Comments on: Mobile META Tags

By: Simulez votre site sur téléphones mobiles avec ProtoFluid | traffic-internet.net

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:07:55 +0000

[...] est possible de définir la résolution du terminal à l’aide du meta tag viewport reconnu par Safari, Webkit et Opera à l’heure actuelle. Ce meta tag est généralement un [...]

By: frmtr trkygnclr

frmtr trkygnclr — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 20:32:01 +0000

Thanks Gail, these tags working on all mobile browsers. I’m designing theme for mobile web site and i’m testing it sybian os with nokia mobile phones.

By: Apple iPad und Safari Webdesign | CSS einfach erklärt

Apple iPad und Safari Webdesign | CSS einfach erklärt — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:36:32 +0000

[...] oder anders herum, je nachdem wie man es hält. Wichtig ist hier insbesondere die Verwendung des Viewport Meta-Tags, mit dem sich die vom mobilen Safari als Standardwert angenommenen 980 Pixel Fensterbreite an die [...]

By: Mobile Web Design » Wozu der viewport meta tag?

Mobile Web Design » Wozu der viewport meta tag? — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:49:06 +0000

[...] Nachtrag: Der viewport meta tag funktioniert immerhin “… in many smartphone browsers, including Safari Mobile for the iPhone, Android browser, webOS browser in Palm Pre and Pixi devices, Opera Mini, Opera Mobile and BlackBerry browsers.” Quelle: http://learnthemobileweb.com/2009/07/mobile-meta-tags/ [...]

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:32:01 +0000

Hi Manish,
When the doctype is XHTML-MP or WML, then DOCTYPE is a valid criteria for determining whether markup is intended for mobile devices. When the doctype is HTML or XHTML, then it doesn’t convey any information about optimizations. That’s why these META tags are used – to mark a generic HTML document as intended for mobile browsers. Other means to identify whether HTML markup is mobile-optimized is by inspecting the document size (under 10k – probably renders OK on mobile), page weight (combination of document + dependent resources like JavaScript libraries, CSS, etc – look for # of dependent resources, total size and standards-adherence in each resource) and usage of HTML tags known not to play well in mobile browsers (i.e. iframe and frame elements).

By: Manish Gurnaney

Manish Gurnaney — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:13:14 +0000

Hi Gail,
I have one query, lots of operator sites doesn’t specify any of these tag and still want the page should be treated as a mobile page(as the contents are written for these smart phones only). So in this scenario we should treat such kind of pages as regular Desktop pages.
Are there any means of identifying whether the pages are specified for Mobile or not?
I believe we shouldn’t decide on the basis of DOCTYPE.

Regards,
Manish Gurnaney

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:27:54 +0000

Hi Alvin, for browsers that switch orientation (or for re-usable markup that works on any browser supporting the Viewport meta tag) use the special device-width and device-height variables, as in: The example above sets the viewport width to the device's screen width, whatever value it takes in the current orientation.

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:23:59 +0000

Good question. Does the Windows Mobile SDK documentation specifically mention that htmlView.dll contains the exact same browse experience as IE Mobile? On some devices, I have noticed capability differences between a browser control and a browser application, with the former being a pared-down version of the latter. Sounds like you found another device where this is the case. There may be ways to programmatically set the scaling for the browser control. I suggest you scour the Windows Mobile SDK documentation to learn the browser control capabilities and find workarounds. Best of luck!

By: Alvin Yue

Alvin Yue — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:55:58 +0000

I am concern about the use of viewport tag as some of the phones are capable of switching the orientation (e.g. iPhone, Moto Droid). When that happens, width=320 might limit the phone from using the landscape width of 480 (iPhone).

By: aakanksha

aakanksha — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:44:18 +0000

Thanks for your reply. Yea my question is about using IE mobile as a control in a Windows Mobile Application vs running on the IE Mobile browser. After experimenting I found that the meta tags do not work when i use htmlView.dll for opening the html page (which i assume internally uses IE browser) . So i wanted to ask if you could suggest something that why it would be happening or is it something wrong that I am doing. If you require further clarification please let me know.

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:04:47 +0000

I don’t quite understand your question. Would you provide more information, please? These META tags provide hints to the browser for rendering mobile-optimized Web content. How do you envision “making these tags work” without actually opening the browser window? If you are asking about using IE Mobile as a control in a Windows Mobile application vs. running the IE Mobile browser application, the two are likely to have the same support for META tags, but only on-device testing would definitively prove this to be true.

By: aakanksha

aakanksha — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:54:57 +0000

Hi Gail,
I understand the use and advantage of this meta tag, but i have a question here. Can i add these meta tags in my html pages and navigate to those html pages using the DTM_NAVIGATE message present in htmlView.dll. Will these tags still work to give a mobile optimized views? Or is there any other way to make these tags work without actually opening it in the IE Mobile .

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:21:32 +0000

My opinion is that if a company wants to reach a mobile audience, it must provide a mobile-optimized Web experience, even for smartphones. (In fact, that’s the premise of the book I just published – see the sidebar for a link.) If you have ever tried to surf the desktop-optimized web on a mobile device, even a device as capable as the iPhone or an Android model, you’ll notice that panning and zooming around a view of 5% of the Web page is a poor user experience. Not to mention the burden on the mobile network and mobiel browser of downloading and rendering the huge file sizes of desktop-optimized Web pages (1 MB+, considering linked images, videos, stylesheets, javascript libraries, etc).

By: starGazer

starGazer — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:35:56 +0000

Thanks for your prompt response, Gail. I was just wondering if a company does need to duplicate effort (e.g., create the same content twice) just to “fit” different internet users/customer (e.g., desktop / mobile). That sounds like it’s not necessary.

Thanks again.

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:20:59 +0000

Adding META tags intended for mobile browsers shouldn’t affect its display on desktop browsers. If a desktop browser doesn’t understand the VIEWPORT tag, for example, then it silently does not re-scale the page. However, if by “mobile-optimized”, you mean changing the page’s MIME type to be “application/xhtml+xml” or another mobile-appropriate content type, then yes, this could affect its display in a desktop browser.

By: starGazer

starGazer — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:19:17 +0000

Thanks for the post.
One question, if I code the page in a mobile-optimized way, can the same page be used for regular computer browser?

Many thanks

By: Mark Finkle’s Weblog » Fennec – Mobile Optimzed Web Pages

Mark Finkle’s Weblog » Fennec – Mobile Optimzed Web Pages — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:15:12 +0000

[...] few techniques they can use to tell a web browser that a web page is optimized for a mobile device. Learn the Mobile Web has a nice post summarizing these DOCTYPEs and meta tags. Web browsers can look for these hints and [...]

By: Mobile META Tags | Learn the Mobile Web | My Web Development Bookmarks

Mobile META Tags | Learn the Mobile Web | My Web Development Bookmarks — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:38:36 +0000

[...] See original here: Mobile META Tags | Learn the Mobile Web [...]

By: Gail Rahn Frederick

Gail Rahn Frederick — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:33:39 +0000

Media queries aren’t widely supported on mobile devices. They will work on some smartphone browsers but have little or no support among featurephones. I wouldn’t rely on media queries.

As for trending, I can say that all of these meta tags are widely documented as indicators of mobile content. Smartphone browsers that support zooming content support at least one of the Viewport and MobileOptimized tags. (Advantage to Viewport, IMO, because of adoption on iPhone and trickle-down to other browser vendors.) Both should be embedded into mobile markup intended for smartphones.

By: zibin

zibin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:24:00 +0000

Nice article,

I am wondering the trends of these meta tags. Which tag is getting higher adoption than others.

And do u think media queries is a possible substitution for this meta tags?