Slashdot Mirror
Will You Change Your Web Site For the iPhone?
An anonymous reader calls to our attention a blog post about the way the iPhone's multi-touch UI will strain the interface conventions of Web 2.0. This looming clash comes clearer as Apple releases more details of the iPhone's UI. Much has been made about the iPhone including Safari to provide a full web browsing experience. But this reader is wondering how compatible certain sites will be with the iPhone's input. From the post: "[Web 2.0-style interaction] makes somewhat heavy use of 'onmouse' events and cursor changes... along with CSS a:hover styles. The iPhone challenges those particular Web 2.0 conventions, though, because it is a device that not only adds support for another pointer, but at the same time eliminates them as interface objects... [T]he user doesn't get to express their attention with the iPhone... They only get to express their immediate action." This reader asks, "What other pitfalls lurk in the multi-touch web? Do any Slashdot readers plan to adjust their sites to ensure they work with the iPhone, and can you think of any similar issues that will crop up with such a different browsing experience?"
True, if you are talking about developers who use Apple computers as their primary development systems. I've known a few, and they all seem to think that the world revolves around Apple, and if it works in Safari then it must work everywhere. They don't even understand the differences in Gamma between Macs and 95% of the computers attached to the internet (PCs with IE) - so their websites come out looking very dark to 95% of their audience. Its sad really, and you can't talk to them about it because they don't want to hear it - they spent all that money on their pretty Mac and they just don't want to consider that they might not grasp a lot of the basics about the technology they are using, or the fact that they are living in an insular world created by Apple. I try to explain some of this but I usually get met with blank stares. But this is why they buy Macs instead of PCs - its an uninformed decision. If developers are not going to re-do the graphics to compensate for Mac Gamma which is a problem that has been around ever since there have been color macs and color PCs, why worry about how the touch screen works on the iPhone. Most developers won't even have an iPhone to test on. I doubt this phone is going to sell like the hotcakes they are being made out to be. As far as i'm concerned, Apple is a fad, nothing more. It's kind of like the 80's, it keeps coming back every so often. Some people buy into it but mostly they just look like dorks.