Flash forward (no pun intended) 6 months and Android is poised to leap frog Apple in the mobile market share wars. Apple is now predicted to end up in fourth place after Blackberry. And guess what? Most other mobile platforms do support Flash. So now it is Apple that risks alienating its users. The NY Times' David Pogue recently ranted on this very issue.
As content producers we still can't afford to ignore our iPhone user base. But neither can we expect Flash to go away. Remember the days when we had to produce multiple video formats to support Mac and Windows users? Flash's ubiquity and ability to play embedded video had rendered that practice unnecessary...for a time.
But with the iPhone-Flash debacle, it looks like we are back to supporting multiple formats for each and every video. At least until all of the major browser platforms support a common video format again, such as H.264. We can only hope.
]]>“Gartner expects that Symbian and Android together will account for 59.8 percent of the total worldwide mobile OS market by 2014, split almost equally -- Symbian with 30.2 percent, and Android with 29.6 percent.]]>Android is already closing the gap with the market leader. By the end of 2010, Gartner says, Google's Android will sneak into second place behind Nokia-backed Symbian with 17.7 percent market share, compared to Symbian's 40.1 percent.
At the end of 2009, Android OS had just 3.9 percent market share, the research firm reported.
Gartner's predictions don't bode well for RIM's BlackBerry OS and Apple's iOS. Those platforms, which ended 2009 with 19.9 percent and 14.4 percent of the market, respectively, are expected to take the third and fourth spots this year.”
“World Usability Day 2010 in Michigan]]>Michigan State University's Usability/Accessibility Research and Consulting (UARC) will host Michigan's 6th annual World Usability Day event on November 11th at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center in East Lansing. This year's theme will be Mobile Communication and will focus on the usability of websites on cell phones, tablets, PDAs, and other portable devices.
* Date: Thursday, November 11, 2010
* Time: 8:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. (speakers and workshop)
* Cost: Free (boxed lunch available at cost)
* Location: Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center, East Lansing* Talking Points: A Mobile Orientation and Information System for the Visually Impaired
* Mark Newman, University of Michigan School of Information
* User Experience Research in Mobile Applications
* Kris Mihalic, Nokia
* Building Mobile Experiences: Testing Rapid Functional Prototypes in Real Contexts of Use
* Frank Bentley, Motorola
* New Usability Process at the State of Michigan
* Chuck Baird, Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget
* Best Practices for Mobile Application Design
* Jason Withrow, Washtenaw Community College Internet Professional Program* Workshop: Designing Mobile Applications Using Adobe Flash
* Nick Kwiatkowski, Michigan State University Telecommunication Systems, Michigan Flex Users Group”
“Mobile Accessibility by Derek Featherstone]]>The popularity of mobile technology is growing about as fast as mobile companies can produce new smartphones. Maybe even faster.
In this session, we'll look at how various mobile platforms have evolved in terms of accessibility for people with disabilities.
You'll learn about the accessibility features of the major mobile platforms as well as the features available to both the user and the developer for delivering accessible web content and applications.”
The U-M Mobile Center website is now live. It has a developers toolkit that includes a forum for developers to post questions and provide tips to each other, an app catalog, and general information about mobile apps on campus.
This site should be a great resource for mobile development at the University of Michigan. Stay tuned for next week's much anticipated release of the U-M iPhone app, adapted by ITS from a student project. Full disclosure: the U-M mobile app was designed by Michigan Marketing & Design.
]]>The mobile site is optimized primarily for the iPhone, which makes up 90% or more of our mobile device traffic, and is poised to surpass total Linux visitors (both mobile and desktop). But it’s linear design should render well on most small screens. Mobile device support is a top priority at the University of Michigan.
We plan to do more exhaustive mobile device testing and detection in the coming months, optimize download speed, streamline the design and content for the mobile experience, and add features that will be useful in the mobile context. Rumor has it there will soon be a U-M iPhone app as well.
Additionally, our full graphic site has offered mobile device support for the last four years via a layered system of handheld style sheets, one of the first U-M sites to do so. A text-only version of the U-M Gateway has also been available for over 15 years, offering mobile visitors a fast and simple cross-platform browsing option.
We also employ full separation of presentation and content, proper source ordering, well-structured and valid markup, good linearization, and follow an array of accessibility standards and best practices, allowing our site to display and function well without style sheets, images, JavaScript, or Flash enabled.
We plan to make the graphic Gateway even more mobile-friendly in the next redesign as well. For those who find the full graphic version of the U-M Gateway a bit sluggish on slower handheld devices or cellular networks, we highly recommend using our mobile website, which is much more optimized for these conditions. That said, we regularly browse the graphic site on our iPhones and find it quite usable. Your mileage may vary.
With the growing popularity of iPhones, tablets, netbooks, Android smartphones, and other handheld devices, the mobile web is here to stay and the University of Michigan is committed to embracing this new world and bringing you the information and services you need, where and when you need them. This is an exciting time, so stay tuned for more developments by following this blog or our U-M Gateway development blog.
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