RE: ISSUE-254 (DDC 1.1): Revision of DDC and Retroactive Effect on BP1 [Best Practices Document]

According to a quick analysis by MobileAware's device support team, requiring mobileOK to include support for PNG would mean that an additional 4% of devices (by type) (*1) would be incapable of accepting any mobileOK content without the risk of getting images they can't display (*2).

Of course, many of these are older devices and may have long-ago been discarded/replaced, so it's impossible to give any figures for the number of *people* who would be affected, even if you were to factor in the sales volume for each device. Accurate global usage stats are not available. The devices are still in use, occasionally, but generally not for accessing the Web because the experience is usually awful (and often expensive).

We would not object to the mobileOK minimum requirements being incremented to include PNG support. A mobileOK site that relied exclusively on PNG for its images would still be acceptable to the extreme majority of Web-enabled mobile devices in use by people who (wish to) access the Web. The affected minority of models (comprising around 200) would barely be described as "Web enabled" by their owners, so we don't believe that they would be getting much worse than the poor experience they already get.

---Rotan.

(*1) In our analysis we allowed for devices that can't support JPEG, so are already incapable of accepting mobileOK without risks.

(*2) Like most adaptation solution vendors, MobileAware has a comprehensive device database, but individual databases will vary. So expect different results if you use your own data. Nevertheless, we think our result is fairly close to accurate.


-----Original Message-----
From: public-bpwg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-bpwg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group Issue Tracker
Sent: 22 May 2008 20:07
To: public-bpwg@w3.org
Subject: ISSUE-254 (DDC 1.1): Revision of DDC and Retroactive Effect on BP1 [Best Practices Document]


ISSUE-254 (DDC 1.1): Revision of DDC and Retroactive Effect on BP1 [Best Practices Document]

http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/BPWG/Group/track/issues/


Raised by: Jo Rabin
On product: Best Practices Document

My ACTION-698 has me raising this issue, 

Fwiw: If we are to revise the DDC to include support for PNG then we are saying that you can't be a Web capable device unless you support PNG. (We already say implicitily that you can't be a Web capable device if you don't support GIF and JPEG).

If we are to make this change, or indeed any other change to the DDC, now would be the time to do it, i.e. prior to Last Call IV on mobileOK Basic which could be adjusted to suit, if necessary.

here is the context:

Back to ADC

    Jo: agenda is to talk about mobileOK, but before that, I'd like to
    come back to Jonathan's input on ADC
    ... The thing is we need to update DDC for BP2
    ... for instance, support for PNG may be assumed
    ... The suggestion is BP2 contains a revised version of DDC and
    reviewed BPs of BP1

    Bryan: The presence of DDC without saying that it does not limit the
    best practices of BP2 might lead to confusion

    Jo: Yes, we need to be clear that it's the minimal delivery context,
    not the target but the baseline
    ... If you know nothing about the target, then assume (revised) DDC
    ... Other than PNG, I don't really think DDC needs changing
    ... I'll raise an issue on that

    <jo> ACTION: JR to raise issue of revising DDC and to raise
    discussion of the revised definition being retroactive to BP1
    [recorded in
    [92]http://www.w3.org/2008/03/04-bpwg-minutes.html#action13]

    <trackbot-ng> Created ACTION-698 - Raise issue of revising DDC and
    to raise discussion of the revised definition being retroactive to
    BP1 [on Jo Rabin - due 2008-03-11].

Received on Friday, 23 May 2008 10:20:01 UTC