The key element in building the new Web standard is making it so that every computer and every mobile device sold will be capable of displaying the same content without making any compromises in quality (while keeping the ability to customize / optimize the interface for specific devices). The posts I’ve made over the past few weeks have been covering website design technologies that will be able to do just that.
If you look at the design of the iPhone (and many devices since it’s release), it really focuses on taking your attention away from the actual device in an effort to draw your attention to what’s actually happening on the screen. There are so many choices when purchasing a device that there’s no way to really go wrong in terms of the hardware’s capabilities. The number one aspect that really makes a device great is the software that’s available, and how you actually use it. The iTunes App Store really locks people into purchasing the new iPhone when buying a new phone, because you can’t use any of the apps you’ve purchased through the App Store on any other phone. If they choose to buy a new phone, then they’re forced to re-purchase similar apps to ones they already had.
AT&T just announced that they have a new phone that’s using Android (Google’s Phone OS) that will have a locked down App Store that they have full control over. Mobile devices are currently dividing and controlling users’ software experiences. Meanwhile, personal computers have 3 choices for software compatibility (Windows, Mac, and Linux), and those are becoming more cross-compatible every day. There’s software that you can run that simply takes an application written for one of the other operating systems and makes it so that it runs on your computer as if it were made to do that from the start. There’s this trend in the emerging technology where the manufacturers and carriers are trying to make as much money as possible as people jump into a category of technology they haven’t dealt with before so they’re not sure what to expect in terms of pricing and experience. Once people realize that this simply isn’t what they want, the market will have to change to a new model, and that might be the personal computer’s model of a few major competitors with separate purposes, the unified standard of Web site technologies, or something we have yet to see.
Connect with HRB:
The one choice that I currently see being the best option is to use web standards. The Internet isn’t new so why haven’t we seen any of the cool stuff I’ve talked about yet? One of the primary issues with web development in the past is that the Web sites out there have had to build sites for web browsers that just don’t have the same capabilities as the browsers today so it’s limited by the least capable, but most common, browsers being used. Hardware manufacturers are constantly making and improving upon these really great devices, and the software needs to be able to adapt and make the best use of the new devices. Modern web browsers have also changed the way that they update themselves so that making sure users have the latest version will be more obvious if not automatic. This is good news.
New Look! 