Is The iPhone The End Of The .mobi Domain?

Since its launch two years ago, the Apple iPhone has generated more press and Web site coverage than any other mobile phone ever has, and, undoubtedly, it’s one of the most capable handsets ever released. It has also raised the level of competition with other manufacturers delivering ever more innovative handsets. But do these advanced capabilities render the .mobi domain obsolete?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: the iPhone is a giant leap forward for the mobile Web in general, and .mobi specifically. The mobile Web has not been -- and never will be -- the desktop Web rendered on a mobile phone screen. The physical difference in size and the different navigation control schemes of mobile phones and desktop-based PCs demand separate treatment. The iPhone does nothing to change this.

For example, the image to the right is the home page of the New York Times; it delivers a great experience on a desktop browser, mimicking a traditional multi-column newspaper. This format, however, simply does not translate to a mobile phone screen. The nytimes.com site uses a desktop resolution of 1024x768 pixels, which is enough to fill the iPhone’s 320x480 pixel screen five times over.


The story does not end there. There’s often more information “below the fold” than visible above it. (“Below the fold” is a traditional newspaper terms that has carried over to Web deisgn and refers to the area of the screen that is not initially visible when the page first loads, but one sees on further vertical scrolling).

With the New York Times, the complete home page comprises five full screens of information, for a combined resolution of 1024x3840. That’s enough to fill the iPhone screen some thirty times over. Navigating this quantity of information is nearly impossible on a mobile device – and that includes the iPhone.

The art of creating great mobile sites is understanding that context – not just content – is king. Understanding how and when somebody will want to access your site via mobile becomes crucial to knowing what content to offer. As an example, the typical corporate site of a courier company may contain sections with company history, press releases, investor relations and any number of other things that are of no use to a mobile customer who likely wants an address to drop a package or to track a delivery. This being the case, why make that mobile customer wade through the entire contents of a desktop site to find what they are looking for? The “pinch / zoom” functionality of the iPhone is sometimes presented as the solution to this navigation problem but, again, the context in which the product is being used isn’t considered. In the vast majority of situations, mobile phones are used with one hand. In these circumstances, the pinch / zoom functionality is useless. Anybody who commutes regularly via public transport is all too aware of such situations and the limitations of the pinch / zoom.

Fast forward to the near future when the majority of people are using their mobile phones to access the Web as regularly as they use their desktop PCs today. Do you think that successful companies will continue to serve desktop sites to their mobile audience? Of course, the answer is no. People will simply not have the patience to work through unwieldy sites to find the information they want; they will simply move on to companies who understand their needs.

In light of this, the iPhone – and every other smartphone – fails to change very much for mobile Web access. The crucial element is understanding the mobile user’s needs and serving them appropriate content. As long as this need exists, which it always will, there will be a need to easily find mobile content. This is the role of the .mobi domain as the only industry-backed, ICANN-approved designation for mobile Web content.

But wait ... what about apps?

Doesn’t the New York Times have an iPhone app? Isn’t that the solution to this whole mobile Web thing? Yes, they have an app. And no, apps are not a solution. The iPhone app for the New York Times does a great job of displaying content on the iPhone. However, it works only on iPhones and only with the New York Times. It does not work on any other smartphone and it does not work with USA Today, the Financial Times, Le Monde, Sydney Morning Hearld, or any of the other thousands of publications around the world. You may have an app to locate the nearest pizza house but then you also need apps for every other type of cuisine, apps to find gyms, etc. Apps are a stopgap solution; they are not a long-term solution to finding mobile Web content.

The iPhone is a superb handset that has raised the bar for every other handset manufacturer, but it changes nothing in regards to mobile content and context. The future power-players of the mobile Web will be those companies who serve mobile-specific content. This is already in action with the world’s top brands; many of them are already creating device-aware sites that recognize the specific handset being used and serve content that is optimized for that device. The iPhone has raises awareness of the mobile Web with consumers around the world and prompted operators to look at flat rate data packages. For those changes alone, we should all be grateful.

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