Cui – On My Way

It seems the designers have done a very deep research and study on iphone’s Safari. ‘Coz the whole layout of the browser window is very similar to Safari’s,  from the top address bar, the middle main browser window, to the bottom toolbar.

Sure it’s just a spec and very far from a product yet. However, it’s a real first step anyway, just as Mozilla Links says so. So I feel excited about it ‘coz it means my dream of seeing firefox on iphone comes closer than before.

If you enter google.com in iphone’s safari browser, by default you will redirect to google.cn sometime, which may not be what you want. If so, try yidong.google.com.

I know it’s a Chinese PinYin for the word ‘mobile’(移动), but it does be able to take you to google’s default global-search, other than the Chinese-only one.

Besides,there you can also see the google’s new move on web apps esp. for iphone as below.

There’s one setting in Google Reader called ‘Reformat lined web pages for mobile browsers.‘ which is VERY useful for me. And here’s the reasons:

1.Take Google Reader as a Proxy

By checking this option, I can read news from websites which provide feeds and are blocked in China, like *.blogspot.com. I do read news from Google Official Blog, actually.

2.Save Money When Connecting Via EDGE/GPRS

It’s true. And it’s done by decreasing the amount of downloading files while reformatting the web pages. See the following two pictures, left is orginal and right is the reformatted one:

Yes, you can see the later layout is a mass. Actually that’s because the CSS file which controls how the webpage’s layout and display will be has not been downloaded to your mobile browser, say my iphone’s safari.

Furthermore, if there’s some flash ads in the original page, they won’t be downloaded, either.

In other words, the number of downloading bytes from the server to your browser is less than a normal page visit before reformatted. So, your monthly data usage is less and you cost less, too.

A greedy request here: Can Google Reader turn the reformatting option on when it detects the current net connection is via EDGE/GPRS while off via Wifi? You know, when cost is not a problem anymore, i’d love to see an CSS-based clean web page

Rumor source here 

D.Phone(迪信通) is one of the largest phone retailers here in beijing, even whole mainland. Actually my first mobile phone moto P7689 was bought there in Jan, 2001.

I think to make iphone available to china, at least the deal should cover several issues:

1.Official unlocked iphone.
Perhaps the same as the Germany/France version. Good news, anyway, isn’t it?

2.UI Localization
This may not be a big issue.
Actually even without the official one, an Chinese lang pack are already there by achan11.
 
3.App Localization
Like Chinese Input(I know you’ve already got iCosta or NativeCn working, but kinda hand-writing IME is still necessary), Phone Enhancement(CallID correctly recognition etc).

4.Hardware Localization
Perhaps, Wifi module has to been removed as required by Chinese goverment(sorry,it’s in Chinese).
But I wonder how many people still wanna buy such an iphone.

Today I have successfully connected to internet via GPRS in my iphone. I can confirm that this time it’s GPRS because:

Before i changed APN(originally ‘DISABLED’) to cmnet(leave both username and pasword blank and power off iphone and then reboot), iphone will pop up a failed dialog box saying ‘EDGE can’t be activated’. After i did, Safari can load and display the home page of Google Mobile successfully.

Actually I’ve also been testing the connection on the subway Line 13 from office to home. As long as the mobile signal is fine, the testing would be succeeded.

The only thing that still confuses me is that iphone still can be able to browse the web in EDGE(much faster speed than today’s GPRS testing) only when i’m at home while APN is ‘DISABLED’ :-S

And i think I may need to upgrade my current GPRS packgae from 10M/mon to 50M/mon later.

Update(Jan.21,2008): if your SIM card is prepaid type, that is, either Shenzhouxing or M-Zone, then you cannot connect on the iphone, ‘coz iphone doesn’t support WAP while prepaid mobile numbers are only allowed to use cmwap to access WAP-based pages by china mobile. Fortunately mine is GoTone, the postpaid type, so i can use cmnet to visit normal http webpages. check Wangjianshuo’s findings for more details(btw, he’s in Shanghai).

Just got it one minute ago from delicious/popular. And i tried it immediately by making a call to my mobile number first, and then my office number.

Both worked! Wow!!

My testing computer is IBM T-40 with firefox 3.0 beta 1. For now, I’m so sorry safari doesn’t support flash, or I could use it on my iphone!!

I’ve talked Mobile Firefox before, and I’ve been using Safari on my iPhone for a while.
And in my perspective, a full web browsing experience in the relatively small-sized screen mobile phone is well worth of a try anyway, esp for those whose phones could support kinda of installations.

Now it’s time. Opera Mini 4 is free to download.

I don have such a phone to try out. So if you do, don forget to share what you feel about it.

P.S. I do love this picture from Opera site.