In case you live under a rock (or just aren’t a slave to technology), an iPhone is about to set you back 199 George Washingtons. And they’re predicting a whole bunch are going to sell.
So for all your webmasters out there, it’s time to start seriously considering mobile versions of your site. But not volunteer webmasters, because we’ve already said that you should quit.
Heal Your Church Web Site has a guide up on how you can leverage the mobile web for the good of your church.
I personally love the idea of mobile church web sites. I’d love to be able to dial up my church’s site on my phone to figure out what time the whatchamacallit was at. (link via Think Christian)
Eric Atkins
July 7, 2008
Nokia sells more phones in a week than all the iPhones that Apple and AT&T have sold since launch of the iPhone. Blackberry’s have a significantly larger marketshare than the iPhone. So, the market for mobile web has existed long before the iPhone.
That said, I still haven’t _volunteered_ to make a mobile version of Sojourn’s website but I soon will. I know a number of friends at Sojourn will be getting data plans on their 3G iPhones this week and they’ve specifically requested to have a mobile version.
Scott Fillmer
July 7, 2008
There is a REALLY good iPhone plugin for wordpress themes called “WPTOUCH”, this is a very very simple way to make your blog readable on the iphone.
Fred Bauman
July 7, 2008
1. Nokia may sell more phones, but no one cared about mobile internet use until Safari on the iPhone.
2.a. A special mobile version of your site is not needed if you built the site using standards based web design.
b. This is a great opportunity to trim the “suck” from your site. Get rid of silly animations and useless Flash.
Matt Leebert
July 7, 2008
Our church web site uses web standards (XHTML/CSS) and is built for a 1024px wide display. The iPhone renders the site beautifully in portrait or landscape modes. There is no need to maintain separate web sites if you are looking to target iPhone users. Just use web standards.
The current iPhone does not support Flash. I haven’t heard from a reliable source that the 3G iPhone will have support for Flash. If you want to make your web site mobile, don’t employ Flash.
In the month of June, only 0.5% of our site’s visitors were using an iPhone. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that traffic was from me testing it. This percentage could be higher in the larger cities.
Mike Talley
July 8, 2008
@Matt Leebert’s comment (this is off topic, i know) – I’m noticing more and more sites being redesigned for 1024×768 screens. CMS readers – do you advise designing for 1024×768 resolutions now? Is it worth alienating stalwart 800×600 users? Just curious – at work we are now designing for the larger resolutions.
Ryan Burns
July 11, 2008
@Mike – According to w3schools only 8% of users are still slogging around on 800×600. If you’re doing a redesign I’d say it is safe to go 1024×768… unless your site tracking stats indicate you have a larger percentage with the 800×600 display.
Paul Prins
July 11, 2008
Just came out in the BBC today that 40 million Americans browse the web from their mobile devices. 16% of phone users that is and it’s only growing as awareness of it as an option increases.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7499340.stm
Ismael Burciaga
March 30, 2009
Church Media Group released a product called MinistryGive that allows a church to receive contributions from their iPhones and iPods, as well as online and kiosks with the ability to set recurring contributions.
Here are some churches and ministries that are using MinistryGive: https://giving.bethelipc.org, https://https://giving.believerschapel.org, https://giving.glocalventures.org & https://giving.karenwheaton.com
Eric Murrell
May 28, 2009
We just launched our Mobile Web App at Long Hollow this week, and have had a tremendous positive response so far. I realize that this is a tiny subset of our audiences right now, but it’s a minority that is only going to continue to grow as smart phones become the norm and these devices get better mobile browsers.
You can check out our mobile site here if you like: m.longhollow.com (designed for iPhone/iPod Touch, Android Devices, Palm Pre, and probably works great on anything else using a webkit based browser).
If you want to read more about the design/development process behind it, check out our new series “Going Mobile” on Media Salt: http://www.mediasalt.com/2009/05/26/going-mobile-part-1-why-do-a-mobile-site/
free church website templates
August 17, 2009
I have heard a lot of hype about these new ways to build your site for iphones. I know people are going to use it but I honestly don’t expect it to “take over”.
church website design
November 20, 2009
Another thing to consider is how are all of these iphone websites going to handle the next watch phone? LOL