Designed for Blackberry/Mobile?

[chachi]

I am sure you can make an argument for either (tables vs. CSS only) when it comes to site layout. It would be interesting to have a discussion however on designing for PDAs and smartphones. My Nokia 6620 smartphone has Symbian OS on it and I can download just about any java application out there to run on it. I am sure that in the future all smartphones and PDAs will be the same, so upgrading to a new browser will really be a non issue (plus, you can bet your bottom dollar that MS and everyone else will be releasing browsers for all of these platforms as they pick up steam).

I would like to read more or hear more people's opinions who know about this stuff. So, if there are any good web sites or other resources you know of on designing for mobile devices I would love to hear them.

[kensmith]

Matt, I won't respond to your points as your mind is already made up.

Matt's questions are of interest to more than just himself. This back and forth has been usefull, please don't end it here. We are just about to get to the good stuff . frobn, if you could address Matt's points I would be very interested.

[frobn]

Matt's questions are of interest to more than just himself. This back and forth has been usefull, please don't end it here. We are just about to get to the good stuff . frobn, if you could address Matt's points I would be very interested.

I think that the main difference between myself and Matt boils down to whether listings are tabular data or not. We both agree that tables are 'not fundamentally bad' but using them for positioning is a hack. Our definitions of tabular data may differ.

I don't see the coding difficulties with css that Matt envisions. CSS and xhtml are much more flexible than HTML4 and in any coding there are multiple ways to obtain the same or similar effect.

Matt is right, standards have been around for many years without much impact in the early years, but that is changing. Unlike the desktop no one has a monopoly on PDA OSs so the makers including MS must use standards to compete. Oh, MS will stonewall for as long as they can but in the end they will be just another large supplier of PDAs and will fall into line or be isolated. I am including smart phones and other web devices in the PDA mix.

I have never used a PocketPC but have used Palm and have upgraded the Palm OS. Perhaps MS just wants its customers to buy a new PDA every time they upgrade the OS.

I think Chachi is right, a more interesting discussion would be on designing for PDAs. There are articles and discussion at http://alistapart.com In the end those of us who choose to code for PDAs will have to learn 'minimalist' coding.