Comment Poor Article (Score 1) 220
The problem I have with the article is that it is pretty easy to get misled by what's being said, probably because the author wrote the article more to generate a reaction, than to outline what is actually wrong with the mobile web.
The first mistake that the author makes is to suggest that the mobile web is somehow a 'scaling out' of the desktop web. It isn't. A mobile phone has a particular set of properties which make it significantly different to a desktop browser web experience. It's not just a smaller screen that's attempting to present exactly the same web application as the desktop but in miniature. May people fail to make this distinction, and their web sites/mobile apps reflect that failure.
If you think this, then you fall into the trap of not recognising the mobile as a unique type of device. For one thing users don't want to spend extended periods browsing on a mobile device, supported technologies are not likely to support 'desktop' level performance, mainly because of the trade-off between battery life and performance. With the current range of mobile devices, the network connections aren't reliable, unless you're fortunate enough to always have a wifi connection. There will always be memory and performance constraints with mobiles, at least for the foreseeable future verse the desktop, thats just the nature of the beast.
If you know anything about web browser evolution, you'll know that even when just two browsers had most of the market share, serious compatibility issues were everywhere, built for IE, built for Firefox, best experienced in Opera. These days its not as bad for desktop browsers, but it'll take a while for mobile browsers to get compatible with other mobile browsers, let alone desktop browsers as well.
Can existing web technologies handle it,
So, back to the original 'sad state of the mobile web' bit. Does it matter that much at the moment? Probably not. The main options you have are use your desktop browser if a task takes more than a few minutes to complete, or 'there's an app for that' - you just have to find it.
Strange as it may seem, mobile phones aren't just about mobile web. They're about the convergence of a number of technologies, internet connectivity, phone, sms, music, camera, video, GPS/location, touch and interaction on the move. There's whole new vistas of opportunity for creating new experiences, tools, and services because of what you can now carry around with you in your pocket.
Sure, you can spend your time worrying about how you're gonna squeeze Amazon.com into the latest version of webkit for the Nokia, or you can spend your time creating solutions you could only have dreamed of a few years back. The mobile web may indeed be sad, but some of us are not that bothered.
