

To accommodate small screens, they use Post-WIMP interfaces. Smartphone mobile browsers are full-featured Web browsers capable of HTML, CSS, ECMAScript, as well as mobile technologies such as WML, i-mode HTML, or cHTML. WAP 2.0 specifies XHTML Mobile Profile plus WAP CSS, subsets of the W3C's standard XHTML and CSS with minor mobile extensions. In Japan, DoCoMo defined the i-mode service based on i-mode HTML, which is an extension of Compact HTML (C-HTML), a simple subset of HTML. WML and HDML are stripped-down formats suitable for transmission across limited bandwidth, and wireless data connection called WAP. Historically, early feature phones were restricted to only displaying pages specifically designed for mobile use, written in XHTML Mobile Profile ( WAP 2.0), or WML (which evolved from HDML). The mobile browser usually connects via the cellular network, or increasingly via Wireless LAN, using standard HTTP over TCP/IP and displays web pages written in HTML. Today, over 75% of websites are "mobile friendly", by detecting when a request comes from a mobile device and automatically creating a "mobile" version of the page, designed to fit the device's screen and be usable with a touch interface, for example the Wikipedia website (see illustration). Websites designed to be usable in mobile browsers may be collectively referred to as the mobile web. Traditional smaller feature phones use stripped-down mobile web browsers however, most current smartphones have full-fledged browsers that can handle the latest web technologies, such as CSS 3, JavaScript, and Ajax.


Mobile browser software must be small and efficient to accommodate the low memory capacity and low-bandwidth of wireless handheld devices. Mobile browsers are optimized to display Web content most effectively on small screens on portable devices.

( January 2021)Ī Wikipedia page on an Apple iPhone 2G displayed on the Safari web browser.Ī mobile browser is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
