Mike Richwalsky of HighEdWebTech’s post on “What the new iPhone means to higher ed web folks” got me thinking about the mobile browsing revolution and it’s impact on web designers. Since the launch of the original iPhone it’s users have been collectively driving a revolution in the mobile web (I know there at least 12 of you who came here last month). The best part of the revolution is that it is being led by a browser with the same rendering abilities as its big brother on the desktop. This is break from the thinking of the other mobile browsers that seem to think that you need a dumbed down web on your mobile device (I’m looking at you Mobile IE). With iPhone 3G coming to many more countries (including mine, Canada … want to buy me a present?) in the next few weeks and at a price that is much less daunting I expect the climb in mobile browsing will not slow anytime soon. So where does that leave us higher-ed web designers and what can we do to prepare … or catch up?

Although many websites have opted to design custom versions of their sites for use with the iPhone (Facebook, Google Reader, Gmail) this makes much more sense, in my opinion, for web apps than it does for content delivering websites. So what can you do to get your website iPhone ready?

1. Start testing your pages in Safari. You can test for iPhone without the the need to have the hardware (although it is always fun to justify the school paying for cool hardware for testing purposes . If you are on a Mac Safari comes pre-installed (although you may want to download iPhoney just to get the real iPhone feel) and on Windows it will be installed without you even knowing by the Apple Updater … ok that is a joke. But seriously, it is an easy install for Windows users. You should definitely Build Safari into your testing run if you haven’t already.
2. Use proper structure on your site. Mobile Safari uses the structural elements of your page (<div>, <p>, etc.) to do it’s intelligent zooming.

And if you want you want to do some custom iPhone development here are a few tips:

3. Have a look at iUI for some help in making that iPhone looking app. iUI was developed by the Joe Hewitt, the genius behind Facebook’s iPhone UI.
4. Make an iPhone icon for your school so that anyone who opts to add your site to their home screen will get your nicely designed icon.

With the trail blazed by Apple you can expect the other hardware makers will be looking for ways to bring the full, real, web to your new cell phones. I saw this video the other day and it looks like Firefox mobile is coming along nicely and actually doing some really innovative stuff to maximize your screen space.
Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.ps. If you are concerned about mobile browsing you should take some time to check out Opera as well. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 Million devices running Opera. The Desktop version of Opera has nice tools in it for testing for mobile devices.

My brother Cody (former web developer for the University of Lethbridge and part time eduStyle developer) just launched a new design gallery today. So far (and he has only been collecting sites for a few days) it has a fantastic line up of sites in the gallery. Go check it out and while you’re at it give him a little Digg love.

Google obviously wants everyone to switch over to Google Apps for their email and office suites. I actually use it for all of my personal projects and love it, but getting my school to sign up to using it is a much bigger challenge. So sneaky Google has released “Team Edition” that makes it stupid simple to use the collaborative document editing and start page without getting your school officially on board. I can see the huge benefit to using this on the dreaded team projects in college. No more emailing back and forth. I can also see how this might come in handy in a classroom setting for a Faculty member sharing and collaborating with students on a document. Here is a video:

It makes me wonder how long before Google takes on a product like Blackboard. They really seem to be pressing hard in the educational market with their office solutions. I for one welcome them … until, of course, they become evil. Then I’ll grab my pickfork.

Ok, so the news that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo has been popping up for months … maybe years. It looks like Microsoft actually made an offer today. For much of what Yahoo offers this doesn’t really bother me. I haven’t really been that interested in most things Yahoo since the late 90′s. What scares me is what happens to all of the aquisitions that we in higher-ed love and that Yahoo has been smart enough to leave untouched, like Flickr and del.icio.us. Microsoft says:

” … it can shave at least $1 billion from operating expenses in a merged company. “

I fear these amazing, culturally un-microsoft, web services may be the first to go. I just hope I’m wrong. It’d be great if this is the thing about Yahoo that they are hoping to bring to Microsoft, but more likely they just want the ad and search engine market. And Microsoft, if you do let flickr and del.icio.us continue on please, please, please, don’t re-brand them as “live”, I’d rather see them die peacefully.