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Re: iPhone with screen CSS support?

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From: Tim Beadle
Date: Sep 17, 2007 1:40AM

On 15/09/2007, Jorge Fernandes < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Recently I put this question "Why doesn't Safari support the handheld
> CSS media type in iPhone?" in a Portuguese forum. The answers was a
> little agressive and seems me that I broke a leg to the "handheld"
> iPhone. Seems me that call "handheld" to an iPhone is offending it...

I don't have an iPhone, but I do have Opera Mini 4 Beta on my mobile
phone. Its approach seems very sensible: if there's a handheld style
sheet, use it; otherwise render the page almost as a desktop browser
would, but with zooming functionality to allow you to read text.

http://www.operamini.com/beta/

I have one other comment, though: just applying a handheld media type
style sheet isn't enough on its own. The content itself needs to be
tailored for the mobile context both for ease of use and to minimise
the amount of data sent to the device.

Good examples (IMHO):
http://m.facebook.com/ (wml - won't work in a desktop browser)
http://m.upcoming.yahoo.com/

Now, the good thing about Upcoming is that they only suggest that you
use the mobile version when you access the site using a mobile device;
the "full-fat" version is still an option. I know this breaks device
independence, but it meant that I could access the full record of an
event when I was out and about last week.

OK - one more comment: making iPhone-only sites is dumb.

Regards,

Tim