iPhone Web Development Guidelines

[Yvan256]

[...] with so many sites driven by databases (i.e., MySQL), scripting languages (i.e., PHP), and separating style from content (CSS), maintaing an iPhone-optimized site shouldn't be too hard for many.

Wasn't too hard to have a special Opera DS version of my company's website (www.cinnamon-peripherals.ca), I'm sure adding an iPhone-scaled version won't be too hard either.

My question is: if the iPhone is limited to 480px wide, couldn't Apple add a setting in Safari for an "iPhone emulation mode" or something? Set width to 480px, disable Java and plug-ins (except QuickTime), lower the download bandwidth, etc.

I'd be glad to see a "dial-up speeds" mode too, to see how long it takes for, say, a 28.8kbps or 56kbps system to load your pages.

 

[RnSK]

My question is: if the iPhone is limited to 480px wide, couldn't Apple add a setting in Safari for an "iPhone emulation mode" or something? Set width to 480px, disable Java and plug-ins (except QuickTime), lower the download bandwidth, etc.

"Limited to 480px wide" is a misrepresentation; 480px is how wide the screen is in landscape; it will gladly shrink anything to fit while maintaining the formating.

 

[nagromme]

Apple is a multi-billion dollar company launching a critical product in a new space. If they *needed* flash for it to be successful, it would be there. hell they sucked engineers off their OS* onto this thing.

However, I guess it feels better to think that there must have been some kind of "mistake" or "problem" with a product of this magnitude...

heheh

So you're saying that everything important to Apple gets done on time?

I never said they needed Flash for it to be successful. I said I believed they would rather have Flash than not.

You're saying that the absence of Flash proves it isn't "needed"? I never disagreed. It's merely "desired." I have no doubt that it's secondary to many other iPhone functions, but it's still something people want--myself included.

And thus I still believe it is likely to come to iPhone in future. I've outlined why Apple would want Flash, and have heard nothing convincing about Apple why would want to exclude it. You imply that a full, finished Flash player on iPhone would be SO easy that NOTHING could be put ahead of it on Apple's "to do list." You seem very sure of this despite lacking inside info on how the iPhone software works, or what other challenges Apple is also working on--and you brush aside mouse/keyboard interaction complexities. I'm unconvinced.

And I'm quite SURE there will be multiple "problems" or "mistakes" with the iPhone. Every product has some. It's not unthinkable and it's not the end of the world when they come to light.

 

[CoreWeb]

It does not render because Safari 2 doesn't support SVG. If it renders for you it is because you have the Adobe Plugin. Under Safari 3 SVG does render because Webkit has support for SVG and the latest version of Safari builds off of this. See http://webkit.org/projects/svg/index.html. It is not the Adobe Plugin. The Adobe plugin is not in development and will likely never be updated again.

That was my impression. But I thought you were saying Safari 2.0 uses a native rendering engine, as you had responded to a response I made to Morris who said:

There is even SVG support in Safari 2. I can play the Tetris game just fine in Safari 2.0.4.

 

[Cleverboy]

I sympathize with people who just want to USE the iPhone, and jump to comment on technical information for developers, but really people... Everyone who wants to keep repeating "No Flash or Java!!!! OMG!!!" Just... give it a rest. Folks that read the Javascript runtime of 5 seconds, and misinterpret this to mean that you cannot have a javascript run simulation that lasts over 5 seconds, stop... that's not what it means. When your browser gets caught in a execution loop and after 10 seconds, as you if you want to halt the loop... that's what it means. NOT some arbitrary holstering of Javascript.

This is great information. I was hoping someone would post it, but apparently, I'm guessing Apple made them take it down.

~ CB

 

[think228]

Fully Featured Web Browser?

To say this is supposed to be a fully featured web browser and put all those limitations on web pages makes me think otherwise. I say the iphone lacks the needed power and support. Who will develop web pages just for the iphone? That would imply that the browser is not fully able.

 

[Object-X]

Mac only doesn't mean limited.

To say this is supposed to be a fully featured web browser and put all those limitations on web pages makes me think otherwise. I say the iphone lacks the needed power and support. Who will develop web pages just for the iphone? That would imply that the browser is not fully able.

I agree with your first comment, but that is more a semantic issue. What does fully featured really mean? Compared to what is on phones now, it's fully featured, but compared to a computer browser it is limited. But then you ask who will develop web pages just for the iPhone? The same folks who develop applications just for the Mac!

I have found numerous Mac only applications that are fantastic and have no Windows equivalent. I mention this because it demonstrates developers willingness to develop for a limited market. I expect there to be a whole slew of new iPhone only applications popping up. The iPhone has the potential to create it's own market and the software to go with it.

And in a few years if the iPhone has the same ubiquity the iPod now has, I expect there to be a lot of applications that were/are developed for other platforms to be ported to the iPhone. It's all about money, and money is all about numbers.

 

[Cleverboy]

I've posted a cleaned up and commented
version of the notes at the FiGMA dev
forum in case anyone's interested.
http://forums.figma.com/showthread.php?p=31

University of Washington's "Emerging Technology Group" published notes from Apple's "Developing Web Sites for iPhone" session from WWDC last week. It looks like its been taken down, but not before MacRumors posted a shortlist of useful notes.

Here's my recompile:

What iPhone offers for websites:

1. Tab browsing allows viewing of multiple websites and documents, with tab switching available via a finger swipe (often forgotten feature demonstrated during the January MacWorld Keynote). Tab browsing is the bottom rightmost button in the browser app.
2. Full PDF support
3. Double tap for zooming in
4. One finger can be used to:
   • Pan the page
   • Press and Hold for Contextual Menu
5. Two fingers can be used to:
   • Pinch content (zoom in/zoom out)
   • Pan the page
   • Trigger scroll-wheel events
6. New telephone links allow you to integrate phone calls directly from your webpage. (It's not yet clear if this utilizes the web standard "tel://" protocol.)
7. Built-in Google maps client for integrated mapping from your website. (It's not clear how this is implemented, whether it is a new protocol, etc.)

iPhone size limitations / restrictions:

• 10MB max html size for web page
• Javascript limited to 5 seconds run time (for comparison, Firefox has a 10 second limitation)
• Javascript allocations limited to 10MB
• 8 documents maximum loaded on the iPhone due to page view limitations
• Quicktime can be used for audio and video
• No Flash and no Java support.

Apple recommended design considerations:

• Separate HTML and CSS
• Use well structured and valid HTML
• Size images appropriately dont rely on browser scaling
• Tile small images in backgrounds, dont use large background images
• iPhone supports both EDGE and Wi-Fi.
  EDGE pipe is smaller than Wi-Fi pipe, so consider bandwidth when developing.
• XHTML mobile documents supported
• Stylesheet device width: 480px
• Apply different CSS for the iPhone.
  For example displaying a one column page for iPhone vs. a 3 column page on a desktop.
• There are no scroll bars or resize knobs.
  The iPhone will automatically expand the content.
• Avoid framesets. Scrollable frames are automatically expanded to fit the content
• iPhone User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A538a Safari/419.3
• Video: H.264 baseline profile level 3.0 up to 640x480 fps

~ CB

 

[pohl]

wtf!?

...doesn't support the <blink> tag!?

 

[jamesarm97]

Can the apps be saved to the iPhone and run locally? What happens when you are in the middle of a store with no reception and want to use the shopping list app?

 

[Sandfleaz]

Are there any SMART phones that will run Flash?

I think i can live without it.

 

[sbrownla]

Fully featured...

To say this is supposed to be a fully featured web browser and put all those limitations on web pages makes me think otherwise. I say the iphone lacks the needed power and support. Who will develop web pages just for the iphone? That would imply that the browser is not fully able.

Finally someone stops making excuses and tells it like it is.

iPhone's web browser is no more advanced than minimo or opera mini or anything else that already exists. Stop making excuses.

A full browser *can support* Flash and Javascript. It can also be modified to support new standards that continue to be developed through installing various components. That's just how it is. Stop making excuses.

Creating pages that are optimized for a browser that is supposed to show an internet that is not "watered down" (like the ones those other phones tries to view) is ridiculous. The "real internet" doesn't run according to iPhone's special standards. Stop making excuses.

It's going to grow into a good phone, but we need to recognize that Apple did talk a pretty big game, and there will be a lot of disappointment because I'd be willing to bet that most people making big comments have never browsed the internet using a phone.

 

[Cleverboy]

Can the apps be saved to the iPhone and run locally? What happens when you are in the middle of a store with no reception and want to use the shopping list app?

OneTrip uses cookies, so, it doesn't communicate with the server after its loaded anyway (unless you feel the need to check the about page). Also, you can have up to 8 tabs open in iPhone's Safari browser. You can keep web apps running local probably indefinitely. Hopefully this answer will circulate as often as the concern does.

~ CB

 

[Cleverboy]

Creating pages that are optimized for a browser that is supposed to show an internet that is not "watered down" (like the ones those other phones tries to view) is ridiculous. The "real internet" doesn't run according to iPhone's special standards. Stop making excuses.

I'm in no rush for iPhone's Safari to support Flash. I think its very good that Apple is encouraging a return to open standards for initial developers to this platform. While I appreciate your want of Flash, if Adobe is the only one allowed to write plugins, and the standard is only as "open" as the file format, I'd prefer some withstraint. Microsoft is entering the frey with Silverline. I think this is ironic, because I believe it was Microsoft's decision not to release another stand alone browser, and its lack of support for SVG that drove Adobe to acquire Macromedia and begin promoting Flash more widely by opening the format. It's not really open though is it?

~ CB

 

[segfaultdotorg]

The burning question everyone has been dying to know is, will the iPhone have Cingular's trademark default ringtone? That thing is such a masterpiece, I don't think anyone will buy it if it doesn't.

 

[AppleIntelRock]

The burning question everyone has been dying to know is, will the iPhone have Cingular's trademark default ringtone? That thing is such a masterpiece, I don't think anyone will buy it if it doesn't.

I know I wouldn't. All this information comes out and I'm like "YAWN"... WHAT about the Cingular ringtone!?!?!

 

[spotlight07]

What about drag and drop? The notes mention one finger, double tap, and two fingers, but can I drag and drop with it? Yahoo mail beta uses it. Curious to know...

 

[Counter]

Can the apps be saved to the iPhone and run locally? What happens when you are in the middle of a store with no reception and want to use the shopping list app?

No.

It wont work.



The 'apps' are web pages. So you can't save them to the iPhone. You could keep one open having previously loaded it. Then so long as it doesn't require a reception (for server connections) to operate after having loaded it you'll be fine. If it does, it wont work.

 

[localoid]

Can the apps be saved to the iPhone and run locally? What happens when you are in the middle of a store with no reception and want to use the shopping list app?

Needs more Google Gears...

 

[penguy]

No.

It wont work.



The 'apps' are web pages. So you can't save them to the iPhone. You could keep one open having previously loaded it. Then so long as it doesn't require a reception (for server connections) to operate after having loaded it you'll be fine. If it does, it wont work.

I save pages all the time on my Treo...why couldn't the iPhone do the same?

 

[RnSK]

Wow. Just...WOW...

This place is like Misunderstanding Central. I see sometimes why Apple has such tight information controls...people don't understand what they read...

So. Let me break it down for you, 'kay?

The iPhone does NOT REQUIRE "special" websites. These were *recommendations for people that wanted to MAKE WEBSITES THAT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE SCALED OR SCROLLED".

Outside of the "well known limitations" that are no Java Applets* and no Flash, you don't *have* to do anything to any website anywhere for it to render on the iPhone. Safari Mobile (gasp! What its not desktop Safari?!?! Oh Noes!!) is built on Webkit; Webkit has all of the standards apple mentioned, buzzword compliance, etc. Webkit, by the way, doesn't include a Flash engine or a java runtime. These are not browser features, but OS features.

Safari Mobile OTOH has some changes in the browser so that it will work well on a 320x480 screen. Because you know, you can't minimize to the dock, use expose, or all of the other things you can do on a Desktop computer.

Now, above and beyond anything Apple has said, or hasn't said, I think there are a whole assload of folks that are crucifying them for things they never claimed in the first goddamned place. I mean there is a world of Apple wrongs to piss and moan about, but people, its not your dream friggin Mac Tablet Sex Machine. its an iPod that makes Phone calls and surfs the web and stuff.

And this little rant doesn't just apply to apple, but like, products in general and the way people treat them now. I'm really sick of people not judging things on the merits of what they claim they will do, but on some fantasy construct expectation set, or based on what other people's stuff do.

Its beyond ridiculous at this point...it really is.

So let's tear it down:

Apple Claim: Its an iPod. This is true.
Apple Claim: Its a Phone. This is also...true
Apple Claim: Its an Internet Device. Yep...true. We got mail...web...those things work over the internet.

Done ****in' deal.

Lets look at the most contentious part of this closer: Apple, in the form of Steve Jobs, made some *very specific claims* about why they feel Safari on the iPhone gives a better/"the best" (that would be hyperbole. Hyperbole is by definition NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY. Look it up, your mac has a dictionary. Go on. I'll wait...) and those claims were:

Full HTML Standards support vs WAP or XHTML Mobile. This was the top direct claim, and quite frankly, *the* Big Feature right there.

WAP is the Baby Web. XHTML Mobile/cMode are turd-tastic junk. Not the real web, and these two half assed attempts are what passes on like what, 97%+ phones. Full HTML standards compliant Acid rendering is the real web. Period.

But lets move on.

Browsing experience with Safari, Pageviews, Multitouch: These are features of the phone OS and have nothing to do with the web *whatsoever*...

Now, as it happens TIME AND TIME AGAIN, "you people" constantly ignore direct factual statements and comparisons and run off into forum/blog/zine Fantasy land and start cooking up scenarios that just never happened!

At no time did anyone say or intimate Flash was on the phone. A few websites were visted, live no less, where it was *obvious* that the Flash content wasn't working. No Flash.

And what did people do? Come up with reasons why it wasn't "there now" or a myriad other reasons why in hell something that was shown NOT to exist...must exist...or will.

Its the same thing with this SDK talk. In *January* several times, thru several press outlets it was stated that Apple wasn't going to open up the phone to 3rd parties....and AGAIN this was IGNORED...and instead the hyperbole embraced. Again. They even

And let me tell you something...when Steve jobs made that "we're struggling" comment about development, I mean, I don't know, *struggling* doesn't sound like "we're keen on it and raring to go...rejoice!"

It sounded to me like it was gonna be a pretty limp solution...well...there ya go.

I mean gripe all you like...and I know you will, but damn, gripe about REALITY...gripe about what's THERE and doesn't work...not about things no one ever said were gonna be there in the first place...and demonstrated repeatedly these assertions.

 

[Cleverboy]

This place is like Misunderstanding Central. [--snip--] I mean gripe all you like...and I know you will, but damn, gripe about REALITY...gripe about what's THERE and doesn't work...not about things no one ever said were gonna be there in the first place...and demonstrated repeatedly these assertions.

LMAO. PLBKAC - Problem Lies Between Keyboard and Chair. Nothing new though, so probably not worth getting mad over.

~ CB

 

[RnSK]

LMAO. PLBKAC - Problem Lies Between Keyboard and Chair. Nothing new though, so probably not worth getting mad over.

~ CB

Its more sadness man. You know, I have shirts I've gotten thru ADC and things like that that I wear from time to time, and I hear the "whispers" in the mall...people grabbing up their little kids...the pointing and "crazy mac guy" talk...

Its embarrassing to be a fairly well reasoned person and yet be lumped in with visitors to and from Fantasy Island

 

[Stella]

Are there any SMART phones that will run Flash?

I think i can live without it.

Yes.

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/res...rticles/nokia_web_browser_design_guide_5.html

"Nokia Web Browser on S60 3rd Edition FP1 adds support for Flash Lite, making it possible to display embedded Flash content on the mobile display"

FlashLite, anyway.

 

[RnSK]

Steve Jobs has mentioned this several times, so it should be interesting to see how things play out over the next few years. Every feature AT&T lets Apple add to the iPhone (iChat anyone?) will make it hard for AT&T to refuse for other phone manufacturers.

iChat? iChat? AIM?!?! Are you....SERIOUS? Do you...you aren't an ATT customer..are you? AIM on Phones is like such a non-starter in this day and age...its been a marketing tool for *ages*!!! Get a phone with AIM/Yahoo/ICQ/MSN!!

I mean they...oh nevermind.