We recntly built Infocore a mobile version of their site, complete with mobile device detection and a multi-use mobile template that is not only attractive on the latest devices, but degrades gracefully for older or smaller handhelds.

It was a fun project and we're glad that Infocore chose us for their new mobile presence on the web.

LibMob, the mobile book research solution, is back in business after a revamped mobile template and updated back end.

Amazon changed their product APIs recently, forcing us to swap in latest PEAR's Services_Amazon class and write a custom wrapper to integrate it into the existing LibMob engine.

I have to stop reading Raven's blog posts -- he had another post about how free iPhone apps help Apple sell iPhones, and I totally agree.

The varied and strongly useful functionality found in some of the top free apps really helps Apple keep the iPhone selling strong. I've run into many people who see me use AroundMe or Shazaam and suddenly want an iPhone, too. Anyone who has seen iPhone commercials knows how well they show off the many useful things you can do with an iPhone. That's something that really irks me about the new Blackberry commercials -- iPhone commercials show all the cool things you can do with your iPhone via the OS and the apps. Blackberry mentions the touch screen and vaguely notes that the Storm and Bold are "faster" and let you surf the web and check emails. Like there aren't already a million phones out there (smartphone or otherwise) that let you surf the web and check emails. Come on, Blackberry, are you going to go fully into the obvious and mention how you can make phone calls, too?

I was actually excited about the Storm and Bold opening up BB ownership, because there are some pretty cool apps for the BB (e.g. TellMe -- say "coffee" into the handset & it'll pull up coffee shops near you using GPS, no typing required). But honestly, I think BB is shooting themselves in the foot by refusing to go after anyone who isn't already a Blackberry owner, and it's a huge shame -- for people who don't like the iPhone (or don't like AT&T), the Blackberry could have been a sexy, appealing alternative if they only knew how neat it can be.

I was talking iPhone webapps last night with some other developers & the discussion turned to Javascript debugging. Thanksfully, most mobile web apps don't use a lot of javascript (mainly because they should be simple apps & mobile devices don't have the horsepower to do tons of javascript). But still, I rooted around and this post from Christopher Hill about enabling javascript debugging in Safari with Drosera. However, it only works in the Mac version of Safari, and you should grab the nightly build to boot.

If you're testing on Windows, you can get by with Firebug/Firefox for heavy & initial debugging, and then using Safari's Developer tools (enabled in the Preferences->Advanced dialog) and Safari's javascript console to echo out debug statements using javascript code like this:

if(window.console) {
        window.console.log("some debugging text");
    } 

A very near-term heads up that I'll be participating in the RWW Live chat on mobile web development this afternoon at 3:30pm PST. I'm not yet sure how much focus will be on mobile web versus mobile native applications, but hopefully my perspective on web sites targeting handhelds and iPhones will be useful in rounding out the conversation.

FYI, those of you with a Ning social network can look forward to an iPhone-optimized interface after tonight's release. It will be an iPhone web app (not a native app), and while iPhones will automatically be shown the iPhone interface, you can go there manually by browsing to http://yournetwork.ning.com/m. While you can participate in the network, not every feature is available for the iPhone interface.

We're glad to see companies moving forward with developing optimized versions of their sites for the iPhone and other handheld devices -- while "normal" sites are often tolerable on  an iPhone, sometimes it's better to present a faster, more usable interface that focuses on what a mobile user likes to do the most.

Edit: the release has been pushed back to Friday, September 26th. Then again it's been pushed back a few times before, but we shall see.

We're happy to announce the beta launch of LibMob, a mobile web site allowing you to get information about a particular book while you're at the book store or the library. LibMob can be accessed by SMS, iPhone, or most cell phones with web access. So the next time you want reviews or online prices for a particular book, try out LibMob.

We've gotten some good feedback about our new design, and as part of our ongoing redesign we rolled out an iPhone version of our web site. If you're looking to make a mobile version of your web site, contact us.

From the WURFL list, some good suggestions on ways to simulate mobile browsers & test mobile-aware web apps using Firefox plugins:

Tom Thurston suggests

...the firefox "user agent switcher" extension. Just add it, and create profiles for all the devices you wish to "emulate", i.e. use MOT-V3 and your platform will think that you are a motorola v3 hitting your site, and render xhtml-mp, and deliver the appropriate assets, even though you are on a web browser.

Alejandro Guerrieri says :

The "user agent switcher" for Firefox is a great tool. I usually combine it with 3 more plugins that can make your life happier and easier:

- "Modify Headers" -> https://addons. mozilla.org/ firefox/967/

Allows you to modify _any_ header being sent by Firefox. It can replace "user agent switcher" since you can set the header "user-agent" also, but UAS it's quite more convenient for that (select the UA from a drop down menu). Anyway, if you want to set any other header (like some "accept" or maybe "x-msisdn") this is the tool to do it.

- "wmlbrowser" -> https://addons. mozilla.org/ firefox/62/

Allows your Firefox to render WML pages, though some features doesn't work like a real device (most notably "on enter forward"). Anyway, really great
to test WML-Only pages or try WURFL with "retro" devices ;)

- "XHTML Mobile Profile" -> https://addons. mozilla.org/ firefox/1345/

Adds support to mime-type "application/ vnd.wap.xhtml+ xml", not natively supportd by firefox, which only supports "application/ xhtml+xml" .

I usually develop with those four plugins. Sometimes I also use some SDK's from device manufacturers, but most of the time I use Firefox with that plugins enabled.

Thanks Tom and Alejandro!

position:absolute had a post about the new Opera Mini Simulator, and I must admit it work really well. Now granted you can also download normal the Opera browser & run it in "Small Screen" mode, but the simulator seems better.