Motion in the Mobile Web

One of the advantages that developers on the mobile web has is, if they are going to pursue separating "desktop" sites from "mobile" sights, is that the mobile web is more up-to-date with regards to standards than the desktop web (Here's looking at you IE and, to some extent, Firefox.) Mobile Webkit nearly passes Acid 2, and I am not sure about Mobile Opera. However, mobile browsers, specifically those based on Webkit and Opera, are more advanced than a certain browser that web developers always have to worry about. Plus, all mobile brosers (sans mobile IE) support CSS rounded corners: Firefox has -moz-border-radius, Opera has -o-border-radius, and Webkit -webkit-border-radius. Rounded corners in the mobile web may become a big thing, as it does not require any more images to load.

Today, Webkit dominates the mobile web. Motorola uses it in their MOTOMAGX browser, Apple in Mobile Safari, Nokia for their default browser, and Android. Because of the recent adoption of Webkit as an engine, the majority of the mobile web now has access to a CSS property that may make their whole experience so much better: -webkit-transition and -webkit-transform. I mentioned these two CSS properties previously in my post about the semantic web. Using these properties, web pages can achieve hardware accelerated animations, which is important in a mobile phone, as every little bit counts. And, because most of the mobile web supports this, auxiliary animations may become the standard, making the mobile web a vastly different experience than the desktop web.

Of course, this ignores Windows Mobile, which had 21 percent of the United States smartphone market with all of the individual hardware makers combined, and less than 6% worldwide. (I don't know the actual statistic, but I know that it is less than the iPhone at around 6%. However, a developer has to accept that the mobile web is a worldwide phenomenon. Webkit is the most popular mobile browser, and people may jump on the opportunity to provide the best experience possible to their users, just as developers focus on Internet Explorer on the desktop. Webkit's animations may become what ActiveX used to be on Internet Explorer, and because they originated in an Open Source application and degrade well in browsers that do not support it, it may become a harmless standard.