (far too big and expensive for our uses.) But there are a few desks at Cork airport that only rent cars that are pre-booked.

So, thanks to the nearby Starbucks wifi, I went online, “pre-booked” a car, then went back to the desk to collect the keys. And, presumably because they not only failed to anticipate that customers might have mobile Internet access, we booked a small car that they didn’t actually have and got a free upgrade to a huge 7-seater 4×4. All without having to pay the extortionate costs for using data on an overseas network.

There’s a lesson here about being prepared for customers who have mobile Internet access, but I’m not going to go into that right now. Because right now, following some impressively rubbish customer service from O2 (long story), I am angry about being without data services until I pay the remainder of a bill which, for reasons as yet unbeknown to me, O2 decided not to take from my direct debit today. (They didn’t tell me that they were going to cut this service off- even when I called earlier on to ask why they hadnt taken the full amount as a payment, and was told that nothing would be done for 7 days. No, I only found out after sending an email to ask why I couldn’t connect to the Internet.)

This is just the latest on a series of irritating blunders by O2 since getting my iPhone. I’ve had my phone cut off without warning twice, following an attempted direct debit on the wrong date (I assume that my complaint is the only reason my phone line hasn’t been cut off again this time- even though my complaint was about the lack of communication before cutting off my services…) This is from a company that were happy to cold call me while I was on holiday in South Africa to try to sell me their home broadband services, and then charge me for receiving the call.

It annoys me that when you’re roaming you can access any network, but in your home country, only a quarter of the available signals are open to you. There’s no fallback if you’re out of signal- or if your network cuts you off in error. No using Vodafones 3G signal when only 2G is available on O2. No using T-Mobile when nothing else has coverage. (And we wonder why we can’t get the high headline speeds that we’re promised with four networks doing the same job as each other, but pretending that the other three don’t exist. Maybe the 4G spectrum auction will deal with this inefficiency, but I doubt it.)

But thanks to wifi, I can still use my phone to go online and post this rant to my blog. (Faster than 3G as well.) I can also use a VOIP application to make phone calls for far less than the network charges me.

Magic.

Several domain names with this “.mobi” suffix have apparently been sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, it seems that it’s been rendered obsolete, before the mobile web has even had a chance to really take off.

One problem is that it involves managing a second domain name- at best, a minor administrative hassle, but one which might cost money if someone has beaten you to it (bringing back memories of “cyber-squatting” stories from the 1990s.”) It also devalues the main domain name- not only as the “dot com”or “dot co dot uk” becomes a part of a brand name, but also as “localization” becomes increasingly important on a mobile device, the benefits of a localized web service with a global “mobile” site are lost (for example, amazon.co.uk takes you to a UK-specific version of the Amazon.com store. Would a UK mobile user want to go to the same amazon.mobi as a US user?)

Another problem is the ideal of device independance; the World Wide Web is supposed to work across the board on any device with a web browser. Only a few years ago, the idea of a regular web page working well on a mobile device was hard to imagine; today, devices like the iPhone and developments such as Android and newer versions of the Windows Mobile operating system are bridging the gap between desktop and mobile.

Thirdly, it introduces new problems for les advanced mobiles- those without full “qwerty” keyboards or touch screens; to type “.mobi” on a regular phone keypad takes 9 or 10 keystrokes- compared to “com” (7) or “wap” (3). As well as the extra keystrokes, there’s the fact that “m” and “o” use the same key, so you usually have to wait for the phone to recognize that you’ve finished with the “m” and are ready to start with the “o”.

A different trend has appeared on almost all the major mobile websites that I’ve seen- instead of using a different top-level domain (ie. the “.com”, “.org” or “.co.uk”), they use a different “m.” subdomain- eg. m.Flickr.com, m.facebook.com, m.bbc.co.uk. Less keypresses, less administration, but with the benefits of a stripped down mobile site. (Some sites have an “enhanced” mobile version for phones like the iPhone- such as “x.

So is there any point in a “.mobi” address? There’s no benefit that I can see, but plenty of drawbacks. So I’ll be surprised if we ever see it take off.

NetNewsWire

I’ve already talked about this is some detail; it uses the Newsgator RSS reader to deliver news headlines to your iPhone. Very handy, but nothing too special- or at least it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the fact that it stores them on the handset, so you can read your choice of headlines on the underground, and also let’s you tag interesting articles as “clippings” to read at your leisure.

I’ve been playing around with RSS readers for a while, and haven’t yet found one for the desktop that really works the way I want it to. So I find it quite odd that I’ve found one that works on the mobile almost exactly as I want it to. If I was only allowed one application on my iPhone, this would be the one.

Last.fm

Most useful over a wifi connection, this streams music from the last.fm website to your iPhone. The more you use it, the better it knows what music you like and the better the service becomes, but my favourite way of using it is just putting a tag and listening to music that fits my mood. Great for discovering new music.

Google

Another must-have; universal search- searches the web, as you’d expect (as you would at google.com), but also searches your contacts list, and gives the option for a local search- enter “florist”, click on “find a florist near me”, and then jump to a Google Map that shows you what’s nearby and how to get there.

Facebook

Jump straight into Facebook- no need to enter your email address and password. Pretty much all the functions you would want, optimised for the iPhone. Stalking your friends has never been easier…

Units

Converts units- km to miles, acres to square miles, centigrade to farenheit and anything else you can think of. Doesn’t sound like much- until you find you need it. Then it becomes brilliant.

Enigmo

A great little game- and the only app on this list that isn’t free. Basically a puzzle game; you direct a stream of drips into holders by moving around things for them to bounce off, flow down and so on. If you liked Lemmings, you’ll probably like this.

RjDj

The strangest application that I’ve seen.. Or rather, heard. It turns the sound that your microphone picks up and turns it into a bizarre audio collage. Sounds odd, because it is. More of an art experiment than anything else- if you think it sounds interesting, then you’ll like it. If not, don’t bother.

Phonesaber

Wave your phone around, and it makes lightsaber sound effects. This one never gets old. (For me, anyway. Your mileage may vary…)

Remote

When you’re connected to the same wifi zone as your PC, this turns your iPhone into a remote control for iTunes-browse through and control your music library in the same way that you browse through the tracks on your phone. Definitely a must-have if you use iTunes (which, as you’ve got an iPhone, you probably do…)

ICanHasCheezburger

A complete waste of time and another one that you’ll know if you’ll like it straight away; connects to the sites on the icanhascheezburger network. (Lolcats, Loldogs, Failblog, Graphjam and a few others.) If you’ve not seen the sites, then you’ve probably been emailled the pictures by someone; photos with silly captions along a number of different themes. A pointless waste of time, no doubt, but might well bring a smile to your face.

Honourable mention:

WordPress

Most people aren’t interested in blogging, but if you are then a) WordPress is a good blogging system to use, and b) the WordPress iPhone application makes it as easy as you could hope for. Still has the same old iPhone problems (ie. no copy/paste) but if you want to blog from an iPhone, there’s no doubt in my mind that this is the best way to do it.

Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in building websites for “next gen” mobile devices- not just the iPhone (in fact, one of their tips is not to build just for the iPhone.)

Code: Flickr Developer Blog » Lessons Learned while Building an iPhone Site.

I think it’s going to be some time before we start to see this being tried and tested, but the potential for this seems to be huge.

Firstly, there’s the possibility of bypassing the computer. Steve Jobs has talked of the iPhone as being Apple’s entry into the “netbook” market; doing the same job as a small, compact laptop. An Android device like the G1 phone but larger could be a similar kind of device- but without the constraints of the iPhone.

Similarly, it could be used to bypass mobile networks; a portable, wireless, internet-enabled device without the need for an expensive subscription commitment to a mobile network could offer something closer in size and functionality to the iPod Touch than the iPhone. Taking away that commitment allows for a cheaper device with network functionality that you can afford to not use- compared to spending £100 on an iPhone, using it as an iPod and paying an extra £35 a month for something you might never use.

This opens up a whole world of possibilities-things that might seem to have no benefits whatsoever in having some sort of communication system suddenly have new possibilities. (For example, you might think that a plant has no need for a communications network- but there’s a company making devices that monitor plants’ water levels and phones you when they need watering.)

These are just a few of my ideas of how Android could function in devices other than mobile phones;

TV/video- with an internet connection, you could access your TV/video/PVR from another device; use your mobile phone as an EPG, to set reminders for when programmes you want to watch are on, or even stream your programmes, slingbox-style, to other devices.

MP3 player- the iPod touch turned Apple’s iPod into a web surfing, emailling device that also allows you to download music and applications from iTunes. An Android-powered device could sever the reliance on the PC (still essential for managing your music and video library, podcasts, photos etc.)

Digital camera- not only removing the need to carry round a USB cable to transfer pictures from your camera to your computer, Android could also allow your camera (at a wifi hotspot) to transfer files directly to your favourite online photo service- Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, your blog etc. Or to download photos from those services to your camera.

Ebook- download your eBooks, daily news or anything else you want to read straight to your ebook reader- in any format. (I think Amazon’s Kindle is already a step in this direction- still awaiting the UK launch so I can get my hands on one for myself.)

PDA/Diary- keep your electronic organizer synchronized with the cloud whenever you are in a wifi hotspot. Share your diary, so others can send invitations or make plans around your availability.

Wallet- an electronic credit card which, rather than being the key to allow shops to connect to your bank account/credit card details, actually stores your details. Virtual cash, in a form that let’s you check your balance and statements, which could also be remotely locked if it was stolen.

Car- your carphone, built into your car. Open standards would let you use your Android phone as the actual phone, or as the car keys for anyone approved to drive it (remembering your preferred seat and temperature settings and automatically changing them when your partner uses theirs to drive), as well as keeping your music, doing the job of the CD changer in the boot. Because it’s open, you’d be able to upgrade the software (and wouldn’t be in the position some drivers have found themselves, with an iPod dock fixed in their car that won’t work with their new iPhone.)

Stereo- download music or radio over your home wifi. Stream it around your house. Store your music collection, and copy music to and from your phone whenever you’re in range. Or set it up to share your music collection over the Internet so that you can play your own collection when you’re at the office/your friends house- whether it happens to be on your phone/MP3 player or not.

Digital recorder- lay down your 4-track demos, mix them down, and upload them straight to MySpace etc. Synchronize a multi-track master and record a studio session without having to be in the same room- or even the same country.

Fridge- in the same way that a hotel minibar can electronically detect when you’ve had a drink, check your fridge from wherever you are to see if you’ve got enough milk/butter, or how long the meat has been defrosting for.

All fairly ambitious ideas, no doubt. But in lieu of a string of patent applications that I don’t have the time or money to submit, remember- you read them here first.

I hope…

Either I tried to track too many sites, meaning there was too much information coming in (and a constantly growing mountain of unread news- making me feel like I was missing, rather than reading more), or with less sites I was still having to check sites to see what my feed reader had missed.

Then there’s the problem with keeping things synchronized; when your feed reader is full of ‘unread’ articles that you’ve actually read outside the reader (either just from web browsing, or on a different computer) then it takes more time to manage your feeds- not less.

On the desktop, next to my unread emails, “to do” lists and web browser (with bookmarks to the websites that the feeds are pulling information from), another reminder that there’s things going on that I’ve not yet read about- even on the limited selection of sites that I’ve chosen to follow- isn’t really something that I need.

But that’s changed now. I think I’ve found a way to ‘consume’ them that fits in much better with my day-to-day activities. It turns out that the main problem wasn’t with the readers I was using or the feeds I was following; it was the device I was reading them on. On the desktop, feed readers just don’t work for me too well. But on the mobile, they are perfect.

Firstly, it’s more snack-sized. If I want to just fill a few minutes waiting for a train checking the headlines, then it’s easy. If something catches my eye, I can read the summary. If I don’t have time to read an interesting looking article, I can save it for later. If I’ve got more time on my hands (and a signal, of course) then I can jump through to the website and read the whole thing.

On the desktop, there are drawbacks; I’ve got time to check the actual websites- If I’m reading a news feed that only has a summary of the story, then I’ll end up going to the website anyway. If I’m already using the computer, then the constant flow of new infomation can be a distraction- along with email, instant messages, Facebook etc. RSS is supposed to make you more efficient- not less! If I’m not using the computer then I’ve got to get out the laptop or move to my desktop and switch it on. With a mobile, it’s already on- again, time saved. Something I hadn’t expected was for my mobile to become my preferred way of accessing online news when I’m at home; even though I’ve got a laptop I can use anywhere in the flat and a desktop PC connected to a large screen, my mobile is increasingly the first thing I reach for when I want to go online. Often, by the time my laptop has started up, I could have done what I wanted to do on my phone.

Along with the convenience and speed that I can get started, two things that becomes increasingly important on the feed side of things are;
1) The importance of the headline. In a sea of headlines, there’s not much of an opportunity for the journalist to grab my attention and pull me in, so it’s got to tell enough of the story to catch my attention, leaving me wanting to know more. When I’m writing, I like cryptic headlines that make perfect sense after reading the article- so together, they make up a holistic whole. But for an RSS-based audience, the headline isn’t a part of the article; it’s a kind of trailer that needs to pull the audience in. (I think this is something the BBC.co.uk’s editorial team needs to learn- great articles, but the headlines get lost in a sea of other sources.)

2) It tends to make me read more blog posts. The reason for this is actually pretty clear; commercial sites exist to sell advertising, so the purpose of the feed is to draw people into the site; the headline catches your eye, a short summary gets your attention, so you go to see the adverts (and read the full story while you’re there…)

Bloggers (as a general rule of thumb) are less concerned about advertising. They just write to be read- not to drive traffic, so blog feeds tend to have the full article. This means that if I’m underground or out of signal (for whatever reason), I can still read it there and then- when I’m interested in it. The consequence for the blogger is that I’m more likely to become a regular reader, as I’ll be following them whenever they publish posts rather than whenever it pops into my head to visit their site, or I come across a link. There’s also the issue that I don’t have to wait for the adverts, graphics etc. to load over the slower mobile connection.

The application that I’m using is
NetNewsWire; this is a free application that uses the Newsgator feed service. It’s not quite perfect- I’d like to have more control of how Clippings (the stories you mark up to read later) are organized from the phone, like tagging them and putting them into folders- at the moment, I have to visit the website to do that. It would also be useful- although no doubt prohibitively intensive on memory and bandwidth- if it downloaded graphics along with the text of the feeds. I’m sure that these are issues that the developers are working on, and I’m looking forward to seeing some more updates. (Incidentally it’s what I use to gather the mobile news in the sidebar on this blog- although obviously if you’re reading this in RSS form you can’t see that.) There’s also the added bonus that when I’m underground, I can read my choice of news instead of picking up a copy of the Metro…

So right now, it’s great- without a doubt the most useful 3rd party applications on my iPhone, and more useful to me than included apps like stocks news and weather forecasts.

I’m going to keep this site updated with some other pointers to some great apps, but this one is definitely the one I’d miss most if it were to go.

One consequence of this is that if you’re trying to write a blog from the iPhone, it’s difficult to post a link to te site you’re blogging about because you have to remember the link and type it in yourself. Not a problem with what’s called “clean urls” (eg http://somerandomnerd.com/miphone) but a pain in the neck if you’re trying to link to http://example.com/482648-261_382.html?tag=something.mt

So it was a fiddly task to tell you that I came across this post on a productivity website about 17 powerful bookmarklets for your iPhone. If you’ve got an iPhone, I strongly recommend you take a look. (But not from your phone, for reasons I’ll come to in a moment.)

A bookmarklet is a bit like a bookmark, except instead of containing a link to a web page, it contains a piece of Javascript code which carries out an action on the page. For example, it might check through the page and find a word that you’re looking for, and highlight it if it finds it. These can add some very useful functionality to the browser (such as the Find feature.)

The only drawback is that you can’t (as far as I know) add them straight onto your phone- you need to add them to your bookmarks on your desktop PC browser, then synchronize with iTunes to put them.

I guess that until there’s a way to copy and paste links on the iPhone, there’s no real way around it. Unless someone writes a bookmarklet that will let you select a bookmarklet link and save it to your bookmarks. But you’d have to sync that bookmarklet through iTunes first of all.

Even if you wanted to type the javascript in yourself, the iPhone does t let you add bookmarks that way- you can only bookmark links to the page that you’re on, and bookmarklets don’t have a “page.”

This is one of the problems with the iPhone being tethered to a PC, as well as a limitation of the user interface, so I can’t see there being an easy fix any time soon. It will be interesting to see whether any other touchscreen systems (like Android) will be able to get around this limitation though.

It’s an open-source project, built on the Webkit rendering engine (which displays the page) and the new V8 javascript library (which deals with ‘behaviour’- eg. animated elements on the page, AJAX etc.)

So what does this have to do with mobile?

Well, Google’s Android mobile operating system will also use the same Webkit rendering engine and V8 Javascript library, so we can expect web pages to work in a very similar way on Chrome on the desktop as on an Android mobile.

Furthermore, Apple’s Safari web browser also uses Webkit- both the Mac and iPhone versions- so again, some consistency in behaviour on the mobile and the desktop can be expected. We already see that the mobile Safari displays pages exactly the same as the desktop version. I’ve not used it for a while, but the last time I checked, the same couldn’t be said for Pocket Internet Explorer…

All of which is a step in the right direction for the web in general; once mobile web browsers are on the same level as desktop browsers in terms of the websites that work on them, then websites can start to be designed to be optimized for the mobile- making exactly the same data accessible as on the desktop (as opposed to the tradition of stripped down WAP sites for mobile and full featured HTML sites for the desktop), but designed to make the most of the user interface- as I talked about in my last post. (Which I can’t easily post a link to from my phone…)

Which means a step towards the original vision of a hardware-agnostic, software-agnostic and browser-agnostic platform for sharing the world’s information.

I think that has to be a good thing.