David Emery Online

Simply Mobile

17 December 2007

It’s interesting what constraints can bring out in people.

The iPhone, and its mobile version of Safari, is a perfect case in point. iPhone optimised sites are – for better or worse – springing up all over the place, but quite frequently they’re actually better then the ‘full’ site they’re complementing. As I linked to on Friday, Fox News actually have a very nice iPhone site which is simple and easy to navigate around, unlike the sprawling mess that is their main site.

A better case in point is Bloglines. As long time readers will know Bloglines is my (current) feed reader of choice, although of late it’s been going downhill. The original interface is very long in the tooth (it uses frames!) and seems to be quite unstable, whereas the new beta version suffers from missing the features I depend upon from the existing version (like a “Read all” function) and uses lots of CPU in Safari at least.

I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, hoping that the beta version gets improved enough before they make it the only version.

Enter stage right comes the iPhone version of Bloglines, which can be found – confusingly enough – at i.bloglines.com.

It’s better then both the main versions, so much so that I’ve considered using it full time instead. The interface is so much clearer, with the use of iPhone-standard Helvetica really helping things (both the main interfaces have appalling typography and design). It’s also quicker, I guess because the pages it’s loading are simpler. What I would dearly love – if any Bloglines developers are reading – is a main interface that looked very similar, with the iPhone style feed list down the side and the main feed section on the right. No more, no less.

Call it Bloglines Lite, maybe?

Either way, there’s no doubt that iBloglines for me at least is almost the iPhone killer app – I’ve been using it so much more then I ever thought I would.

I guess this comes down to two main factors: firstly, as the folks at 37signals always bang on about, simple is better. Secondly, I have a hunch that iPhone optimised sites are probably done by one guy in the development team that’s just got an iPhone, and wants to do something really cool on it. Don’t underestimate what one guy with a bunch of passion and a vision can do.