mobiForge
mobiforge.com · Company blog · on HN since 2010
mobiForge is a mobile web development site covering page weight, performance, accessibility, and mobile-friendly design.
What HN saysHN links it for page weight and mobile performance analysis, and commenters point to its web performance tips.
30HN people shared it
20linked it in comments
14stories submitted
886story points
2 years agolast shared
2010people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The average size of Web pages is now the average size of a Doom install6 people · 865 points · first shared 2016 · 449 comments on HN
- 2Build Web Apps for iPhone using Dashcode2 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 3Measuring page weight2 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 4Iphone sms 1.jpg2 people · first shared 2024
- 5Deploying iphone apps real devices2 people · first shared 2011
- 6Exhaustive set of techniques for making mobile-friendly websites1 people · 8 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 7The Android performance gap is getting wider1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 8Webviews and User-Agent strings1 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 9Anatomy of a mobile web experience: Facebook.com1 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 10Why Mobile Web Accessibility Matters and Best Practices1 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 11Not everyone is happy about RWD1 people · 1 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 12Performance is money - the high cost of overly heavy mobile sites1 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 13Effective Design for Multiple Screen Sizes | mobiForge1 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 14The sim the tiny computer in your pocket thats really in control1 people · first shared 2024
- 15Useful x headers1 people · first shared 2012
What HN people wrote when they linked it
class4behavior · 2018-07-18
In light of the recently announced fine [1] and Google's response [2], I thought, some people might be interested in more information on the circumstances leading up to this point.
Another good read is this text from 2014: https://mobiforge.com/news-comment/android-forks-why-google-can-rest-e…
And the recent change preventing logging into Google accounts on uncertified devices: [2018] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/google-starts-blocking-uncerti…
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17556497
[2]: https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/android-has-cre…
ronancremin · 2016-10-24
I think that AMP as technical standard is OK in that it gives developers a format to follow that insulates them from the worst loading time issues that open-ended HTML can cause (JavaScript libraries and large images in particular). The performance gains are really significant e.g. 10x quicker load times on some sites.
The issue is how Google favours AMP results in search (with the lightening bolt and tag) and doesn't make it easy for users to get to the site hosting the page. We're sleep-walking into a kind of walled garden. More here: https://mobiforge.com/news-comment/sleepwalking-into-a-walled-garden
inetsee · 2016-08-13
For me, the best part of the article was the link at the bottom to a post titled "12 expert tips on how to boost web performance"; https://mobiforge.com/research-analysis/12-expert-tips-on-how-to-boost…
antonio-R · 2013-06-27
Well beside reading de doc. and start by creating the "hello world" django app, you should take a look at these django packages:
https://www.djangopackages.com/grids/g/mobile/
then save the android developers site and read the design patterns section:
http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/index.html
and finally follow this tutorial to jump start your mobile app:
http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/build-a-mobile-and-desktop-frien…
bloppe · 2025-03-18
The standards issue is only relevant to E2EE. It has no bearing on the usability issues here. The E2EE issues should be fixed soon according to Apple. I'd bet a good amount of money the usability issues will remain.
It used to be black text on green: https://mobiforge.com/files/iphone-sms-1.jpg
The white-on-acid-green color combination would not make it through any accessibility review. It's literally impossible for a lot of color-impaired people to see, and objectively unpleasant otherwise.
Apple gets plenty of complaints about it. Just look at the Apple forums. Their literal advice to fix it is "make your friends buy an iPhone".
Macha · 2025-03-01
What country's market share are you looking at?
Figures I found for global share are Android 48%, iOS 20%, Symbian 16%, Blackberry 10% (https://mobiforge.com/research-analysis/2011-handset-and-smartphone-sa… which matches my memory of that time much better.
YetAnotherNick · 2024-06-12
They used to do black text on green[1], which was fine, but they switched to white text on green/blue.
[1]: https://mobiforge.com/files/iphone-sms-1.jpg
frankjr · 2024-04-30
The SIM card in your phone is running a Java VM.
> Java Card bytecode run by the Java Card Virtual Machine is a functional subset of Java 2 bytecode run by a standard Java Virtual Machine but with a different encoding to optimize for size.
> Did you know, for example, that a SIM can run apps and communicate over the mobile network entirely independently of the host phone? Or that the SIM is arguably more in control of the phone baseband than the phone’s “main” operating system? Or that SIMs can support TCP/IP and run a web server?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card
https://mobiforge.com/news-comment/the-sim-the-tiny-computer-in-your-p…
edent · 2023-05-15
Ha! Back in the good old days, we ran Apache on a Nokia N95
https://mobiforge.com/design-development/pamp-personal-apache-mysql-ph…
Same issues as faced here, of course.
shakna · 2017-06-28
Ronan Cronin is the original source [0]. Lots of news outlets picked up the story at the time. The data comes from httparchive, you can grab a breakdown here. [1]
Videos and JPGs are the worst offenders, but PNG and JS nearly tie for third in page weight. Though I think it isn't measuring gzip, but raw bytes, which changes it up a little.
[0] https://mobiforge.com/research-analysis/the-web-is-doom
[1] http://www.httparchive.org/interesting.php?a=All&l=Apr%201%202016
discreditable · 2017-04-12
Reminds me of another article in which the author shows the average web page is larger than a Doom install image: https://mobiforge.com/research-analysis/the-web-is-doom
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11548816
niftich · 2016-10-21
Finally!
'Pointer events' originated at Microsoft, after the W3C effort to standardize Apple's 'Touch events' became uncertain due to patent issues. For a while, despite admitting it's a more elegant spec for unified input, Google were reluctant to add it because Apple wasn't interested [1][2].
Now Google have changed their mind once more and shipped this, making Apple the only major outlier. The pains of shimming these similar-but-different APIs will continue for a bit, but hopefully Apple will make this concession in the end.
[1] https://timkadlec.com/2015/02/apples-web/
[2] https://mobiforge.com/news-comment/who-wants-pointer-events-api-everyo…
palakchokshi · 2016-06-09
Enterprise applications are a different beast, especially if they are report heavy. Having said that HTML5 does have offline storage API albeit with a 5MB limit though support for it is up to the browser.
HTML5 also has Notifications API[1] which can be leveraged for push notifications on mobile devices.
I do not disagree that there are many use cases for using Apps especially in the Enterprise space but there are far too many consumer apps than enterprise ones so maybe I should change that statement to "a majority of native consumer apps" :)
[1]https://mobiforge.com/design-development/web-push-notifications
chetanahuja · 2013-09-05
Oh yes I have. Both on iOS and Android.
While suppressing disbelief that this is even something being argued, I present the instructions to run your newly built app package on your Android device:
1) Make sure your the appropriate security options to allow app installs are checked in the phone settings.
2) adb -d install <path to apk>
3) Enjoy the your own app on your hardware you own without asking permission from anybody else
For iOS, start by paying $99 to Apple to register in the dev program. Then go through this tutorial explained with the help of >20 screenshots:
http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/deploying-iphone-apps-real-devic…
vibrazy · 2012-01-25
This might be useful
http://mobiforge.com/developing/blog/useful-x-headers
sagarm · 2011-10-27
You can't install software on your own phone without joining the iOS developer program, which costs $99/year.
http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/deploying-iphone-apps-real-devic…
ziadbc · 2010-07-24
I think Apple sees this as more of a successor to HyperCard.
http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/build-web-apps-iphone-using-dash…
aditya · 2010-04-08
Google, the 800 lb gorilla in this space, keeps the split completely secret probably cuz it's not a percentage but a value that changes over time.
Admob, the iPhone advertising platform that Google bought had the same split as iAd, 60/40 for CPC and 50/50 for CPM on banners. There are others that pay higher, more here:
http://mobiforge.com/running/story/mobile-advertising-how-monetize-you…
hellotoby · 2010-02-09
This statement may be true for your personal experience, but is in fact completely wrong.
Emerging economies such as India have huge mobile Internet populations. In fact in India mobile Internet outnumbers PC based internet 3 to 1 with a mobile Internet use north of 37million users, very few of which are using iPhones.
http://research.nokia.com/files/MobileInternetUsageInIndia.pdf
http://mobiforge.com/analysts/blog/mobile-internet-users-india-outnumb…
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4317
pixl97 · 2017-04-12
https://mobiforge.com/news-comment/no-https-then-bye-bye-geolocation-i…
https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2017/01/chrome-56-ssl-https-wordpress/
https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2015/04/30/deprecating-non-secure-ht…
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32106849/getcurrentposition-and-wat…
https://konklone.com/post/were-deprecating-http-and-its-going-to-be-ok…
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2598616
Just some random places to start to see why the major web browsers are not going to spend any time on non-encrypted protocols. A lot of devs need to help themselves and move to encrypted to connections before they are forced at browser-point.