Windows Phone Thoughts: Pocket PC Thoughts Mobile Site Now Launched

I'm very pleased to announce that our new mobile site has been launched! The biggest problem with our old template was how bandwidth-intensive it was. Sure, it was great to see all the pictures, but it wasn't uncommon for our mobile site to top 400 KB worth of data - and unless you have a flat-rate data connection, that's a lot of data to suck down. The solution? An elegant, fast, streamlined template that accommodates both users with unlimited data, and those without.


(You'll have to excuse the screen-shot, the only device I had handy was my T-Mobile Dash. And look, a typo!)

Some "release notes" on this feature:

1. For users that have unlimited data and want to keep getting the pictures like before, that first question drops a cookie on their device so they’ll see pictures. For others , those without unlimited data, we’ve created an incredibly light and fast template that’s extremely bandwidth-friendly - but you can still click on the word IMAGE to see the picture.
   
2. The photos that do appear have been dynamically resized by a smart server script, so even if they ask for pictures to be shown, we’re going to give them a resized version that’s friendly for their device. This only applies to JPEG images – we don’t resize GIF or PNG files (which tend to be smaller anyway) due to a limitation in the graphics library we're using on the server.
   
3. Windows Mobile 6 has a smaller default font size than WM5, so with two devices set to the default of “Medium”, Windows Mobile 6 will look smaller. If we made the font size bigger so Windows Mobile 6 users could see it better, it would become huge for WM5 users. Windows Mobile 6 users should change the font size up by one step if they find it too small, and later this year we’ll probably bump it up by one size when more users are using Windows Mobile 6 devices. Thank you Microsoft for making this so damn awkward.
   
4. Right now it’s VIEW ONLY. We do not have a posting interface in place: that’s actively being worked on and if all goes well, it should debut sometime in late April or early May. The new posting interface will be as light and fast as this new template. Unlike our old posting interface, we won't make you download 200 KB of smilies.
   
5. There aren't any ads on it now, but there will be in the future - it has to pay for itself somehow. ;-) One small, low-KB size ad, and subscribers will be able to turn that off.

Comments and constructive criticism are welcome - we want to improve this feature and make it the best mobile template of any site out there. Go ahead and hit www.pocketpcthoughts.com with your mobile site and tell me what you think...