It’s been a week now since Apple first unveiled their new iPad device. I discussed last week the subject of who it was intended for and why it would be a successful product. This week I’m going to examine what it will mean for web designers and developers and the potential impact it will have on our industry.
iPad changes everything?
This is the message that Apple were voicing at their conference last week. While they seemed committed to it, very few people expressed the same views. However, in a way it does change everything, in terms of mobile web, available anywhere. It’s already been reported that within a few years the most common way people will access on-line content and services will be through mobile devices. (read more about that here) There are a number of devices available right now that provide a better experience for certain on-line services than on the actual website (Twitter I’m looking at you). However, as good as these devices are for browsing the web anywhere, any time they all have one common limitation; the small screen size.
In my opinion the best mobile device for browsing the web right now is the iPhone. However, you still have to scroll around quite a bit on content-heavy sites and filling in forms is a nightmare. Not only do you have to scroll around the screen in order to see the fields, you also have to keep hiding and showing the keyboard and some forms just don’t work well because of this.
So size does matter?
Yes, for browsing the web size matters. The iPad has a 9.7″ screen, much larger than mobile phones. It is capable of displaying far more content on it’s screen and therefore provides a much better experience for web users. Take a look at the screens on Apple’s own website where the iPad is displaying the home page of the New York Times. It looks great.
It also has a much higher screen resolution of 1024 x 768. On a traditional PC this would be considered very low, on a portable device it’s amazing. Higher resolutions equal shaper images and text and better looking web pages. This level of detail on a single screen simply isn’t possible, at least not in a readable form anyway, on any phone.
Ok – I’m a web designer, how can iPad benefit me?
Well ok, this will take a bit of explaining. Firstly I believe that the iPad is going to be hugely successful for Apple. If it’s successful then a lot of people will buy it. This means there will be a lot of people browsing websites with it. When discussing projects with clients it’s another plus point for their on-line business because it’s another way for them to reach potential customers and make sales.
I’ve been mentioning the iPhone in sales pitches to clients for the last 12 months. I always take my iPhone into a meeting so that I can show them that sites we’ve written display correctly on the device. This usually impresses them as quite often they either have an iPhone themselves and have never thought about it’s impact on their online business, or they know someone who has an iPhone and suddenly they see the importance of having their site work well on a mobile device. The iPad will offer an even better experience on-line for the reasons I’ve already detailed above.
The real beauty of it is that because iPad uses the Safari browser we don’t need to make special CSS code for our sites to display correctly on it. It’s easy to show clients how good websites will look and how easy it is to use the device.
Ah, but the iPad doesn’t display Flash content
Completely true, it doesn’t. However, as a developer I always try to stay away from Flash as much as possible anyway. It’s buggy, it requires different plug-ins for different browsers and it’s not good for SEO. Usually if a client wants to achieve something in Flash I can get the same result for them using JQuery coding. Also, HTML5 is on the way, and embedding video content directly into a web page (something that Flash is currently used for a lot) will be a breeze and will not require any plug-ins at all. After that I don’t see much of a future for Flash in the majority of business websites, apart from dedicated applications and games.
In conclusion then – iPad offers a lot for web designers
So, after all that let’s summarise what the iPad will offer for us as web designers and developers:-
- A great way to display websites on a mobile device without any CSS special coding
- An extra way we can sell our design services to clients
- A richer browsing experience
- A sales tool – “yes, we can make your site look great on the iPad so you can reach more people
- It may also be a really nice way of presenting a sales pitch to your clients – no more bulky laptop in the meeting room, just plug-in to a projector and go
- It shows clients that you’re aware of the latest technologies and are keeping up with changes in the industry to provide them with the best possible service
Written by Ian Hazeldine, Managing Director of Yellow Circle Web Solutions Limited