Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Legacy of Mobile Web

Throughout the nineties, this phenomenon of the Internet grew in unimaginable ways. From the first successful ping, to "billboards" to the first browser software your local ISP probably sold you. Today, we download browsers for free and comb unthinkable measures of web-content at broadband speeds 100x or more the first dial-up modems of yesteryear.

And then it happened. Someone realized: hey, if our phones were once used to connect our homes to Internet, can cell phone's do the same thing? Genius. Monumental. And pitifully implemented... at least at first.

As the Internet had evolved to multimedia and broadband-reliant content, the first crack at mobile broadband was based on regression. The devices couldn't handle it. The network couldn't connect it. So, let's go back. let's simplify. Let's reminisce of days gone by when functional limitations confined us to little more than plain text and a few GIF's, if you dared.

The faux pax of the telecom industry was in leaving such an indelible mark on the Internet and web development. Even as fixed wireless broadband has reached 3G and 4G speeds and mobile devices browse with virtually the same capability as desktop machines, the concept of Mobile Web hangs on. I find it most frustrating when I access sites like Amazon, Facebook, or Twitter that assume without question the device in my hand cannot handle their best content. The device, mind you, that cost almost the same as the laptop on my desk. The device, mind you, which can support cookies, as in, a cookie that says "no, take me to the good stuff in the future."

But alas, we still endure the legacy of the Mobile Web. It's a wonder they didn't start selling small picture frames to accompany the low DPI of the first camera phones.

Labels: "Internet infrastructure", Broadband, Fixed Wireless Broadband, Mobile Web