Your website can't support all mobile devices, but how to decide?

Question

Hi,

there are a lot of mobile devices that can surf and could benefit from a website optimiezed for their screen resolution and so on. but how do you decide which device to support, because you can't support all of them with an optimized mobile page view.

my way would be to do a sum-up mobile page, that most of the devices can handle, and then perhaps do somespecial pages for iphone or palm pre, because there are a lot of users around. in that way the majority will get a good mobile page.

but how do you solve this? I'm no professional web designer :), and my presnted ways don't even include stuff like "no java for iphone", limited flash on another device, touchscreen for the one device and another way of input for another device.

greets, Andreas

Answer 1

I would optimise for iPhone, as the market leader they set the standards that others follow

Answer 2

Focus on market share: find yourself some data such as this one. You could have a "generic mobile site" and a couple for the market leaders (e.g. iPhone).

Answer 3

I would probably have one generic version and one optimized for iPhone. Other than that, maybe you have some logs you can have a look at once in a while to see if there are some types of devices that visit you more than others?

Answer 4

Get a breakdown of handset popularity and go for the market leader as the learned gentlemen below has stated. I have also noticed some sites which have different code for different mobile devices eg wap sites and so on. Could you not have multiple pages of code and the device auto chooses the one in the most suitable language or even have the viewer select from an option page.

Answer 5

I think you have to investigate your market, for example, if your target is first-world you should render only xHTML MP, and not WML. I recommend you a standard design and other advanced design for high-phones with good javascript support like iphone.