Some exciting news that has been bouncing around the Android community is that the popular Browser development company "Mozzila" has begun development to "Androidise" their current browser "Firefox".
Android guys has reported that murmurings from the German Firefox community suggest that a fully functional version of the Browser could be available for Android within the next 6 months, with the beta available by February.
This is obviously very exciting news, and with Adobe saying that full Flash for Android will arrive in roughly the same time frame, web browsing on mobile devices is set to step up a notch.
I personally use Dolphin when browsing on my Hero; however the new interface leaves much to be desired. The older version had a much more useable interface which this version has lost.
Whilst writing this post I began to think what I would love to see in a mobile web browser, and which current browser apps fit the bill.
Interface
Obviously one of the limiting factors for mobile browsers is the lack of real estate to play with. When using a computer, laptop, or net book developers have a lot more space on the screen to place features. However mobile devices lack this space and thus require developers to think on their feet.
The Dolphin developers have got around this by using an unorthodox method of inputting commands. The "Gestures" function allows a user to program certain shapes that are drawn on screen to tie up with specific commands. For example if a user wishes to go forward in a browser session they could use the default L shape. This feature saves space by removing the requirement for bulky buttons. However it’s not really a firm replacement as the feature sometimes finds it hard to recognise certain shapes and thus doesn't always work.
I believe Dolphin has gone down the right path in moving away from the "norm" and developing tools and interfaces that move away from the standard, however a lot more work needs to be done to develop this to a practical replacement for the "standard" options.
Displaying a Web page
One of the other major problems with mobile internet browsing is that most websites are developed to display at their best on a certain range of resolutions. The resolution most mobile devices operate with sadly is rarely included in this range.
However most large, well designed websites will have a mobile version that is designed to display better on mobile devices. However these websites rarely show the full range of content and normally strip out most pictures and other content that user may want to see.
Gone are the days of the old WAP pages that we saw on the Nokia 3330's but companies still design mobile pages to be well below the capabilities of many Apple, Windows, Symbian and of course Android devices.
Android and Apple have both developed a similar concept to get around this in that the content of the page is reformatted to fit a mobile device. This is great and I would personally like to see this improved to reformat all content on the page and not just the text and some pictures.
Flash
As I stated Adobe has announced that we should see full flash on most mobile devices within the next 6 months. This would greatly improve the browsing experience for all, but how will this impact upon the so called "unlimited" data plans offered by most service providers.
Flash will obviously use up more of a user’s data plan than other web content and I wonder whether or not this could cause problems.
It would be nice to see service providers improving and increasing the service and bandwidth to tie in with improvements in mobile browsing.
Craigs Final Thought
Basically I believe a browser needs to be simple, clean, able to display content at its best, and easy to use.
But it will take a lot from developers, and service providers to do this.
And so I leave you with something to think about...
"With the advent of mobile web browsing, and how it’s growing and changing, is the lowly mobile phone on its last legs, will the next generation of mobile devices be physically optimised to improve browsing ability or will mobile browsers have to change to cater for mobile devices of today."
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