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cross-platformmobile-website

Cross-platform mobile website application design

I will need your valuable advice on developing mobile website for mobile devices. I've never developed any website for mobile devices, and that's why I will be so pleased if you could share your thoughts with me. My questions are

  • Can I assume that using html5 is safe and my web application would run on the most of the mobile devices web browsers? If it doesn't which one is the most supported standard so I should consider using it?

  • Is Javascript supported on most of the mobile web browsers? Is it safe to use javascript on my web application?

  • What is the most used web browser on mobile devices? Which one should I take into account, the mobile device OS and Model or the web browsers used on mobile devices ?

  • How can I compile my web application for more than one mobile web browser / or mobile OS (whichever is applicable)

  • Is there a nice book on developing mobile web sites for cross platforms?

Thank you so much, looking forward to your answers.... Cheers

Solution

  • The compatibility of mobile sites is one of challenges in mobile web doevelopment. Since there are a lot of devices that have different browsers and browser engines.

    1. HTML5 is now getting popular for developing mobile site. As far as I know, devices that work well with HTML5 is : Android, iOS, Symbian > 3rd edition, Blackberry with OS6, WebOS, and Windows Phone 7 (though it has very limited support). The other standard used is XHTML MP which work with low-end to high-end devices. But XHTML MP has very limited features compared to HTML5. I usually creating 2 mobile site, one for low-end with XHTML MP and one with HTML5 for mid-end to high-end.

    2. Not all mobile web browser support JS. For low-end devices such as early Nokia s40 it doesn`t support JS. But for higher end devices, it support JS. When a browser support HTML5, it also support JS :D

    3. I don't know the exact answer for it. But you might take a look at http://jquerymobile.com . jQueryMobile is a framework for creating mobile site for phone and tablet it has also the compatibility comparison at http://jquerymobile.com/gbs/

    4. For books, I don`t know good books for it. But you can get a book for jquery mobile here.

    Hope this helps you and correct me if I am wrong :D