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?"

Comments

I write to standards

[rossz]

My stuff is writen to XHTML 1.0 Strict standards. If it doesn't work on the iPhone, it's not my problem.

That's the whole damn point of standards. Write to them you don't have to worry if something will work. Use quirks and tricks, and you're going to be dealing with a tone of headaches every time something new comes out.

BTW, "Hey, Microsoft! Fuck you and your shitty standards-ignoring browser!"

Re:I write to standards

[General Wesc]

If I use the web without a mouse, I can't initiate a mouseover event (assuming I'm not controlling a mouse cursor with the keyboard or something.) What standard am I violating?

There are two golden rules in web design: code to the standards and degrade gracefully. Both are important.

Yeah, right

[rueger]

Most people here won't go out of their way to make a site work with Internet Explorer, and IE has 70% of the market... and you want to know of they'll accommodate the quirks of a cel phone?

Re:Conjecture about the iPhone?

[TheRaven64]

It's not really specific to the iPhone. Hover and mouse-over events don't work with any kind of touch-screen, even if they are not multi-touch. If your UI depends on them, then you are an idiot and should never be allowed near a web site. Fortunately, most of the web sites I visit know this. The last site I remember that used most-over events for important data was Jabber.org, which used to put data about public servers in a tool-tip. This was horrendously bad, since it meant that important information was unavailable to a large number of browsers (including Opera, which always put the address in the tool-tip), irrespective of whether they used a touch screen or not.

In summary: Some web sites are badly designed, and if we try really hard we can tangentially relate this to the iPhone.

Segway

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure I remember a quote from Dean Kamen claiming cities will be rebuild to accomodate the Segway. Yeah, they're almost done I think.

Hype, hype, hype

[Dan East]

Can someone please tell me how Apple pulls this off? I mean the frigging phone isn't even on the market yet, and we have Slashdot stories talking about redesigning the web to work on this thing. Give me a break. It appears "multitouch" is the next buzzword. The issues the article discuses, like mouse over events and hovering, isn't even specific to a multitouch panel in the first place. These are issues that have surfaced decades ago, and are typically addressed by a tap-hold style action.

Sorry, but this is just getting to me. It's like there is a certain percentage of the population (and press), that is willing to give Apple a wink and a nod, and pretend that every last freaking thing the iPhone encompasses was just invented by Apple. Wee! It can browse the web (never mind that its display has 1/2 the pixels of a VGA Pocket PC). Wow! It can play MP3s (boy the music sounds extra special somehow on an iPhone). Neat! It has a soft input panel (lets ignore that there is no tactile feedback, thus typing requires visual stimuli to make sure you're pressing the right areas). Yeehaw! What battery life (even though you can't swap batteries, preventing the user from purchasing as many extra batteries as necessary to meet their usage needs).

For every true innovation there's three caveats. Maybe once this thing actually hits the market we can get at least a small dose of reality.

Dan East

Re:Conjecture about the iPhone?

[Kyojin]

Why should something change when you hover over it if your whopping great big finger is in the way?

Re:Won't be a big deal

[Joebert]

Who submits their forms when an arbitrary item loses mouse focus?

Porn sites.
Everything on thoose sites seems to submit a form, they're worse than the DMV.

"Web 2.0" "Web 1.0"

[QuoteMstr]

Almost every "Web 2.0" site I visit actually works less well than equivalent sites did years ago. Now, photo galleries use ajax and javascript to switch pages, making it impossible to, say, open each page in a new tab and switch between them. Obscenely huge tables are loaded and sorted using javascript instead of letting me sort on the server side. Forum software prevents me from replying in a new window, or heck, even gracefully switching between threads. Keyboard support is often non-existent, since everyone thinks it's cool to reimplement the button element with sixteen DIVs and a Javascript widget framework.

You know what the worst is, though? The most useless example of sheep-like trend following?

Go to eBay.com's front page, and mouseover one of the menus at the top. The damn server PERFORMS AN AJAX QUERY to eBay to get the four items in the menu. They should know better.

Please, just wake me up when the "web 2.0" fad is over.

My personal website will be redesigned...

[Travoltus]

[html]
[!-- some CGI crap: if browser == iphone then [size=6]HANG THAT MOTHER FSCKER THE FSCK UP AND DRIVE!!!!![/size] -->
[/html]