Latest Articles by Martin Clancy
India says no to Facebook’s Free Basics
February 11, 2016, by Martin Clancy
Facebook's initiative to connect billions of unconnected users to the internet appears to have foundered on the rocks of net neutrality amidst a backlash from many commentators, not least the Indian Telecoms regulator... Read More
Measure your Website Performance on Mobile
November 23, 2015, by Martin Clancy
Mobile Web - Bigger than Apps Back in 2008 (yes, it was that long ago), Mary Meeker made her famous prediction that mobile would eclipse desktop by 2014. Fast forward more than half a dozen years and the latest KPCB mobile statistics show that mobile now accounts for 51% of time spent online in the USA. Mobile traffic growth still ramping... Read More
Ad Blocker Technology
October 19, 2015, by Martin Clancy
The increasing trend towards screening out ads from web content using browser extensions or apps has hit the mainstream since Apple added support for Ad blockers in iOS9. Up until then, while possible, it was less straightforward to block ads on Apple’s Safari browser for iPhones and iPads... Read More
Google Initiative to Penalize App Banners Points Future Direction of Web
September 8, 2015, by Martin Clancy
At the top of the month, Google announced the latest in a series of measures aimed at improving the mobile experience by making further changes to its mobile search ranking algorithms. This time, Google has taken aim at app install banners that obscure a significant part of webpage content on transition from the search results. From November onwards, Google will penalize this practice and offending sites risk worsening their rankings on mobile search... Read More
Google I/O Event
May 28, 2015, by Martin Clancy
Google's I/O event, which kicks off today, has already impressed with its web app. The fully responsive site not only looks great with material design throughout, it also caches to your device so that you can browse it even if you're offline. Plan and manage your offsite visit directly from here. Just make sure you have good connection to cache the site and watch the streams... Read More
Free service to identify device type, browser and OS
December 10, 2014, by Martin Clancy
If you are looking for an easy and reliable way to identify device type (mobile, tablet, desktop, TV etc), OS and browser in your web applications, then you may want to check out a new free tool for that express purpose released by DeviceAtlas... Read More
Detecting Language Preference from the Browser with Accept Header
October 22, 2014, by Martin Clancy
Some time ago I was on a trip to Germany for the Smashing Mag event. Several websites I visited (including the world’s largest search engine) asked me to confirm my language preferences based on my current physical location. This struck me as a rather inefficient approach to setting language preferences. Especially given the language of the browser is readily available to web publishers as part of the HTTP request... Read More
iPhone 6: Is Apple Fragmented?
October 15, 2014, by Martin Clancy
“6 plus users are getting just the tiniest, tiniest taste of android hardware spec fragmentation hell right now” (@zpower) “Even after an hour of use I'm annoyed with apps that haven't been updated for the iPhone 6 screen size. Hurry devs!” (@isrob) Just some of the comments on the iPhone 6 release suggest that fragmentation woes have come to the iOS platform... Read More
Will Chinese device manufacturers usher in global smartphone era?
July 30, 2014, by Martin Clancy
New figures from industry analyst IDC show huge growth from Chinese handset manufacturers. According to IDC's report, better build quality and cheaper price points will hasten the decline of the feature phone market and usher in a global era of smartphone ownership... Read More
FIFA World Cup Mobile Site
June 16, 2014, by Martin Clancy
As World Cup fever begins to take hold (even for those of us from countries that didn't qualify), I've inevitably found myself drawn into the competition, multi-screen style. Having access to an array of fixtures, groups, stats, team line-ups and so on at my fingertips has definitely added to my experience of the event... Read More
