Who You Calling A Jesse?

I caught an announcement for a preview of Deepfish (IE for windows mobile) and it got me excited. Why? It renders like a desktop browser. The browsing experience appears to be a big improvement on the Nokia Webkit based browser that you find in the newer Nokia devices (and is really cool for being out for a long while now). Currently it doesn’t look like it will be a better experience than what the Safari browser in the iPhone promises but the point is the browser experience is getting much better for mobile devices.

I am not entirely convinced the desktop experience is a good thing for mobile devices over GSM or CDMA given the outrageous data plans we have in North America (although they are getting better in the US, not so much Canada). With dual mode (wifi + GSM or CDMA) devices it could be very cool. As this technology/experience improves I am reminded once again of the 1990’s and the web. Will developers even bother with the older WAP based slow browsers given most phones are replaced/dead/broken in two years or so? Do you take the time and invest in a stripped down site or do you just work on detecting the smaller screens and making some marginal improvements instead of big changes?

Figuring out if it is worth the effort is a tough call. Almost all the project participants here don’t use their devices for the web largely because they have a laptop nearby and the devices do not do what they want. What they want is the same experience they get on the PC. I think it is a good sign for RIA’s though. They might not need a J2EE version in the near future.

I am hoping to get my hands on a Windows mobile device running Deepfish this afternoon. I will report back if I do…