The ever-reliable Scott Karp on Publishing 2.0 has a few things to get off his chest about the mobile web.
Firstly, he says, wireless networks are disappointingly slow which means it is often quicker to phone someone to find out what you need to know.
Secondly, public wi-fi is a rip-off, but then we know that. He's grumbling about being asked to pay $7-10 for a day, but that's pretty good compared to the UK. We'd expect to pay £5-6 an hour. [Cough]
Sites aren't formatted for small screens - shouldn't the technology be up to that now? Even on the "revolutionary" iPhone, things aren't much better because sites are still optimised for an 800x600 screen - it's like "surfing through a keyhole" because you have to zoom all the time.
Mobile screens are just too small anyway, he argues, and that means there are still plenty of things he just won't bother to do on mobile. (You should see how small the keyboard is are on my HTC Touch - no more typing-while-walking.)
Lastly, advertising gets in the way. Unlike on a PC, where most advertising can still be dutifully glazed over at speed, slow web access on phones makes them slow to load and particularly unwelcome.
What's the solution here? Mobile screens can't be bigger unless the device gets bigger, or they introduce some kind of Egyptian-style roll-out scroll screen, which I can't see working. Pixel resolution is constantly being improved, however, so we just have to hope screen quality will improve without too much of an increase in size and advertisers become more sensitive to the medium.
Touch-screen, I'd say, is here to say - so that means everything you see will be through a mist of greasy fingerprints, the thickness of which will be determined by the contents of your last hand-held meal.
Source: Publishing 2.0
