There Are Two Mobile Webs

Thanks to ronin691 for the picture.

When adapting a website for mobile phones, not all devices are the same. Web designers are finally starting to distinguish between a visitor using a desktop or laptop web browser, and one who uses a handheld device. Now, however, it's time to make a new distinction: between smartphones and what are called "feature phones".

Feature phones are the kind that still make up most of the cell phones people on the planet use every day, at least right now. Smartphones are the more recent and richer devices like the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

The line between a feature phone and smartphone is fuzzy. Generally, though, a device called a smartphone will have:

• a full keyboard for input (hard and/or soft)
• larger full color screens
• higher data connection speeds
• richer web browsers capable of rendering full XHTML documents
• complete, efficient javascript engines in the web browser

That last one is very important. Have you heard this buzzword AJAX, a key technology behind Web 2.0? AJAX places a very heavy demand on Javascript in the web browser. The original iPhone had one of the first web browsers with a quality Javascript engine, that could load AJAX-intensive websites without quickly draining the battery.

While feature phones still dominate in sheer numbers, smartphones have close to a majority among internet users in the US market. And the fanciest smartphone today will seem like a low end model in a few years.

This make the audience using feature phones, as we know them today, practically a declining market.

What's the lesson? Make smartphones the first priority when building your mobile website. Then as resources and demand justify it, accommodate feature phones as well.