The Next Big Thing in Mobile: Browser Extensibility
(Cross-Posted from http://ollywomp.us/)
I was reading a post this morning over at Ari Jaaksi’s Blog (Ari is
the head of development for the Nokia Internet Tablet platform among
other things), entitled "Mobile Web is Dead",
and it got me to thinking about something. Ari is essentially arguing
that the idea of a ‘mobile web’, i.e. wap sites and wml formatted data
for small screens, is going the way of the dodo. As mobile browsers
have become more sophisticated (thanks in large part to the efforts of
folks like Opera, with their great mobile browser), the ‘real web’ has become more and more accessible.
While I have no argument with Ari’s core claim here, I do have to
ask the question: how are companies like Nokia going to help bridge the
gap between the mobile web and the full web? If mobile web is truly
dying and we are moving more towards the full web on mobile devices,
then there needs to be some enabling technology to make the transition
smoother. Personally, I think the answer is going to be browser
extensibility.
As of right now, there are large sections of the web that are locked
out from being viewed on a mobile device, either at all or at least
well. The first big hurdle was JavaScript … when Opera Mobile first
debuted, along with it’s competitors at the time (Netfront for one, and
does anyone else remember Doris?), the focus was simply on getting HTML
to translate well to the mobile device. Thanks to things like ‘fit to
screen’, side scrolling was largely eliminated… and Nokia’s own S60
browser, with it’s innovative ‘mini-map’ function has done wonders for
seeing an actual entire web page on a screen that is often no larger
than a couple of inches diaganol. Over the evolution of all this,
JavaScript support was added, so that even more complex web pages could
be viewed (to the point now where I can even view my bank’s website,
which is full of https:// and JavaScript, reliably enough to do
transactions if I want to).
Though it hasn’t fully had the kinks worked out, even Flash support
is slowly trickling down to the mobile space (again, Opera was an
innovator here, such as the Opera browser on the Internet Tablet
platform). While no means perfect, the N800 can at least view Flash
content (such as YouTube), whereas even a year ago the thought of a
PDA-style device (the N800 is so much more, but you get the idea) being
capable of Flash at all seemed pretty far off.
So, to bring it back around, we’ve seen the mobile browsing
experience gradually move closer to the desktop browsing experience –
even to the point of AJAX sites working on the Tablets (though not
always as well as I’d like!).
But through all this, there’s been an element of playing ‘catch-up’
to the Desktop world. And, as so many marketing folks could tell you,
playing ‘catch-up’ just doesn’t work for Average Joe consumer — the
experience needs to be as close to what they are used to as possible.
The real problem with this, at least so far, is being stuck in the
paradigm of ‘firmware’ rather than software. Because of the nature of
embedded devices, it’s not as easy of upgrade path to add new features
as it is on the Desktop. If Firefox needs to be updated because some
new ‘Web 2.0" tech is confusing it, it’s a download away to do so. On
my S60 phone, however, I’m still waiting for some of the newer AJAX’y
stuff to be accessible to me (obviously there are technical
considerations here too, such as processor speed and ram; I by no means
want to underplay that). This brings me back to browser extensibility,
however, as the next big step towards a truly great mobile browsing
experience.
What cell phone manufacturers, and particuarly folks like Intel and
Nokia with their Web Tablet’s, need to do is work on making the browser
less a static piece of software that’s a part of the embedded firmware,
and more a contantly evolving portal. When I’m viewing something in
Firefox and it doesn’t work, I typically know that there’s a plugin I
can add that will make it work. This transcends OS platform (for the
most part), because I can make Flash work on Linux, Windows, OS X, etc.
I want the same capability in my mobile device, if it’s truly going to
be a good replacement for large parts of my browsing needs.
Now, I’m not your typical consumer when it comes to mobile content.
I use mobile content FAR more than most people do; I check my email,
instant message, read RSS, surf the web, post to forums, etc. But even
I run into problems all the time with this, in that the ‘real web’ is
always a step or two ahead of my mobile capabilities. An extensible
mobile browser would solve this problem, in many ways. When I run into
something I can’t run, I want the same message I see in Firefox on my
desktop to appear on my mobile, i.e. ‘you need x plugin to make this
work, go here to download it’.
Now, we are getting closer to this from what I’ve seen. The Minimo project,
which is a port of Firefox to the mobile device world, holds a lot of
promise in this arena (one of it’s advantages that it has listed is
it’s "Widget and Extension support"). Firefox has, as far as I know,
the largest plugin database of any browser out there. Pretty much
without exception, if it’s possible for a browser to do something, then
there is a plugin for it. This plugin architecture is great, because it
doesn’t burden the original install with a bunch of useless crap: it’s
up to the end user how much, or how little, they want to add. It is, in
the end, a truly custom browsing experience. If you could port that
plugin framework to the mobile world, the possibilities would truly
become endless.
So Nokia, and all you other mobile device manufacturers, this is
what I’d like to see: give me a browser that is flexible enough to
evolve as the web itself evolves — don’t make me wait for a firmware
update from you to support new technologies. The ‘mobile web’ might be
dead, but the ‘mobile browsing experience’ is just beginning.
*EDIT* Ricky made a good point that I’d like to add here too — he wonders why, if he is using Opera on the Wii, on his N95, on the Desktop, and on his N800, the bookmarks can’t be easily sync’d between all devices? Sure, there are things like del.icio.us, but that’s not the same as having a simply way to sync between any Opera browser you are using, regardless of platform.
-olly
Leave a Reply