I am happy to announce that dotMobi recently released the Mobile Web Developer's Guide . The goal of this guide is to provide web developers with enough knowledge to get started on the creation of Web content for mobile users. It covers the benefits of publishing for mobile users, how mobile delivery differs from desktop delivery and how to design for the mobile context.
We felt the need for this guide because, while there are plenty of standards and best practices already out there, it's nice to have a document that covers the standards and how to actually implement them, in one place, in a readable way. This guide takes the standards that are out there (W3C Best Practices, XHTML MP etc) and fills in of the surrounding information, along with techniques and code samples for putting these into use.
One of the biggest problems that desktop web developers have in transitioning to mobile is understanding the complexities of the mobile landscape -- data charges, mobile operators, device diversity, adaptation and so on. The dotMobi guide goes to great lengths to try to cover these issues in detail. We also cover the "mobile context" - since this is so important in creating a useful mobile experience, and quite different to what a PC web developer may be used to.
A big thanks to the guys in Blue Flavor and Brian Fling in particular for their work in producing this guide for us. Thanks also to Jo Rabin and for his contributions. Last but not least, thanks to Ritva Siren and Serge Haumont at Nokia, and Hans Ovesen and Peter Yeung from Ericsson for their advice and guidance.
You can find the guide here (600Kb PDF) Enjoy!
