Do you read this on a mobile?

By on October 5, 2007 in News

We have a specially formatted mobile version of SMS Text News — the site is reformatted for most handsets so that it displays nicely. However I’ve got a few changes I’d like to make — most notably the ability to submit comments via mobile.

If you’re a mobile-user of the site, could you take a few minutes and tell me what you’d like so we can implement it?

About Ewan

Ewan is Founder and Editor of Mobile Industry Review. He writes about a wide variety of industry issues and is usually active on Twitter most days. You can read more about him or reach him with these details.
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  • http://whatleydude.vox.com Whatleydude

    Sorry dude – I only read this through Mippin.
    Suits my needs perfectly…

    Mipp it you Muppet!

    (www.mippin.com/preview from your Mobile browser)

  • Grant

    I do indeed read SMS Text News on my mobile….(courtesy of 3′s X-Series).

    – Submitting comments via mobile would be absolutely ace, but if you added the ability to read others it would be killer! Some of your blog-posts don’t really make sense without the comments!

    - Now this is just plain fussy. When navigate to your mobile site I get:

    “Your hub for mobile news blogged by Ewan MacLeod, CEO of Neo One. Put this into your feed reader and have a scan every now and then to track whats cooking around the world. Updated today”

    It doesn’t look like much, but on my phone it takes up nearly the whole screen. I then have to scroll down past the ads, and then past the “Visit http://www.smstextnews.com for the main site” notice to see the latest news. If you could cut that down, move it or perform some other magic you could make it far easier to check out your latest and greatest.

    - It would be really nice if you could somehow incorporate similar design, logo and/or CSS elements into your mobile site – enforces the brand a bit. :)

    Thats all from me. Thanks for the regular updates and improvements!

  • http://invalid.name Dan Lane

    Actually, been meaning to bug you about this… I can’t stand the mobile version of the site… I’d rather have to deal with loading and scrolling around the main version than use the mobile one.

    I am especially insulted by the link on the main page that tells me to “Visit http://www.smstextnews.com for the main site” when that was where I went to begin with!

    It even does it on my iPhone which is more than capable of rendering the full page usably… I can totally see the need for a mobile version but PLEASE let us choose!

  • Heavylight

    The normal site works fine using Opera Mini so i’d not noticed the mobile-optimised version.
    Personally i don’t like using keypad navigation shortcuts – until a convention becomes established.
    I look forward to seeing the new developments.

  • SE Fanboy

    On my P1i, the Sms Text News web site is whack. Sometimes when you click on the news links, the links are unreadable. today, Ben Harveys column on the p1i, there is a lot of text then a error message, XML parasing failed : not well-formed (Line: 1, Character:4046). The site needs a proper web 2.0 change as all other web sites I visit on the mobile come out good.

  • Ewan

    I’ve sorted out the error messages and I’ve added the ability to view comments. Now, to sort out the abilty to ADD comments….

  • Al

    Ewan — I dropped you a note about this in the week. On the iPhone you get the mobile site and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get to the normal site. It looks like you’re detecting the iPhone as a mobile (but we all know it’s not just a regular mobile eh?). This site has more info on detecting the iPhone browser: http://www.devx.com/wireless/Article/35532/1954?pf=true.

    cheers!

  • http://www.shopqwik.co.uk Mark

    I use the mobile version every day, so keep up the good work

    Mark

  • http://www.brilliantexpos.com Jeb

    Ewan,
    I’m with Dan on this. I can’t stand the simplicity and lack of features of the mobile version. We should have the option to go to the mobile version but going to http://www.smstextnews.com should bring us to the regular site. More and more of us have phones that can handle it.

    Jeb

  • Terence Eden

    I’ve only ever read the mobile version – I don’t think I’ve even seen the full site!

    It looks great on my phone (Blackberry 8707v) but there are a couple of things I’d change…

    1) Lose the access keys, most phones use the keypad for phone functions (zoom, reload etc) rather than for navigation.

    2) More stories on the front page. While some devices may choke, I’m guessing the majority of your readers have phones with more power than a T610i. Why not put, say, 10 stories there.

    3) The “Your comment” box only covers half the width of my screen. Are you using a fixed pixel width? It might look better if all text entrry feilds were set to a width of 100%

    That’s all for now – keep up the good work.

    Terence
    (Posted from a Blackberry – so it looks like the add comments thing is working!)

  • Ewan

    Excellent feedback! Who’s accessing this on their T610? Anyone? ;-) I think I can make those updates!

  • Ewan

    Ok, accesskey links have been removed

  • Marat

    Using Opera Mini makes the mobile version obsolete.

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