Newsletter May 2009

Welcome to the mobiForge newsletter, May 2009. This month we've been busy releasing software and winning awards. And we've still managed to squeeze in some new content for you too!

This time...

1. dotMobi Wordpress Mobile Pack
2. iPhone App Deployment
3. Autotrader.mobi is 1Mth mobiReady page
4. Mobile Web benchmarks, what can you do?
5. To Sprite or not to Sprite
6. PHP & Apache: tools of the mobile Web
7. What makes teens tick?
8. Upcoming: Palm Pre capabilities uncovered
9. dotMobi, onwards & upwards

1. dotMobi Wordpress Mobile Pack

We are extremely excited about our new Wordpress Mobile Pack. This is a fully featured & configurable Wordpress mobile plugin which will extend the reach of your Wordpress site to mobile visitors.

The Wordpress pack, which has been download over 2000 times so far, is choc-full of features, including:

Mobile switcher - for detecting your mobile visitors and giving them a great user experience
Base mobile theme - for quick & easy XHTML MP compliance
Transcoding and device adaptation - to optimize the mobile experience
Mobile admin panel - so you can post on-the-go
Mobile ad widget - to see you through the recession

Sounds too good to be true? You haven't heard the best bit - it's free to download right now! And special thanks go to design agency Ribot for making it beautiful.

Read more: http://mobiforge.com/wordpress-mobile-pack

2. iPhone app deployment

Last month we published our first 'Getting Started' iPhone article. We demonstrated how to build and deploy your first app to the iPhone simulator. But the simulator is not always adequate for testing apps.

Many developers have vented frustration at the process involved in deploying their apps to a real iPhone for testing. Well despair no more, for in this article we cover in detail all the hoops you are required to jump through in order to get your app onto a real iPhone for testing, and hopefully take the pain out of it for you.

3. Autotrader.mobi is 1Mth mobiReady page

A short time ago, someone, somewhere in AutoTrader HQ, was tweaking their mobile site, autotrader.mobi, and running it through the mobiReady tool for validation. Little did they know that they were in fact writing themselves into the mobile Web record books. Yes! Their commendable testing discipline set the wheels in motion, and they were catapulted into the annals of mobile Web history as they donned the enviable crown of the ONE MILLIONTH page tested on our mobiReady tool.

So congrats to Autotrader.mobi, and to mobiReady, which we think has done a pretty good job so far!

4. Mobile Web benchmarks, what can you do?

Web benchmarking company Gomez, and dotMobi have published their second set of joint benchmarks for the mobile Web. In this post, we take a look at what each of the metrics used means, and what you as a developer could do to score well against them.

5. To sprite or not to sprite

A somewhat controversial post here, which argues that the CSS 'spriting' technique is not a good idea for the mobile Web. What do you think? Sprites for mobile: best practice or worst?

6. PHP & Apache: tools of the mobile Web

A while back we ran a survey on mobile development trends, and some of you who took the survey requested to see the results. Well you can find them here in all their marbley-background graphed glory. According to you, it looks like the mobile Web is PHP & Apache to the bone.

7. What makes teens tick

In an interview with Magid's Jill Rosengard Hill and Kristin Dykstra, we get an insight into what teens do with their mobiles (via our mobile marketing sister site, mobiThinking).

8. Upcoming: Palm Pre uncovered

Watch out for this next month - hot off the factory floor, the Palm Pre is coming to a device capabilities database near you. We'll have the skinny on all its capabilities, and your DeviceAtlas enabled site will be ready to accommodate all your new Pre visitors right away. Don't miss it!

9. dotMobi, onwards & upwards!

It's always nice to have your hard work recognized, and recognized it was, twice this month. First, we won the Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Awards in the Mobile Internet category. dotMobi was also announced as a 2009 Top 100 Companies to Watch by Entrepreneur Magazine. So, watch out for us, we don't plan to disappoint.

That's all for this month. As usual, if you have any feedback, or if you have something you'd like to write for mobiForge, please get in touch; we'd love to hear from you!

See you on mobiForge!

Ruadhan, Jo, Ronan, Andrea, Claire, and all the team at dotMobi