Ronan_Mandel
Latest Articles by Ronan_Mandel
The Google Phone Cometh (so what)?
October 13, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
Last week saw the announcement of the first Android based device, the HTC Dream better known now as the T-Mobile G1. Despite the fact that this phone is based on on Open Source platform, the details as they have been released, make it feel very much like any other smartphone that Joe Consumer can go purchase from his operator. It's locked to T-Mobile USA at launch and will find its way into the UK in November before it conquers the world in 2009. Now the real question: So what?... Read More
An Operator Decides to be Polite…
August 28, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
Say what you will about the network operators with whom we have to play in the mobile space, but every now and again they do think of the developer community before implementing changes that may impact us all. Case in point, our friends over at AT&T devCentral recently sent out an announcement to the developer community about changes that will be coming as a result of some modifications to their gateway... Read More
FlashLite Version Detection update
August 8, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
So if you’re an active FlashLite or Flash developer who keeps an eye on the mobile space, you may have noticed something that happened last month with one of the web’s largest Flash delivery site: YouTube. The change was around the mechanism they used for version detection, and draws attention back to a topic close to the heart of every mobile developer (flash or otherwise): user-agent detection... Read More
The mysteries of mobile data plans or It’s all about Page Weight
July 1, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
So I have to make a confession (seems like I’ve been doing that a lot recently…) For the first time in my life I received a mobile phone bill with data charges on it. What you say? Are you some sort of imposter? Have you not been using mobile data all these years? Well, here’s the thing: I’ve been using it for free (we’ll, it’s all been on the company’s dime that is) so it never really hit me how much it really cost... Read More
RIP Openwave Mobile Browser
June 12, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
So as we all get spun up in the excitement and wonder over iPhone 2.0, and as Apple appears to continue its ascendancy in the mobile space, I feel compelled to share about a company that’s gone in the other direction. I don’t know if folks don’t care, or there really isn’t any impact as a result of it, but either way I feel inclined to spend some pixels on a recent development... Read More
WebKit by any other name… or How I found a use for JavaScript
May 21, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking lately about JavaScript/ECMAScript and the mobile web. What I’ve been struggling with is the need or value for it when it comes to sites which are organically created for mobile. Sure there’s a need to support JavaScript as fully as possible for providing a ‘full web’ experience and managing existing content, but when it comes to designing for the mobile context, is there really value for it?... Read More
Open Sesame
April 24, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
There’s lots of chatter about ‘openness’ in the mobile space recently. If you’re listening to the media, you’re hearing it both on the handset and the network side. We’ve got the 700MHz spectrum auction that’s just wrapped up in which Google so cleverly forced the ‘openness’ provision to kick in. Verizon, the largest operator in the US (and the big winner in the C block that’s now required to be ‘open’), making statements that they’re going to allow ‘any device’ on their network... Read More
Score one for the Developers!
April 4, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
In case you missed it Openwave announced an update to its OpenWeb Adaptation Solution which will do a better job of respecting mobile specific content and the intent of the content onwer/author. It turns out that the Openwave contribution to the see of transforming proxies to bring the 'full web' down to mobile browsers will now at least make an attempt at allowing developers who take the time, effort and energy to build mobile specific interfaces actually deliver them to end users... Read More
Welcome to my Soap Box…
March 31, 2008, by Ronan_Mandel
Hello, and thanks for stopping by. I’m very pleased to be here on the mobiForge blog after taking a short break from having a platform from which to speak about mobile web issues, concerns and answers for developers. After having spent over 8 years behind the helm of the developer program at Openwave (a.k.a Phone.com a.k.a. Unwired Planet), I find my self engaging in new challenges... Read More
