“Optimize” Sites On-The-Go

I’m often asked why it is that we don’t have an iPhone optimized site here on What’s On iPhone. It is a good question. We are, after all, a site focussed on everything "OSx iPhone" and one would think we would optimize the content for viewing on our favorite devices. So why is it that we don’t offer one? Three reasons….

First- We’ve looked into it

We’ve looked into options for optimizing the site and haven’t been happy with the way the various options for optimizing OUR site. Too often we have to choose between the look of the site OR the functionality but we haven’t found an option that achieves both.

Second- We’re not willing to boil down the site.

Many so-called "iPhone optimized sites" are little more than glorified rss feeds packaged as websites. Sure there are exceptions. The amazon.com optimized site is amazing. But many times the content-based blogs and websites that offer iPhone optimized versions use the same content that is offered on their rss feed but without the break. That means serious compromises in both functionality and content. Not always but much of the time.

We’re not willing to do that. And, more importantly, we don’t have to.

And that’s where the "tip" comes in.

Third- It already is

The site IS iPhone optimized. EVERY site is.

Safari mobile is a far more powerful app than many realize and so long as you USE it properly you can quickly render seemingly unreadably small text in a format perfectly optimized for viewing on an iPhone or iPod Touch. 

"On-the-go iPhone optimization" is as close as a double-tap away. Take our site for example. Sure it is hard to read when you first pull up the site. But if you double tap on a post Safari will immediately zoom in on that block of text thereby rendering it quite readable. —

Better yet, if you double tap while holding the device in landscape the text will fill the screen perfectly in an even more easy-to-read format. Then, with a second double tap, you can zoom out and continue to read.

Sure it takes some getting used to, but once you do, you’ll never long for an optimized site again since… you already have one.

 The fact is, if when we find a "no compromise" format for optimizing the site we’ll use it but until then… try a "double tap" and optimize the site for yourself!