.mobi .mobi restrictions

[miitree]

Does anyone know if the restriction about your .mobi site having to answer with a "mobile" style page if a request comes in from a mobile device still exists?

What with the iPhone and iPod touch it seems to me the .mobi restrictions are not needed (if they still exist).

Virtually all of the mobile traffic I'm seeing is coming in from the iPod touch or iPhone. And, most of the traffic to my mobile sites is from PC and Mac computers.

Also, I think it is unrealistic to imagine the Internet running on small cellphone screens. 320x240 would be the minimum I can think of to get anything meaningful at all.

 

[Alan Glennon]

The following three mandatory .mobi rules are in effect:

[Rule 1] When a dotmobi web site is accessed using a URI consisting only of the second-level domain name or second and third level domain name (e.g. example.mobi, www.example.mobi, de.example.mobi) the response must be encoded in XHTML-MP unless the device accessing it is known to support an alternative choice of markup.

If the site provides its home page by redirection then all intermediate pages that are delivered in the course of the redirection must comply with this rule.

[Rule 2] Sites must implement a page at the second level domain i.e. a web server must respond to HTTP requests to example.mobi (if necessary in addition to www.example.mobi.)

[Rule 3] Do not use frames under any circumstances. i.e. in HTML, XHTML or other mark-up languages that support similar constructs, frames must not be present.


Source:
http://dev.mobi/files/dotmobi_Switch On_Web_Browsing_Guide_0.5_Consultative.html

 

[Work In Progress]

Does anyone know if the restriction about your .mobi site having to answer with a "mobile" style page if a request comes in from a mobile device still exists?

What with the iPhone and iPod touch it seems to me the .mobi restrictions are not needed (if they still exist).

Virtually all of the mobile traffic I'm seeing is coming in from the iPod touch or iPhone. And, most of the traffic to my mobile sites is from PC and Mac computers.

Also, I think it is unrealistic to imagine the Internet running on small cellphone screens. 320x240 would be the minimum I can think of to get anything meaningful at all.

I think you might be missing the mobi point miitree. Because of the restrictions, mobi sites can be viewed well from ANY mobile. Sure, the iphone / itouch are nice, but, realistically, a very minuscule portion of the public have one. Not to mention, mobi sites even work better on these devices because of the restrictions. Have you accessed a full blown "souped up" web version of a site on an iphone? They load sooo slowly.

Dot mobi is not a replacement for dot com sites. It's an alternative that will allow all mobile users to access a site and know it will work. Pretty simple really, yet so many think it's deeper than it is...

I have many live sites I check stats on daily. Most started out with the majority of PC/Mac visitors. As time goes by, I've noticed that mobile browsers are accessing much more frequently though. Some of my sites now have the majority of hits coming from mobile browsers. I have a wide mix of which type of mobile browser is on top though. Some are Nokia, some Safari, some PDA....it's all over the board. Also keep in mind that the majority of ipone / itouch owners are much more tech savvy and would tend to know more about the existence of dot mobi over the general public.
:imho:

 

[miitree]

Good replies. Thank you.

I guess my main point is that over time (say the next 2 years) hand held computers (things like the iPhone and iPod touch) are going to get duplicated and duplicated ... This is where the mobile action is IMO.

These devices have a "full" (well almost full) browser with support of JavaScript.

The browser, connection type (speed) and the screen size on the device are to me the most important things. That is where standards are needed. For example requiring the screen size to be included in the User Agent string would be oh so helpful. Knowing you are coming from a broadband or EDGE network would be great.

The .mobi standards do nothing to address this. I haven't checked them in awhile but they used to center around things like screens that are like 150 px wide and to build your site to satisfy those types of devices. It won't be long until 800 width mobile devices are going to be out there. And, these type of devices are going to gain acceptance quickly.

I don't have the time to try to format my server output to satisfy the 1000s of different types of devices out there. And still even if I diid you still wouldn't know the connection speed and most likely the screen size.

If .mobi is going to be a success the standards group need to come into the real world and make standards to address the real world needs.

The way it is now hurts the adoption .mobi and its benefits to the consumer.

 

[Alan Glennon]

Your concerns seem to be exactly why XHTML-MP (an evolving standard) is a .mobi mandatory rule.

Scripting and javascript were barely mentioned in the first specification, but now the scripting section starts with the phrase "Support for scripting is RECOMMENDED" (Source: http://www.openmobilealliance.org/r...20070227-C/OMA-TS-XHTMLMP-V1_2-20070227-C.pdf).

 

[ivnj]

So if I register a .mobi and don't follow these rules. Then who comes after me or do I loose the domain?

ivnj

 

[coast]

So if I register a .mobi and don't follow these rules. Then who comes after me or do I loose the domain?

ivnj

mTLD/dotmobi reserves the right to suspend domain names that do not comply with design standards until they meet the design standards.

If you want to make a site for an iphone, let's say using flash lite, you have a workaround. Make sure any phone can read a message that indicates the site uses flash lite, and that only enabled phones will be able to view the content.