Comments on: Shame on you Apple

By: Rich Angstadt

Rich Angstadt — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:45:05 +0000

Hi Jake, Thanks for the comment.
While I agree the iPhone displays most websites in a manner that’s usable, a site with as much content as Apple.com is difficult to navigate because there is so much content on the page. Until you zoom in, almost all of the text is illegible. Thus diminishing the marketing message and I’m sure resulting in lower sales from the mobile channel.

I would much rather see Apple offer a streamlined version of the site for mobile users that allows easy access to the most commonly requested items on the page. The ideal Apple product is one that not only looks beautiful but is incredibly easy to use. The current website, when displayed in the iPhone browser is cumbersome and cluttered. I also think that Apple could offer special iPhone only features on the site that would benefit consumers that have already purchased the product.

By: Jake Skedgell

Jake Skedgell — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:30:47 +0000

I think that maybe the reason Apple doesn’t do a mobile version of apple.com is that they advertise the iPhone as being able to display any web page, not just mobile ones. If they were to do a mobile site it would detract from this message.

By: Rich Angstadt

Rich Angstadt — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:27:03 +0000

Hi Eric,
I think the answer would be dependent on Apple’s customer persona’s and analytical data they pull from mobile users of the site. I’m sure looking at how consumers with mobile browsers are currently interacting with the site would provide some real insight into what content they want and thus what the site should feature.

By: Eric Benoit

Eric Benoit — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:20:32 +0000

Hi Rich, What do you think the mobile version of Apple.com would contain or be targeted for? Slimmed down site or redesigned for the iPhone?

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:59:43 +0000

Hi Justin,
I didn’t realize that Feedburner allowed you to do that. Pretty cool.

As far as the “definitive” way to redirect users to a site, I’m not sure I have the answer. Although, I did find some pretty good information on MobiForge http://bit.ly/1Denuj. One thing that the article talks about (and something that I am in total agreement with) is allowing the user to set their preference. The visitor of the site should be able to easily switch between the two versions, and you should do your best to store their preference for subsequent visits.

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:15:37 +0000

I actually made a really easy to create Mobile site for a blog I was working on. http://m.minutegaming.com/

Feedburner offers a service which will display your 3 most recent posts, it also allows you to modify the CSS which is displayed. Basically I took that, put it on it’s own HTML page, and now it can be a “mobile site”, simply a stripped down version of the blog.

Do you know anything about mobile redirection? There isn’t much clear information on the “definitive” way to redirect mobile users to the mobile site.