jQ.Mobi: Less compatible, but better performance
January 17th, 2012The plain reality is that the vast majority of mobile web traffic is on Android and iOS devices. BlackBerry users have, by and large, been so disappointed by the poor web experience out of the box that they tend not to go on the web. Windows smartphones are still a small slice of the mobile market, especially when you focus on 3G and LTE devices, which use the lion’s share of the traffic, at least until Nokia ramps up its smartphone production.
With that in mind, jQ.Mobi saw its first public release on Monday. Its developer, appMobi, calls it a beta.
The core engine and UI is 15KB gripped, which means that even when your user drops to EDGE, they’ll still have a good experience, since you still have 10KB leeway for images and markup. It is also optimized for simulating apps, including support for integration in tools like PhoneGap.
Further, it’s designed to make the interface as consistent as possible between Android and iOS devices, including fixed headers and footers and smooth CSS3 transitions. It’s not quite ready for tablet devices. If you watch the video, the interface during the Kindle Fire segment feels clunky, but they say they are working on tablet-optimized CSS.
In terms of syntax, jQuery users will feel at home. Still, be cautious with jQuery plugins, because while they should be run, many are still optimized for desktop environments and jQ.mobi is not intended for desktop use.
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2 Comments
January 22nd, 2012 at 4:01 am
jq.mobi sink app didn’t worked on my iPhone 3G, iOS 4.3.
January 23rd, 2012 at 7:39 pm
That’s interesting to know. I know they’re relying upon hardware-accelerated CSS3. I also know from personal experience that each device running a given version of iOS can have a slightly different implementation of the browser. I’d hypothesize that whatever transition they’re relying upon is failing for that combination of device and operating system.