Hack 1.04: Browse the Web Well

Master the art of efficient web browsing

ED: a lot of tips, does not follow the prob, sol, exp model

The iPhone claims to be the first phone with the "real Internet," and it delivers on that claim. With a bright, sharp 480x360-pixel view on a very fast mobile computer running Mac OS X and Safari, the iPhone gives you about as much as you can realistically expect of the Web from a device of its size. To accomplish this feat, the engineers at Apple had to rethink how users interact with the Web, however--fingers instead of mice, onscreen keypads instead of keyboards. As a result, there are a number of new skills to learn to really get the most out of the iPhone's browser, and this hack will show you several of them. Beyond learning your way around this new user interface, though, you also need to understand what you can really expect out of the EDGE cellular network--and how you can get more out of it.

Note: Technically, the iPhone is not the first. Nokia has had a number of high-end phones on the market that use the same web browser technology (WebKit, which also powers the desktop version of Safari). However, despite enormous success worldwide, Nokia's devices have not sold incredibly well in the United States. The best Nokia devices are usually not sold by cellular carriers, and carry a hefty price tag. Nokia's flagship N95--which includes GPS, a 5 MP camera, Wi-Fi, stereo speakers, and 3D gaming support--usually sells for about $700. And none of Nokia's phones, despite an amazing collection of technology, will win a user interface contest against the iPhone. In fact, in comparison to the iPhone, the Nokia devices are very clunky to use.

AU: This could easily be trimmed. Just say others have used WebKit and that the iPhone multi-touch interface made it a more inviting experience or something to that effect.

AU: First what, exactly -- phone with the real Internet? First proficient mobile web browser?

Watch the Speed Limit

Whenever you're browsing the Internet on your iPhone, it's important to know how you're connecting. From almost any screen, you can view your status by looking at the top between the Time and Carrier name.

If you're not connected to a Wi-Fi network, and you're using the EDGE Network, you'll see Figure 1-23, with an E icon right of your carrier name. If you're on an older GPRS network, that E will be replaced with a solid box. GPRS runs much slower (a maximum of 40 kilobits per second) than EDGE. Whenever you're connected to a Wi-Fi network [Hack #1.02], you'll see the signal strength icon to the right of your carrier's name, like in Figure 1-24.

AU: Could you show that one too, just for completeness? Not essential of course.

Figure 1-23
The E at the top of the iPhone's screen indicates that it is accessing the Internet via the EDGE network.

Figure 1-24
The signal strength icon to the right of the carrier name signifies that the iPhone is using Wi-Fi to access the Internet.

When the E or empty box is showing, that's your clue not to try to hit the big, complicated sites--stick to Google searches, Craigslist, and nice text-oriented sites. The EDGE network is about twice as fast as dial-up Internet, but it's a far cry from broadband, so plan your surfing experience accordingly.

Tip: You can disable JavaScript in the Safari settings panel [Hack #1.01] if you want to surf in "Web 1.0" mode. This option will speed up the actual rendering of the page, because Safari won't try to run any of the code on it.  

Another way to speed up your browsing is to use Google's mobile proxy. First go to http://www.google.com/xhtml, click Settings at the bottom of the page, and turn on "Format web pages for your phone," as shown in Figure 1-25. Click Save at the bottom; now, all your searches will be filtered through the proxy to reduce the amount of slow-loading web-page content, so your browsing will be quicker. Google offers another proxy at http://www.google.com/gwt/n, which lets you view simplified versions of web pages, with the option to not load any images, as in Figure 1-26.

Figure 1-25
Turning on "Format web pages for your phone" in the Settings of Google's mobile proxy

Figure 1-26
Google's other proxy, which can browse web sites without loading any images

Many web sites have started offering mobile versions that are more friendly to the web browsers of mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs. If the web site does offer a mobile version, it will have a link somewhere on their homepage that says the word "mobile" or some variant of this. Some web sites can even detect that you're browsing with a mobile device, and automatically redirect you to their mobile version. Web sites that currently offer a mobile version include:

• Google - http://google.com/m
• Yahoo - http://m.yahoo.com
• MSN - http://msn.mobi
• ESPN - http://espn.mobi
• ModMyiFone - http://www.modmyifone.com/forums/

Using the mobile version of a web site will often speed up your Internet browsing. However, some of web site's content may be available only on the regular version. This issue can cause some difficulties if the page auto-detects your device and redirects you to the mobile version. To avoid this hassle, you can use a proxy that hides your identity from the web sites you're viewing. You can a huge list of different proxies to use by going to http://proxy.org.

If you're in an area with a lot of hotspots but you don't intend to connect via Wi-Fi, it's usually a good idea to turn off your Wi-Fi in Settings->Wi-Fi->Off. Not only does this save battery power, but also saves time--the iPhone usually tries to find Wi-Fi first when you start to surf.

But the most satisfying iPhone web surfing experiences are done on broadband.  If you're out and about and you want to find a free Wi-Fi hotspot near you, you can use a directory such as the iPhone-optimized one at http://iphone.jiwire.com. A search page will appear, as in Figure 1-27, where you can enter the address of your current location, and Jiwire will find all of the nearby Wi-Fi hotspots.

AU: This URL did not load for me -- please verify. --> I think I fixed it -- okay?

Figure 1-27
Using Jiwire to search for nearby Wi-Fi hotspots

Conserve Keystrokes

The big challenge of any keyboardless, mouseless web browsing experience is data entry. This is true for many mobile devices, such as PDAs and cellphones with only a standard keypad. And it's true also, to a certain extent, for your iPhone. Thus, the real trick is to always have the link that you need already conveniently at hand. There are many ways to preload your iPhone with good, clickable links:

iPhone application directories

These are lists of web applications that provide a very iPhone-like experience. Once you have just one of these bookmarked, you can branch out into the iPhone-optimized Internet without any additional typing. Apple's directory can be found at http://www.apple.com/webapps/, as shown in Figure 1-28.

Figure 1-28
Apple's web app repository

Syncing your bookmarks

If you have a lot of bookmarks on your PC or Mac, this approach may be too much clutter for your iPhone, but using iTunes, you can sync your bookmarks [Hack #1.05] . By creating a top-level folder and putting iPhone-specific bookmarks in it, you can load new stuff to your iPhone easily. (You can also sync your bookmarks automatically online if you don't want to always tether your iPhone [Hack #9.04].)

ED: These hacks aren't always the same blue. Might not matter!

Search engines

When you have to type, you want to type as little as possible and click from then on. Using the built-in search bar lets you type a single keyword, search for it, and then click the links that come back. Google and Yahoo! (whichever you have selected) both perform spelling correction as well--so even if you mistyped the URL or subject, they're likely to correct it and offer the correction to you, costing you only one more click instead of additional keystrokes. And if you know that your search will be the first one listed on Google, save yourself even more time and click "I'm Feeling Lucky." Be lazy--let the search engine figure out what you're trying to do.

Tiny URLs

There are a number of services--notably, tinyurl.com--that can convert any long, complicated URL into a short-and-sweet URL suitable for clicking and even for telling someone over the phone. For instance, this blog entry:
    http://www.damienstolarz.com/2007/06/28/us-plans-tactical-nuclear-strikes-and-tries-to-make-it-seem-like-a-rational-idea/

AU: URL not valid for me. Possibly not intended to be valid?

is a bit long, but tiny URL makes it into just 6 letters plus the tinyurl domain (see Figure 1-29):
   http://tinyurl.com/3cmj7e

Figure 1-29
Shortening a lengthy web address with TinyURL

You can easily type this URL into an email or text message to send off to a friend, or fit it on a business card, so that people will be more inclined to punch it into their iPhones.

Email

Because hyperlinks are automatically clickable in iPhone emails, the easiest way to send a link to your iPhone from any PC is just to email it. You can leave an email in your inbox with a variety of useful links--or phone numbers, for that matter--and go back to the email and use it as a launcher. And conversely, if you click on the URL bar, there will be a Share button at the top left of your screen (see Figure 1-30) that allows you to immediately send the URL you're looking at to anyone via email, or to yourself if you want to note it for further follow-up when you're next on email.

Figure 1-30
The Share button at the top left of the screen, which  allows you to email the URL to anyone (including yourself)

Text messages

Just like email, URLs in incoming text messages (SMS) are clickable. This information can be a great timesaver when you routinely want to send URLs to your phone without going through the process of drafting an email or synching your phone. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to use the Send SMS feature of many instant messaging clients. You can see iChat's option in Figure 1-31.

Figure 1-31
iChat's SMS option

Because SMS may chop large URLs into two messages and thus mess up the clickability of the link, using tinyurl.com or email makes sure the link is preserved.

Let Your Fingers Do the Browsing

If you've read your iPhone manual or watched any demo video, you've learned that you can tap the screen (like a double click) and zoom in on areas of the web page. There's a bit more to understand that might help you figure out what's going on. Most web pages are designed with a fixed width in mind. The iPhone, having limited width, initially displays a web page on a virtual 980-pixel-wide screen. This is why the iPhone sometimes shows small web pages as tiny blocks in the top left corner. Better-designed web pages indicate to the web browser (using the <viewport> tag, if you're curious) that they look better on some other size of viewport--480 or other. The iPhone will use this data to zoom the web page to fill the iPhone's screen.

But it's hard, if not impossible, to use a crowded web page in the smallest view. So the trick is to double-click on the areas of the page. If the page is using nice, modern HTML (i.e., not some page last updated in 1997) you'll find that double-tapping a section of the web page (usually in a tag, but you should just try double-tapping boxes, images, blocks of text, and anything else that the browser might consider a chunk) will zoom that section to full screen.

AU: Make sure text was not garbled here -- tap in a tag?

Figure 1-32
The widescreen keyboard