How the iPhone affects UK web developers and their clients
Written 10.06.08 by: Jonathan Briggs
At the OTHER media we are always on the lookout for trends and technologies that change the market or create new opportunities for our customers. Apple’s new iPhone is likely to be one of those transforming technologies and so we had to get our hands on one before the predicted UK launch at the end of the year.
Photo courtesy of Apple
It has taken two weeks, involved friends in Delaware and signing a US AT&T (CIngular) phone contract. Now after a week of testing by almost everyone in the office we provide our initial impressions of this new device and the lessons we have learned that will affect our clients
Everyone wants one
Even our financial controller fell for the iPhone. It is a gorgeously designed piece of technology with a big screen and highly useable user interface. The fact that it combines internet browsing (over WiFi or the phone network), Google Maps, email, chat, a video iPod and a highly usable phone makes it very desirable.
Of course this first version is not perfect, currenly locked to an exorbitant international AT&T contract and has an underpowered camera and limited storage space but despite this our suspicion is that iPhone will do very well in the UK.
Safari will become an important browser
Browsing the web on the iPhone uses the same web browser as the Mac platform; Safari. Even on the iPhone it supports all of the modern browser ideas like tabbed browsing and AJAX. It is also very fast in rendering pages. Safari has recently been rolled out in Beta for Windows too and Nokia has licensed the browser for its N Series mobiles. It has the potential to become a very important browser for developers.
But beyond the browser, the iPhone goes further in making use of parts of Safari for lots of other tasks too. Much has been made of the iPhone’s use of Apple’s OS X as its operating system. A closer look reveals just enough OS X to support Safari functionality. Perhaps that is the reality of the iPhone: it is powered by Safari!
Some technologies such as Flash are currently missing from the iPhone and this is clearly deliberate. The same kinds of interface magic can be achieved using AJAX and by moving developers to think web applications rather than web pages new styles of sites and customer experiences will emerge. This was happening before the iPhone but it is likely to only accelerate the trend.
Designers need to think about mobile visitors
The most radical departure from the normal web experience is the size of the screen (480 x 240). We have all used mobile browsers before but the iPhone’s feels radically different: both more usable and less usable at the same time. It feels more usable in that the whole web is available (minus the Flash only sites). Some tools such as Google Maps and You Tube become fantastic (supported by separate buttons on the main screen) and Safari’s bookmarking makes it easy to return to sites regularly.
The only disappointment is that seeing the whole web through this small window shows how poorly many sites have been designed. All web designers need to think harder about how their visitors will scan, browse, search and respond to their sites when their visitor is mobile.
Apple’s iPhone makes scanning easy. The zoomed out view shows the whole web page exactly as it appears on your PC. A quick double finger tap zooms into the page. A squeeze with two finger zooms out a bit. All very straightforward.
But reading a whole article is harder. The myriad of ads and other distractions annoy more than on a PC. I wanted to slide my finger down the page as I read and this was often made hard, not by the iPhone, but by the designer.
The key must be to encourage all pages to have large titles and subtitles so that from the whole page view the visitor can scan the page and then easily zoom in on what they want to read.
Widgets allow mind sized applications
Perhaps one of the nicest early applications on the iPhone is the weather widget. This is accessed from the main menu and is almost certainly built using the same Safari rendering engine as the browser.
It is nice because it does exactly what you would expect while looking fantastic and it shows what is possible using AJAX for the iPhone and other mobile platforms. Already (within 3 weeks) a collection of widgets have been developed covering everything from sports scores to virtual pets.
Each of these applications is “mind sized” being useful for a specific purpose and each of our clients perhaps should start to plan what “mind sized” applications they would offer to their visitors.
Reduce the amount of typing I have to do
Apple have devised a new form of predictive text input that takes a bit of getting used to but which becomes second nature after a while. As you type, it offers the word and can predict even if you make a spelling mistake. This is certainly not T9.
However good this is, however, it is still not a keyboard and filling in forms, posting comments and other forms of interaction will always be slower than from your PC.
This presents another challenge for clients and web designers. Web sites must continue to encourage interaction but recognise that at least while on the move this must be made as easy as possible. Remember that most users will use a site both from the iPhone and from the PC so remember their details and don’t make them enter them more than once.
Start planning your iPhone site now
Apple’s iPhone will be available in the UK in November or December but it is time to get ready for them now. From what we have seen around the office the mobile web is reaching a tipping point and our designs, our visitor journeys and our plans for online shopping need to reflect this new channel to the web.