Top-10 iPhone Optimized Websites

The iPhone does a great job of displaying any website with its Safari web browser and high-resolution display. With the easy touch controls on the iPhone, navigating just about any website is a breeze.

Still, websites developed specifically for the iPhone are optimal because they utilize the screen to the fullest extent, and use less bandwidth (which if you’re on EDGE much, is a necessity).

Below are my top 10 iPhone optimized websites. These stay in my bookmarks and get visited daily.

1. Facebook - http://iphone.facebook.com/

   Probably the best iPhone-optimized website I’ve seen, Facebook has most of the features of the regular website, shrunk down and bandwidth-optimized. It’s super easy to navigate and has me using Facebook almost exclusively over that “other” site.

2. Digg - http://www.digg.com/iphone/

   It’s Digg on your iPhone. It’s fast and very easy to browse. I probably hit this site twice a day to check out what’s new.

3. Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/

   I just discovered Amazon this past week. I was in Staples and wanted to check the price of something, so I hit Amazon.com with my iPhone. To my surprise, they had an iPhone optimized version! It doesn’t have the slick design of other iPhone sites, but is 100% functional and loads fast, which is what I want when I’m standing in a store and need to compare prices.

4. eBay - http://iphone.ebay.com/

   After I checked Amazon.com, I decided to look for eBay. They too have an iPhone optimized site, and it’s fast! It doesn’t load photos by default, so you get almost instant search results, and can easily load any photos you want by clicking the “Picture” tab.

5. Google - http://google.com/

   Google Mobile is a great iPhone optimized site, even if it was designed long before the iPhone was released. It loads fast and fills the screen. Just go to google.com and click “mobile” instead of “classic.”

6. TaDa List - http://tadalist.com/

   One major flaw in the iPhone is the lack of a todo list software package. TaDa list is a fast, simple to-do list that I’ve used many times before. I switched to the more robust Backpack, but use TaDa List while on my iPhone for jotting down quick lists.

7. Leaflets - http://www.getleaflets.com/

   Leaflets is a great resource for finding iPhone formatted content and websites. From sports to games to weather, you can find it on an inerface very similar to the iPhone’s native applications.

8. Yahoo Search (configure in preferences)

   My iPhone came setup for Google by default, but I found the Yahoo! search better formatted for my iPhone. The results are similar in most instances, so I use the Yahoo! search.

9. GoMovies - http://webologistdesign.com/gomovies/demo/

   Get movie times and theater inforamtion nicely formatted and fast. I’ve visited several theater company websites looking for showtimes, and while it’s not a problem, the image-heavy sites are slow to load. I much prefer this optimized site that loads in a fraction of the time.

10. Your WordPress blog! - http://iwphone.contentrobot.com/

    That’s right, you can have an iPhone optimized blog with no effort on your part (other than uploading a plugin and theme). I’ve tested it with my personal blog and is as simple as it sounds. Just upload the plugin and theme, turn the plugin on and your WordPress blog is optimized for the iPhone. Visitors coming from the iPhone will get the optimized version.

The real impact of iPhone and Android

The iPhone and the Google Android platform, which was finally shown-off (sort of) in Barcelona this week, aren’t mobile telephones.

They are Internet clients.

Internet clients use exponentially more data bandwidth than ordinary digital phones, which use thin streams of compressed data. Maybe several exponentials.

Operators are thinking of expanding their networks into homes and offices to handle the extra load.

The Android clients shown in Barcelona aren’t much. What they mainly prove is that the specification can be built and deployed quickly.

While the Apple iPhone roll-out has gone at a predictable pace, with one vendor delivering specified numbers to a handful of networks, the Android roll-out will be far more helter-skelter.

That’s because the Android is designed to work anywhere, first on any GSM network and then, with a little tinkering, anywhere else.

This makes it hard for operators to predict where and how demand will come from.

While Internet routing and fiber trunks have always been scaled well ahead of demand, mobile networks will have to route a ton more data on-and-off the fiber for the new clients. Equipment will have to be bought without an assurance of a quick return.

Yet thanks to the iPhone network operators have no choice. In the U.S. Verizon and Sprint are seeing their best customers jump en masse to AT&T, because of the iPhone. They have to compete.

While the Google Android specification may (or may not) allow effective competition on the handset end, Verizon must guess that it will, anticipate that demand, and start investing now.

It’s a gamble, in some ways bigger than the spectrum auction was.