JAH Web Development Blog

Tuesday 29 June 2010

Is Your Website Ready for Mobile Internet?

Unless you've been under a rock for the past year, you can't have failed to notice the dramatic rise in popularity of mobile devices capable of browsing the Internet. In particular Apple's iPhone, new Blackberry devices and a number of smart phones running Google's Android operating system are now all capable of surfing the net in a similar fashion to the way we do so on a desktop or laptop computer. The bad news is that many websites don't render properly on these devices and if your website is one of them, you could be losing potential business right now.

The main issues that affect these mobile devices is their ability to play video and Flash content on the web. This is due to an absence of the necessary plug-in or codec in the mobile's browser software. For instance, you may well have heard about the recent spat between Adobe and Apple regarding the lack of Flash support on the iPhone (this post from Steve Jobs and this newspaper advert from Adobe will give you a good idea of what's been going on). Add to this the recent release of the iPad and the iPhone4 and it soon becomes clear that the problem is only going to get bigger.

If you would like to know whether your website is mobile friendly or want to find out what you can do to ensure the best possible browsing experience for all your customers, please get in touch.