19
Open Web Camp III
I had this wonderful opportunity to speak at OpenWebCamp III at Stanford University on this weekend, and I feel very honor to be there with so many great speakers and attendees.
Apparently, I have been doing mobile development longer than most of people, I picked the subject on developing mobile web, and how it has been changed and what we can do next.
I covered the topics including:
- How the mobile development has changed from WML, XHTML-MP, HTML4 and finally HTML5 with CSS3
- Legacy to HTML5: using input attributes to make easier for a user to type on phone
- Dealing with smarter phones: Viewport and Media-queries
- High DPI display: CSS pixel != Device pixel
- Device API
My slides, “WAP to HTML5: Mobile web – past, present, and future” is available in html5, not Powepoint or Keynotes so I couldn’t post it on SlideShare!
22
Classification of Mobile Browsers
Today, I am not going to post some CSS3 tricks on Webkit, or stuff like that. Instead, I post a list mobile browsers, since I am often asked about mobile / WAP browsers by engineers, product managers, and mobile-curious or mobile-newbie people.
I gathered 30+ major browsers I have worked with (plus a few I have never even seen), and categorize by the markup that browsers can render – WML, CHTML, XHTML-MP, and HTML4.
So, here you go. If you find some mistakes, let me know!
| WML Browsers (WAP 1.x) | |
|---|---|
| Openwave earliy browsers 4.x | |
| Early Nokia browser | |
| Early Obigo browser | |
| CHTML Browsers (Common in Japan) | |
|---|---|
| CHTML browsers | Compact-HTML browsers |
| Compact NetFront | |
| i-mode browsers (CHTML / XHTML) | NTT Docomo |
| XHTML Browsers (WAP 2.x – XHTML-MP / WML) | |
|---|---|
| WebKit | Nokia S40 |
| Nokia S60 – earlier versions, or “Services” browser | |
| NetFront by Access | Palm Blazer 3.x - |
| Sony Ericsson WAP browser | |
| Blazer by Handspring | original browsers before accured by Palm |
| Openwave 6.x | Siemens |
| Sharp | |
| Sanyo | |
| Motorola | |
| Toshiba | |
| Blackberry by RIM | Blackberry browser- earlier version ~4.3? (*) |
| Obigo by Teleca | |
| Polaris by InfraWare | |
| Helio | |
| Motorola MIB | |
| HTML Browsers | |
|---|---|
| WebKit | Nokia S60 3rd gen., “Web” Mini-map browser |
| Apple Mobile Safari | |
| Google Android | |
| Palm WebOS | |
| Iris, by Torch Mobile (now RIM) | |
| Bitstream Bolt (Proxy) | |
| MOTOMAGX (Motorola Linux devices) | |
| Gecko | Mozilla Minimo (dead?) |
| Mozilla Fennec | |
| Maemo (aka MicroB) | |
| Skyfire | |
| Opera (proxy) | Opera Mobile |
| Opera Mini | |
| Nintendo DSi | |
| Nintendo Wii | |
| Blackberry by RIM | Blackberry browser ver.4.6+ (I am not sure about 4.4 and 4.5) |
| Microsoft Internet Explorer (was Microsoft Pocket IE) | (earlier versions do not support CSS?) |
| NetFront 3.x ? | Sony Ericsson browsers |
| Sony PlayStation / PSP browsers | |
| Palm Blazer 4.x | |
| Amazon Kindle | |
| Teleca | Teleca Browser V3.x ? (LG Voyager) |
| Danger (now by Microsoft) | Sidekick |
I have categorized only with the markup type, and did not sub-categorize these browsers. However, if I would, I may want to grade XHTML-MP devices with page memory size (=”deck size”, yes I said deck size), and screen resolution for UI design purpose.
To grade full-HTML browsers, you need to spend massive time and effort on testing rendering capability with CSS, and Javascript DOM compatibility, events, etc. Actually, PPK has done excellent work on mobile browser testing, so you can simply visit Quirksmode.org!
17
Tried Fennec Milestone Release for Windows Mobile
Last week, Mozilla has released the early version of Firefox Mobile, “Fennec” for Windows Mobile (pre-alpha).
Just like the earlier release was only for VGA Nokia devices like N800, this WinMo-release targets only one device, HTC Touch Pro.
Unfortunately I could not borrow an actual HTC “Fuze” (AT&T version of Touch Pro), so I tested via DeviceAnywhere service.
Just typed in the Mozilla’s ftp address directly on PIE (I have no reasons why I didn’t use the default Opera Mobile), downloading and installing was fine (Pic.1).
I got a pretty Fennec icon on screen. Nice. But I hope Mozilla will make it less jaggy for the next release. (Pic.2)
Clicked the icon and wait, wait, wait… pretty slow. When I almost lost my patience, the browser finally launched… its title bar. Let’s wait for more. -nothing happened.
Quit and relaunched. – the same result.
Re-installed. – the same result. (Pic.3)
 Pic.1 – Installing Fennec |
 Pic.2 – Fennec icon |
 Pic.3 – WTF |
Conclusion: Somebody please help me. I can’t make it work!!!
Links:
- Download URL: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mobile/fennec-0.11.en-US.wince-arm.cab
- Mozilla FTP Index for mobile
- Brad’s Blog – Fennec Milestone Release for Windows Mobile
