Nowadays there is a growing trend in surfing the web using your mobile phone. This newfound trend is thanks to the more affordable data packages from the local telecommunication giants namely Digi, Maxis and Celcom. With more people connected through mobile, your website or blog should at least be mobile compatible to keep your readers up to date. One of the ways to do it is to create a m.yoursite.com subdomain and create a mirror of your site which has been optimized for mobile browsers. That was the old school way and takes up too much time and luckily for us WordPress users we can do it the quick and easy way. Read on to find out how.
Advantages Of Going Mobile-Friendly
Faster loading time
You wouldn’t want your readers to wait for almost a whole minute for their Opera Mini browser to load your full homepage. No one likes to wait that long for content. Unless your WordPress site is used to serve high quality graphics, then I suggest you go mobile friendly today. Forget that, do it NOW!
The Traditional Way
If you have noticed many sites have added their share of the mobile domain and it is more commonly seen as m.yoursite.com. They would have to edit their .htaccess file and order a re-route to send the reader to the m.yoursite.com site if the user agent of a mobile web browser is detected. Prior to that the site owners would have to re-design their site and streamline it for mobile content. Would you want to do ALL that?
Your Available Options
As a WordPress user, you would be pleased to know that there is a plugin – in fact two! – that can be used to instantly make your WordPress site mobile friendly. Both versions come free and also there is an option to go pro with a small fee.
WordPress Mobile Edition
The first is WordPress Mobile Edition by Alex King which is built based on the Carrington theme. Simple and direct, it has minimalistic design and features, delivering content in its gist.
WPtouch iPhone Theme
Your second option would be the WPtouch iPhone Theme by BraveNewCode. The WPtouch iPhone Theme is designed specifically with the iPhone in mind so needless to say your site will look fantastic on an iPhone.
Which Should You Pick?
Well I don’t have an iPhone to perform any comparisons but this is what I can show you from my Nokia 5800 Xpress Music.
Screenshot of ahyen.com on WordPress Mobile Edition
Screenshot of ahyen.com on WPtouch iPhone Theme
Sorry for not going full screen on the WPtouch iPhone Theme but you can see for yourself that the WordPress Mobile Edition has much better rendering of the page than WPtouch. I’ll try to get more screenshots on different phones for more comparison. If you are using a mobile phone other than the Nokia 5800 Express Music, do me a favor and send me a screenshot of my site.
The WordPress Mobile Edition plugin gives you better rendering and caters for a wider audience. Having a simplified interface gives less room for error.
The WPtouch iPhone Theme plugin on the other hand is better eye candy when viewed through an iPhone because it is designed to work with the iPhone. This means that other mobile readers will have sub-par surfing experience at your site.
Verdict
If you really want to cater for the masses then go ahead and install the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin as it will give you less rendering problems. But then again most of the Internet savvy and fast moving generation opt for the iPhone as their preferred mobile device when surfing the web on the go. Hmm…