A lot of users are browsing the web on their mobile phones, probably using an iPhone or the vastly popular Opera Mini. Although most mobiles are able to load normal websites, the web pages take a while to load completely. Also most people don't have an unlimited data plan and are charged for internet access based on their data usage. With that in mind I've decided that its essential to set up a mobile interface for my blog. Over the last few days I've been testing several wordpress mobile plugins.
I've read about displaying the site as on Google Reader mobile or setting up setting up another domain but I really don't want to divert traffic elsewhere. I'm just looking for a plugin that re-formats the page to be displayed on a mobile. Also an Important feature I've been looking for was to have an option to switch back to the Desktop version, because I think one size does not fit all and some users may prefer to use the desktop version based on the internet connection they have when browsing.
I've tried a few popular plugins and I'm just posting my opinion about them here which can be useful to you if and when you consider mobilizing your wordpress blog.
One of the very popular plugins I've tried was the WPtouch iPhone plugin by Dale Mugford & Duane Storey (BraveNewCode). I like the simple theme and although its meant for iPhone, iPod and android touch devices it also works on Opera Mini. Although it does not detect the default Nokia browser and the desktop site loads as normal. A cool feature is that It allows you to choose if you want to display an excerpt of the post on the homepage.
Now this is a really nice plugin if your focus is on the iPhone audience, but I want people on any mobiles to have a consistent experience irrespective of the browser they use. Also this plugin does not have to option to switch to the desktop site, so I had to skip this plugin.
Next I've tried the Wordpress PDA & iPhone plugin by Imthiaz Rafiq. This plugin formats the page to a nice and simple theme. By default it displays post excerpt on the homepage. It also displays Tags, Categories, Pages and Archives on the home page.
Another plugin that was recently mentioned by fellow blogger Tycoon Blogger is Wapple Architect by Rich Gubby. This is a really nice alternative. To set up this plugin you need to register to get a Dev key to enable the plugin. One thing that I really like about this plugin is that it displays the option to change to mobile or standard view at the bottom of the page and once you select an option it remembers it. Awesome! This plugin offers you a selection of themes and you can insert a picture for the header or the footer to improve the design.
Although on testing some pages with Opera Mini I got the error xml parsing failed, not sure why.
I've tried to install the Wordpress Mobile Edition by Crowd Favourite, and although I've followed the steps for installation, I kept getting an error saying WP Mobile is incorrectly installed. Although I must say that the Carrington Theme looks really cool.
Another very popular plugin is MobilePress by Aduity.
I really like the simplicity of this theme. This plugin also allows the use of other themes, and I managed to install the Carrington Mobile Theme with this plugin. Although the option to switch to standard version is removed if another theme is selected. Also I wasn't able to edit the about page on the theme.
Also I noticed that even after selecting standard version I was being redirected to the mobile site, I know, it can be really annoying.
I'm not really satisfied with any of the options available, however for now I've decided to keep the MobilePress plugin, for its simplicity. If you do know of any other plugin that works better please do let me know and I'll try it.
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