Latest in mobile web development best practices

Question

I know this has been asked a bunch of times before (notably here and here), but I'm looking for a good current guide for getting started in developing websites for modern mobile browsers. Ideally, I would love an updated version of Craig Hockenberry's excellent, 2.5-year-old Put Your Content in My Pocket---one that is aware of new devices like the Pre, Droid, etc., slightly different screen sizes across devices, and with solid advice for iPhone and BlackBerry in particular.

My goal here is to build a page with only text (prose and tabular) and a short form without conditional XHTML/CSS/JS for different browsers/hardware (if possible :) ).

I will need accordions to expand and hide details below section headers. I would use jQuery, but suspect that these browsers may have a more native of way of doing this very mobile-idiomatic thing.

I'm aware of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, but am looking for more real-world, concrete advice.

Thanks everybody!

Answer 1

Check out Mobile Web Design by Cameron Moll, there is a preview sample PDF.

mobilewebbook.com/

The pace of change in this area is so swift you are better off getting your information from the web in my opinion.

Here is a good article that links to quite a few resources (including the book I mention):

www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/13/mobile-web-design-trends-2009/

Don't skip the comments, smashingmagazine articles tend to accrue good advice in the comments. Good luck, and happy coding.

Answer 2

Hey, if you do go down the jQuery road you should check the jQtouch plugin