Mobile Awesomeness Blog

If you have an iPhone-optimized version of your website or web app, check out Apple's brief guide to preparing your web content for the iPad. In most cases it's a better idea to show the full website to iPad browsers instead of the mobile version.

Ironically, Apple doesn't seem to follow their own advice. The guide doesn't work properly when viewing it on the iPad. Oh well, the iPad is still awesome!

This article over at InstantShift.com is a great summary for web designers getting into mobile. The article also makes mention of Mobile Awesomeness!

Mobi10 is a hosted service that simplifies the process of creating a mobile-optimized website by providing some nice testing and WYSIWYG tools for customers. Pricing ranges from $10-20/month and it looks like their focus is on Apple, Blackberry, Android and Palm devices.

Related services:

• Mobify
• MoFuse
• Wapple

Have you ever wondered what percentage of your website traffic is visiting from a mobile device? Wonder no more with Percent Mobile. 

Google recently announced much better support in Analytics for tracking mobile websites. Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to install it.

September saw more than 10.2 billion requests on the AdMob network. They also released a good article about how to put their statistics in context.

Top 5 Countries

   1. United States (47.3%, 0.8%)
   2. India (6.5%, 0.3%)
   3. Indonesia (4.7%, -0.8%)
   4. United Kingdom (3.4%, -0.7%)
   5. Philippines (3.1%, -0.7%)

Top 5 Worldwide Handsets

   1. Apple iPhone (16.9%, 0.3%)
   2. Apple iPod Touch (8.4%, -1.7%)
   3. HTC Dream (2.8%, 0.7%)
   4. Samsung R450 (2.5%, -0.3%)
   5. Palm Pre (2.0%, 0.5%)

Top 5 US Handsets

   1. Apple iPhone (18.9%, -0.8%)
   2. Apple iPod Touch (9.2%, -4.2%)
   3. HTC Dream (5.5%, 1.6%)
   4. Samsung R450 (5.3%, -0.7%)
   5. Palm Pre (4.1%, 1.0%)

Download the full report here: http://metrics.admob.com/2009/10/september-2009-mobile-metrics-report/

Developers can now enable advanced Google Analytics stats for their mobile websites AND applications by downloading and installing a small snippet of code.

Read the full article.

Wapple is another premier mobile framework at the disposal of web developers these days. The great thing about frameworks is that you can be sure your mobile site works across thousands of devices, and device detection should be spot on. It's a great way to go if you are limited on time, budget or desire to do extensive mobile device/browser testing.

Wapple offers three public business packages, ranging from roughly $150 USD/month to roughly $1,400 USD/month. Free trials are available, and for developers they have a program that gives unlimited access to their API for free. So it's definitely on the high end of the price spectrum, but they have some serious technology to backup the price.

The 3 Wapple products are slightly confusing at first, because all of them are included with any package. Canvas is a GUI, which allows creation of a mobile website using simple drag-and-drop tools. Coders wanting control of their own HTML/CSS won't be disappointed either.

The other two products, Architect and Exhibit are what separates Wapple from other mobile frameworks. Architect allows developers to mobilize their current website or application using Wapple's proprietary, XML-based language, called WAPL.

The beauty of using WAPL markup is when it calls on the other product, Exhibit. Exhibit profiles the device by handset, hardware/firmware, browser, carrier and more to deliver your website content in a form that is truly optimized for the device, whether the output is WML, CHTML, XHTML or HTML. You create ONE site, and Exhibit optimizes it for every available device with the most advanced profiling available. It eliminates the need for extensive testing across various mobile handsets and browsers.

While Wapple is more expensive than it's counterparts Mobify and MoFuse, their advanced tools give developers great control over the user experience, with minimal time invested. I'd like to see SSL security available as an option for all accounts, and MANY more page impressions included with an account. Paying $150/month for only 500 page views per day won't cut it for most websites or applications. All that aside, it is a really well-done platform that is certainly worth a look.

Here are some highlights from the most recent AdMob metrics report, released a couple of weeks ago:

• Apple continues their market domination. Market share for the iPhone and iPod touch increased 5.7% and 4.7% respectively in the U.S. and 3.4% and 1.8% worldwide. This represents the largest increase of any of the devices in the study.
• The HTC Dream (aka G1) passes the Motorola Z6M to become the fifth most popular handset in the United States Market. The G1's market share increased by 0.3% while the Motorola Z6M dropped 0.5%.
• G1, Apple, and Nokia were the only manufacturers to see increases in the their worldwide market share.

The following stats are based on 7,997,946,483 requests:

Top 5 Countries

   1. United States (47.6%, +0.6%)
   2. Indonesia (8.8%, -2.0%)
   3. India (5.9%, 0.0%)
   4. Philippines (3.8%, -0.2%)
   5. United Kingdom (3.5%, +0.2%)

Top 5 Worldwide Handsets

   1. Apple iPhone (18.6%, +3.4%)
   2. Apple iPod Touch (12.8%, +1.8%)
   3. Samsung R450 (2.2%, -0.3%)
   4. Motorola RAZR V3 (1.9%, -0.4%)
   5. Nokia N70 (1.9%, -0.1%)

Top 5 US Handsets

   1. Apple iPhone (25.7%, +5.7%)
   2. Apple iPod Touch (19.4%, +4.7%)
   3. Samsung R450 (4.5%, -0.6%)
   4. Motorola RAZR V3 (3.4%, -0.9%)
   5. HTC Dream (2.6%, +0.3)

Download the full report here: http://www.admob.com/s/solutions/metrics

Here are some highlights from the most recent AdMob metrics report, released a couple of weeks ago:

• This month's summary is short and sweet: the iPhone OS (includes iPod Touch) continues to dominate the AdMob network as far as market share goes. It accounts for 65% of all HTML site requests, and 43% of mobile website requests. Android is creeping in at 9% (HTML) and 3% (mobile) respectively, and Symbian represents 7% (HTML) and 36% (mobile). Optimize for these devices first, and you are likely covering the majority.
• RIM's market share continues to decline each month. The manufacturer now only has a 3% worldwide market share, 5.6% in the US and only has 2 phones in the top 20.

The following stats are based on 7,535,272,901 requests:

Top 5 Countries

1. United States (47%, -0.5%)
2. Indonesia (10.8%, +1.6%)
3. India (5.9%, -1.7%)
4. Philippines (4.0%, +0.1%)
5. United Kingdom (3.4%, +0.5%)

Top 5 Worldwide Handsets

1. Apple iPhone (15.1%, +1.9%)
2. Apple iPod Touch (11%, +2.2%)
3. Samsung R450 (2.4%, +0.5%)
4. Motorola RAZR V3 (2.3%, -0.4%)
5. Nokia N70 (2.0%, -0.1%)

Top 5 US Handsets

1. Apple iPhone (20.0%, +3.0%)
2. Apple iPod Touch (14.8%, +2.6%)
3. Samsung R450 (5.2%, +1%)
4. Motorola RAZR V3 (4.4%, -0.7%)
5. Motorola Z6M (2.7%, -0.3)

Download the full report here: http://www.admob.com/s/solutions/metrics