Re: please reivew mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0

You're right. Dan had asked why we think the DDC profile is
less-than-or-equal-to most mobile devices today, and I wanted to show
that even most of the non-web-capable devices fit this description --
of course the web-capable ones do too. I was also trying to provide
crude figures that show people really do use cHTML in Japan.

I don't have good figures handy about how many requests go to
non-mobile Google search (or "/pda" search which features a smaller
interface but full web results). We're talking about some Windows CE
smartphones, some Blackberries, Series 80/90, etc. The question's not
so much "are there more of these devices than less capable devices?"
but, "are there a substantial number of those less capable devices
that want to access the web?" Yes, and, that is why google.com/m even
exists. If it's a substantial means of web access I think it deserves
attention.

Improving those smartphones' access the full web is an important goal.
Bringing some access to lesser devices is merely another goal that's
not mutually exclusive. I do understand the desire to "work" to bring
the web as-is to all devices, but I'm not clear what amount of work
will achieve this on the millions of handsets already out there, and
what magic would ever make a pointer-less, 10-digit-keyboard, 128x128
viewport a viable user agent for the full web. From there it's a
matter of deciding that it's hopeless, that bringing web access to a
phone is as pointless as bringing it to a stapler, or else deciding
that it needs a different approach.


On 6/18/07, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:
> That statistic doesn't tell about the overall mobile capabilities
> because users of the capable mobile browsers are more likely to use
> the same Google search that desktop users use. Hence, counting only /
> m is of course biased towards browsers that aren't not suitable for
> browsing the World Wide Web in general.

Received on Monday, 18 June 2007 19:00:10 UTC