iPhone & iPod Touch project is SalarO's first study of DotNetNuke usability within the enormously successful iPhone & iPod mobile devices arena. It is predicted that by end of this year, there will be Approx 100 million devices around the world. The Apple OS is now well defined, so now is the time to also produce sections in your site that is user friendly in this environment. If you need to check your site on iphone and don't have one, check it here.
If you don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch to test your site then please have a look attestiphone.com/, you owe yourself some tinkering time. Keep in mind that - like all technology - the prices will come down eventually. It's a virtual certainly that within the next couple of years everyone will either have one or they'll be using similar copycat devices that are bound to join the competition in time. The touch sensitive interface is making developers think a bit differently about software development. The future is a place where mice and physical keyboards may become scarce.
What is so attractive about iPhone and iPod Touch
Both The iPhone and iPod Touch are expected to be connected to the Web at all time, either with local WiFi hotspots for a full throttle experience or via G3 or Edge network on iPhone. The main attractions are small size, long battery life, stunning user interface. This means that developing for portable devices no longer has to mean building occasionally connected, miniature, underpowered user interfaces. Both Devices are good at displaying standard web pages that you may never need to develop an application specifically for the iPhone. Your iPhone users can likely use your pre-existing DNN with few, if any, problems.
Most web pages display flawlessly by default on the iPhone/iPod. I've surfed countless DNN sites with few problems. Nonetheless, if you want to develop an application specifically for iPhone users, then it can certainly be done with carefully crafted iPhone/iPod DNN SKIN.
What are the existing problems with DNN on iPhone?
We initially tried to use mobiNuke 2.00.02 – to make our DotNetNuke Mobile Friendly. However, we did not have much luck with the module being very buggy and zero support from the developer (may be he is on vacation). We therefore went about solving the issues with slight modifications of the core and just a optimized skin. The rest of it will be achieved by mirroring modules or keeping it simple with dedicated copy borrowed from salaro.com.
We therefore went about solving the issues with slight modifications of the core and just a optimized skin. The rest of it will be achieved by mirroring modules or keeping it simple with dedicated copy borrowed from salaro.com.
Making DNN more usable for iPhone users is to understand that a standard sized button works fine for a mouse click, but the relatively fat size of a person's fingertip benefits from a larger target. Elements can be made more attractive and usable in other ways. For example, the iPhone will automatically convert hyperlinks that contain telephone numbers into hot spots that automatically dial that number when clicked. This assumes the iPhone recognizes the link as a phone number. To ensure the iPhone will recognize the link as a phone number, format it like this:
<a href="tel:1-425-555-5555">1-425-555-5555</a>
What's Supported by DNN? What's Not?
Browsing the DNN sites the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Safari does have a few limitations, However, these limitations are surprisingly few and far between when compared with the capabilities of other so-called ‘internet enabled' devices. Notable in the list are
- Adobe Flash. This is due to the fact that plug-ins and downloads of all kinds are prohibited on the iPhone/iPod.
- Silverlight as a development option.
- Downloads
Summary
The iPhone/iPod's ultra-rich, always connected browser environment is destined to redefine the way mobile device applications are built. Star Trek Technology is reality and A few touches of an iPhone is all it takes to convince virtually anyone that they are experiencing the future of user interfaces. A new wave of iPhone aware software is developing so I suggest you hop on and surf it to success!