Mobile Web must die!
Mowser, a startup that concentrated on mobile web browsing, is no more. While it's sad to see a startup die, especially one where the founder put in so much work, heart and money go under, I think that it's time for the whole concept of mobile web to die.
Mobile web is a product of a "think small" mentality. In the early days it was necessary to have that "think small" mentality because the hardware and software of the time just wasn't up to delivering a full-on web experience on an ultra-portable device. That age is now coming to a close and devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch have shown us that it is possible to have a decent browsing experience on a mobile device.
The days of the term mobile being used as an excuse to deliver a web experience where pages are jumbled (sometimes beyond comprehension) and access to online services is limited should be at an end, or at the very least coming to an end. Modern devices have the storage capacity and processing power to be able to deliver a lot more than that and software vendors now need to abandon the term mobile web, along with all the "think small" attitude that came with that, and instead concentrate on a single word - web.
I mentioned earlier how the iPhone and iPod touch are now at the cutting edge when it comes to offering a good web experience when on the move. However, the Safari browser on these devices is far from perfect. There's still a lot of work to be done. For example:
- Support for Flash
- Better caching
- An effective way to synchronize bookmarks between the desktop PC and the mobile device
- Better security
- Lots and lots of usability tweaks
Forget mobile web. Think web!
Thoughts? What do you want to see from the web when you are on the move?