Mobile Devices have become very vital in accessing and using web applications in the society today. They are being used on a momentary basis for different type of activities. From making online bookings for seminars/conferences while on the way to catching a flight to checking bank statements and carrying out bank transfers, catching up with the latest news/information in business, sports, etc; they have integrated into our society and have become tools for accomplishing very varying types of tasks while on the move.
Several technologies exist for delivering web content to these devices. These include developing a separate website for mobile users (mobile site), developing a separate template for mobile devices (mobile theme), developing a native app for smart phones (mobile app), developing adaptive websites (responsive web design), etc.
Based on issues that arise from the use of mobile devices to access web content such as the relatively small screen sizes, mobile operating system capabilities, etc, it has become imperative to deploy the most ideal technology when delivering web content to mobile users. The following are various ways of developing websites for mobile devices:
1. Mobile Site
This involves developing a separate website for mobile devices. This implies that desktop users will be expected to use the desktop site while mobile users, the mobile site. Issues arise with this and they will be detailed in the next section. An example of this is that of Yahoo Inc. which has ‘yahoo.com’ as the desktop site and ‘m.yahoo.com’ as the mobile version.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
2. Mobile Template
This involves building a website to have two templates, one for the desktop and another for mobile devices generally. So, when a user makes a request for the web content, the website is built to detect the user agent and responds appropriately by serving either the standard template for a desktop browser or the mobile template for a mobile browser (NewCity, 2012).
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
3. Mobile App
This involves developing a software/application that behaves like a website, which can be downloaded and installed on mobile devices. The app connects to a web server via an API to serve content to the mobile user. These needs to be developed bearing in mind the device it is being developed for; receiving standard build instructions from the company/organization that owns the device.
An obvious issue with this is the fact that mobile devices run on different operating systems, so to deploy a single website as a mobile app, different versions of the app will have to be developed for different mobile devices in the market today. That implies that a single mobile app could have to be written in C# or Silverlight for Windows Phones, Java for Androids, Objective- C for iPhone and J2ME for Blackberry RIM (Sodnik, 2012).
These mobile apps are sold via authorised online stores such as Apple’s App store, Blackberry’s App World, etc. The device vendors usually charge a commission for every sale of an app for users of their mobile devices.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
4. Responsive Web Design
Having discussed this concept, the advantages and disadvantages are as listed below:
Advantages:
Disadvantage:
5. Hybrids
Also, hybrid implementations exist, in which case, two or more of the options discussed above are implemented together. One of the most common is developing a mobile website that is responsive in nature and this can be found in the case of prominent websites such as the social networking giant; Facebook which has “facebook.com†as the desktop site and “m.facebook.com†as a responsive mobile site and BBC with “bbc.co.uk†as the desktop site and “m.bbc.co.uk†as their responsive mobile site.
These companies/organizations also have native apps developed for different mobile device platforms which offer mobile users a choice between the responsive mobile site and the native app.
Copyright © 2016 Cittrex. All Rights Reserved.