How “Different” is the OSS Browser?
We often talk about the browser being a “platform”, meaning that it’s a tool for development of additional capabilities and features. Desktop browsers are certainly platforms; all you need to do is look at Google Labs to see some of what that means. In the early days of Netscape there was plenty of buzz about the browser displacing the operating system as the primary platform for “things users do”.
While the browser certainly has huge potential as a “functionality platform”, I think it has at least as much as a user interface platform. In an S60 device, the OSS browser presents a number of unique user interface (UI) qualities. A web page presents the user with interface tools in ways designed by the page author, using the functions available in the browser. This differs from the more predefined UI environment provided by many other S60 applications.
The browser also provides a main view (content view, in our case) that is not any sort of a list view. We have a pointer (Cursor says I should call this a virtual mouse, just like him), a fairly long list of available options, and present the user with an environment that might reasonably be used with focused attention for long periods. The content in the main view is relatively open-ended in regard to size, design, interactivity, dynamism, form, and function. The browser, compared to other S60 applications, is different.
A question we constantly encounter is how far to go in designing the Browser UI to be functional given the inherently unique qualities it lends to user experience. Should we design the best possible mobile browser UI, or the most S60-compliant mobile browser UI? Sometimes these don’t seem like the same goals at all. I’ll explore these questions more in future posts.
Congratulations for this blog and for S60 Browser!
i love it, i think it’s really better then any other 3rd part browser!
I’ve some question…will we be able to install Browser 2.0 in all S60 3rd edition phones(n80/n91/ect..)??
thanks…bye!!
You can’t call a “user interface platform” something that eats up all the device’s memory and then crashes as soon as another application is started. Before you even think of your program as a “platform”, you have to make its use feasible from inside other applications. Currently, it is not.
Great to see the browser folks blogging!
I second saxen’s question above; I have an N73 and would love to use Browser 2.0 on it! Not to mention getting rid of the clunky ‘Services’ thing. Do you have any public beta program for reindeer? I am sure lots of people would be interested in it.
BTW, the browser blog is still not listed on blogs.s60.com nor is it part of the [combined RSS feed][0].
[0]: http://blogs.s60.com/posts.xml
I wonder why the use of CSS media types were ingnored while developing the new S60 browser?
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/media.html
http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#ddc
As a web designer I am horrified by this. The browser don’t use the HANDHELD stylesheet even if such is provided for the website. The hours of work used to create a mobile friendly and usable website gives nothing for those using the new browser.
I think that many web designers are thinking why even bother if the leading manufacturer of smartphones don’t bother to build technology that allows content providers to work with Web Standards.
It’s great that the browser shows the site as it would on a desktop browser when there is no handheld stylesheet provided. But wouldn’t it be right to show the site as it was designed for mobile devices (if this was done)? If a lot of work has been done to improve the user experience for mobile users why this is ignored?
Now if I want my users to get the site as it was designed for mobile devices I need to program a client or server side script that detects the browser and serves the CSS file accordingly or allows the user to manually switch the style sheet.
The only answer to my question that I can come up with is that by ignoring the use CSS media types Nokia promotes the use of the .mobi domain (http://pc.mtld.mobi/) and it’s the guidelines. The whole .mobi idea in my opinion is stupid and a waste of time. The thought that Nokia would promote this by developing bad browsers sounds like a conspiracy
so we can hopefully dump the idea.
So what is the real reason and are there any changes to this in the horizon?