Dan’s Blog (2.0)

So I got my new Blackberry - this fancy 8700. Something has been bugging me about it and I just realized what it is! The display is not reflective — that is, the back-light has to be on for you to see anything. With the older Blackberry model you could generally read the display even in low light conditions by angling it correctly without having to turn on the back-light. I think this was cool - not just from a battery life perspective but because you didn’t have to press a button to see the status — like what time/date it is or how many new messages you’ve received. You could just glance. With the new device, even though it’s spiffier in lots of ways (lighter, faster, higher-res screen, much better browser) it’s missing this key usability element. I’m a bit disappointed, but I suppose I’ll have to get used to it. The styling is also a bit funky/retro for my tastes - it’s got this speaker grille on the back that looks like something Ming the Merciless might talk into. Still, I guess that’s progress.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 16:00 under Mobility

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So I wrote a Wikipedia entry on - what else - the Mobile Web using - what else - the Mobile Web! Check it out and contribute to fleshing it out. The original entry was composed on a Nokia N70 using the Opera browser. The amazing thing was that it was possible - just. The text field on Opera was really buggy and couldn’t hold much text and the whole process of logging in was really cumbersome. Still, it’s a step.

The entry itself was written partially out of a need to put a stake in the ground around the term “mobile Web.” Some have taken this to mean “a separate web for mobile devices” but the meaning taken in the majority of use (including the definition we are using in the W3C Mobile Web Initiative) is the use of the Web (cap W) on mobile devices.

Filed by Daniel Appelquist at 15:40 under Mobile Web, Web 2.0

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