Ask The Pro: How can I use the Internet on my cell phone?
This month‘s Pro is Andy Libecki, Web Development Specialist at OnYourMark, LLC. Andy offers advice on using the Internet on your cell phone.The cell phone market has gotten very competitive in the past few years. Each phone provider tries to add as many features as possible to their products. One such feature is the ability to connect to the Internet on a cell phone. Connecting to the Internet on your cell phone can be very convenient, and it can also be very frustrating!
Most cell phone providers that allow you to connect to the Internet have a special portal for you to connect to. These portals are web pages specifically designed to be viewed on cellular phones. They mostly contain news, weather, sport scores and other current events. These pages are usually very plain and low on graphics, since a cellular phone’s screen is very small and graphics take up a lot of valuable screen space. Other websites offer wireless-specific pages or information on how to use their websites on a cell phone, such as Google’s wireless services or Yahoo! Mobile.
While pages specifically designed to be viewed on a cellular phone work very well, normal Web Sites aren’t quite as easy to use. Web pages that use lots of graphics or multimedia content (like Macromedia Flash or embedded movies) do work well on a cell phone. Graphics use up a large portion of a phone’s screen, making page navigation very difficult. Multimedia causes problems because cell phone screens were not designed to view this advanced content.
Many cell phones made in the past year or two have the option to connect to the Internet, especially phones with color screens. Cell phones vary significantly from model to model, but the option to connect to the Internet is usually in the phone’s main menu. Selecting the option will usually take you to the cell phone company’s specially designed pages. You should also have an option menu within the phone that allows you to enter a web address of your own to visit.
Once you venture away from the safety of your provider’s specially designed pages, your experience will vary greatly. If you try to visit a site designed entirely in Flash, you will probably not have much luck viewing it. On the other hand, sites that are composed mainly of text and a few graphics will probably work very well on your phone. At any rate, trying to navigate “regular” pages (i.e. pages not specifically designed for cell phones) can be like trying to explore the Smithsonian Museum while looking through a paper towel tube. There are many exciting things for you to experience, but you are only able to see one very small portion at a time.
Another issue is battery life. Browsing the Internet on a cell phone uses up a lot of battery power, even more than talking on the phone or playing games on the phone.
As the owner of a cell phone that can connect to the Internet, I find that the feature is fairly useful. However, current technology is too limiting for surfing the Internet on a cell phone to be much more than a novelty. Undoubtedly technology will quickly advance to make browsing the Internet on a cell phone faster, more efficient and more enjoyable.
The big exceptions are industry specific. OnYourMark, LLC developed one of the first real estate sites in the country to employ WAP (Wireless Access Protocol). WAP enabled our client to give detailed property information to buyers via their cell phones as they drove past a home “for sale” that they admired. If you would like any of your web information accessible by cell phones, we can help!
Links Mentioned in this Article:
- google.com/options/wireless.html
- mobile.yahoo.com/resource_center/tutorials
- macromedia.com/software/flash/
What would you like to ask the pro? Email your questions to askthepro@OnYourMark.com!