ronan
Ronan Cremin leads engineering efforts at DeviceAtlas. He focuses on building device intelligence applications, such as the award-winning DeviceAtlas and DeviceAssure products. Mr. Cremin also represents DeviceAtlas at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
Latest Articles by ronan
Mobile internet users in India outnumber PC internet users 3 to 1
July 9, 2007, by ronan
There was an interesting article in India's Economic Times over the weekend that confirms what a lot of people know already: mobile web is fast becoming the primary means of accessing the web for many people, specially in developing nations. India has 9 million internet subscribers against 31 million mobile internet users who use the mobile internet "to read and reply to mails, download content and for online transactions". About 54% of new handsets sold in 2006 were internet-enabled according to the same report... Read More
DotMobi Email Guide published
July 3, 2007, by ronan
We've just published the 1.0 Final version of the dotMobi Email Guide. This is a set of guidelines for service providers that wish to run email services suitable for use on mobile devices. More specifically, this guide lists one mandatory rule and a number of optional best practices for publicly available email services running on a .mobi domain. This guide was produced by us, working closely with our investor companies, who know a thing or two about email on mobile... Read More
Apple iPhone passes muster
June 27, 2007, by ronan
So it looks like the initial reviews of the iPhone are mostly positive, with David Pogue and Walt Mossberg both giving it a thumbs up. My two biggest reservations about the device seem to be mostly non-issues:... Read More
Mobile advertising: how to monetize your mobile site
June 8, 2007, by ronan
Like it or hate it advertising is one of cornerstones of the web today. Advertising is paying for a lot of the time and money that goes into creating and publishing content that you see online. Without it, a lot of the "free" web sites that make up so much of the web would eventually disappear... Read More
Celebrity news and bikini contests on dev.mobi
June 6, 2007, by ronan
What has happened? Have we sold out? Are we making a cheap buck out of our developer forum?Thankfully not. This is all part of an altruistic experiment in mobile advertising. Those of you who visited the mobile version of mobiForge may have noticed that mobile ads started popping up on the site today... Read More
Lightweight Device-Detection in PHP
June 1, 2007, by ronan
One problem that keeps cropping up when developing mobile content is how to differentiate between mobile devices and desktop browsers. We need to be able to do this before we can think about content adaptation. The "proper" way to do this is to use a full device detection database such as DeviceAtlas (see our tutorial here) but the following method may be sufficient to get you started... Read More
Web Developer’s Guide released
March 9, 2007, by ronan
I am proud to announce we recently posted the dotMobi Mobile Web Developer's Guide on mobiForge. This is quite a comprehensive guide to mobile web developement. It layers on the advice from the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 document, but takes it further... Read More
dotMobi Mobile Web Developer’s Guide
March 8, 2007, by ronan
I am proud to announce we recently posted the dotMobi Mobile Web Developer's Guide on mobiForge. This is quite a comprehensive guide to mobile web development. It layers on the advice from the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 document, but takes it further... Read More
Mobile browser advances do not remove the the need for mobile-friendly sites
November 27, 2006, by ronan
The argument goes as follows: phones are becoming more capable all the time and already some high end phones can handle existing desktop-focused sites without a problem. So why is a mobile-friendly site necessary?... Read More
Mobile data charges: stifling growth of mobile internet?
September 6, 2006, by ronan
I believe that the mobile internet charges are severly restricting the growth of the mobile internet. I base this claim on empirical evidence from the behaviours of people I know. Almost without exception, whenever I mention the idea of browsing on a mobile phone to people, or whenever they see me doing it, they say the same thing: "Oh, that's really expensive, isn't it?" There are people I know who religiously avoid touching the Live! or iMode button on their phones, despite their prominant placement on the handset, based on the fear of a large bill. One person I know has had purchased a new iMode phone and in 2 months had conciously and deliberately avoided pressing the "i" button, despite the fact that this is the key selling point of the phone and associated service... Read More
