Why Apple doesn’t have a mobile site
Apple.com has been one of the most copied and ripped off website designs and its design elements are scattered across more websites than I can count. It is one of the trendsetting websites that seem to set direction as to how websites should look and interact with the user.
While attending the UI16 conference this week in Boston, I attended Luke Wroblewski’s workshop on mobile. I let my mind wander as he discussed some things I was already familiar with and I had this thought:
Why doesn’t apple.com have a mobile website?
Let me share what I discovered. I think there is a lesson to be learned by the fact that there is no mobile apple.com experience. When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, he touted it as a revolutionary internet communication device. It was. I just re-watched his keynote and grabbed a few words he used when describing the mobile internet experience of 2007, when the iPhone was announced:
“Its sort of the baby internet.” “It’s bad out there today.” (referring to the mobile internet) “We are not creating a baby web browser or WAP browser, but a real browser. The first full HTML browser on a phone.” “We are bringing the real internet to your phone.” “We show you the whole New York Times website.”
Let me break down what I think he means. I had a Windows Mobile 5.0 phone that I used, only on occasion, to browse the internet. Using my up-down-right-left key I could jump to different links, similar to trying to use the Tab key on your desktop to jump to the link you want to click on, was annoying and slow. Some sites didn’t work at all. Other sites offered a streamlined mobile site, but it lacked full content and was still difficult to navigate.
What made the iPhone a revolutionary communication device was it offered the full internet. You could get to any content on any site (except for Flash based sites and media). You could view all content. It was a real browser.
Unfortunately, some people think their mobile site should only contain a portion of their “full site”. Sure, its much nicer to have web pages optimized for mobile so we don’t have to zoom in and out on all the pages to read the text. Sure, its nice when pages are lighter so they are faster to view over a 3g connection. Sure its nice to take advantage of mobile capabilities like GPS. However, these benefits should not be provided at the cost of cutting content.
“Mobile first” is a content strategy. Remember, mobile should just be a different rendering of the same content. The rule is, if something isn’t important enough to make it onto your mobile site, then why is it on your desktop site? Desktop sites are not junk drawers for obscure content. All web pages could do with some content cleanup, and mobile is a great opportunity for some spring cleaning.
I think Apple chooses not to create a mobile site because I believe they want to promote the full web for all devices. However, I wish they would lead out in creating a mobile optimized experience that offers the same content as their desktop site that isn’t missing any content or features. I look forward to the day that we have mobile sites that share the same content as the desktop experience but are optimized for screen size, touch inputs, and connection speeds. Then we’ll really have a mobile experience worth talking about.
