iPhone-optimized sites make mobile browsing a ‘tap’

02May08

In the months leading up to the launch of its prolific iPhone, computing giant Apple touted the device as the tool that would change the way people looked at the Internet.

What Apple didn’t expect was how the iPhone would change the Internet itself.

In a burgeoning movement to better meet the needs of the more than three million iPhone users, many popular web sites are developing new “iPhone-friendly” versions of themselves. Unlike the stripped-down pages available on pre-existing mobile web platforms, web developers say these new iPhone sites pack the same punch as a regular web site in a leaner, meaner and faster format.

While your home or office version of CNN.com, for example, provides full videos, photo galleries, and advertising, the iPhone version offers a simple, easy-to-read layout full of mostly stories, links and essential photos. Minus the multimedia, the content manages to cross over.

Because the iPhone is the first mobile device capable of accessing full versions of all web sites, its users are changing their habits. In a recent third-party study of more than 450 iPhone users, 77 percent said they’ve increased the amount of web browsing they do on the go because of the iPhone’s unprecedented capabilities. Almost a third said they’ve even stopped toting their notebook computers in favor of the iPhone’s handheld convenience.

According to Scott Kleinberg, iPhone expert and host of ChicagoTribune.com’s weblog “iPhone, Therefore I Blog,” none of this was ever supposed to happen.

“The web on the iPhone was supposed to be the regular web, there was never supposed to be an iPhone version,” Kleinberg said. “But people got lazy.”

The iPhone is capable of viewing almost any web site because it uses the standard Apple browser, Safari. But iPhoneS can’t display many video and animation programs like Flash, which are necessary to view some website content. Also, users say the size and shape of the screen can make navigating around a page difficult.

In response, many popular websites — including Facebook, Digg, Google, eBay and Amazon, as well as many news sites like CNN.com and FoxNews.com — have cleaned-up their act. They’ve made text and graphics larger and clearer, removed animation that requires Flash, and listed separate pages in simple, easy-to-tap tabs, all without watering down content. iPhone browsers are automatically directed to these sleek new pages whenever they navigate to their favorite optimized websites.

Though the sites are simplified, the fact that the iPhone uses Safari means the changes don’t require a new programming skill set. This makes for a much more natural learning curve for web designers ready to start building.

“That’s the real beauty of it,” said Jason Fried, president of Chicago-based web company 37signals, which provides web-based organizational calendars and to-do lists. “Designers don’t even have to learn anything new. They aren’t designing a mobile web site, they’re just designing a website.”

Because the iPhone doesn’t have a built-in task manager or to-do list program, Fried said his company was perfect to fill the void. Shortly before the iPhone’s release, Tadalist.com – which Fried launched in 2005 as an online task management service – was quickly “iPhone-optimized” by 37signals web designers. Now users can access the site quickly and conveniently by adding an icon link to Tadalist.com on their iPhone desktops.

When Tadalist users visit the site from their iPhones, they’re directed to a simple login screen and easy-to-navigate layout with all the same content and capability their home or office computers would provide. Bolder fonts, wider margins and simple, organized lists and tabs make using the site a snap – or rather, a tap.

Fried said the iPhone is the only mobile platform that developers are seriously exploring today.

“The passionate, enthusiastic developers aren’t building things on Windows Mobile or Palm, they’re on the iPhone,” Fried said. “Before the iPhone, the web on cell phones was a terrible, miserable, depressing place to be.”

Unlike the iPhone sites’ combination of full content and ease of use, most mobile web sites offer only limited access to the sites’ features, are poorly laid-out and are difficult to navigate. Users fed up with tiny fonts, awkward navigational arrows and slow text entry capabilities say these platforms can leave much to be desired.

Rhea Coffern, 21, of Chicago said she never used the browser on her old cell phone. But since she bought her iPhone three months ago, she said many of her daily tasks are “a million times easier.”

Coffern, a junior at Columbia College Chicago, said she uses the iPhone’s simplified version of Facebook to do almost everything she’s used to doing on her computer – updating her status, browsing pictures and other profiles, and posting on friends’ walls – without missing her computer.

Coffern said the iPhone-optimized sites are just another example of how the Internet is evolving to fit users’ needs.

“That’s what sells them,” Coffern said. “People will always want something that’s quick and easy, because it’s never enough already.”

The San Francisco-based Meebo.com, which provides web-based instant messaging service for big clients like AOL and Yahoo, was another company to look for ways to utilize the iPhone’s technology the day the device was released. Meebo’s developers responded to the iPhone’s lack of instant messaging capabilities by retooling their own software to fit inside the iPhone’s touch screen in a user-friendly way, much the way Fried reworked Tadalist.com. Now, just eight months after launching its iPhone version, Meebo is regarded by many technology forums as one of the top iPhone-optimized websites running.

“Users seem to like it a lot,” said Seth Sternberg, Meebo’s CEO. “A good web browser should work on any computer, including mobile computers. Apple recognized this, and knew it would bring a lot of innovation. We’re just following their lead.”

Kleinberg said this is an example of how companies are striving to understand how the iPhone will affect future business – both online and otherwise.

Kleinberg said the iPhone represents a convergence of tools and abilities that could reshape a variety of markets. E-book capabilities on the iPhone could impact publishing markets; its remote control capabilities could affect everything from home theaters to automatic car locks. Users could even order Frappuccinos ahead from their iPhone browsers, have them ready on arrival at Starbucks, and pay for them automatically through iTunes.

Klienberg said the possibilities are endless.

“I don’t think there’s any company that doesn’t feel threatened by what the iPhone can do,” Kleinberg said. “Even if they can’t think of a physical link to themselves right now.”

Coffern is all for strides toward greater convenience for users. She said this proves that despite what she once thought, the Internet can be both portable and useful at the same time

“Mobile web is definitely the future,” she said. “The two are going to have to grow hand in hand.”

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Tags: Apple, iPhone, Meebo, Technology, WebApps