[Limbo]

So, my approach has been blinkered, uneducated and even a little elitist. Mobile First seems the best way to be approaching consumer site design (all ideally, but not always practical within traditional web budgets...)

This explains why, and does it rather well:

Rethinking the Mobile Web by Yiibu

This Article from Smashing has some nice ideas, but is geared more to devices than users:

How To Build A Mobile Website | Smashing Mobile

[Limbo]

A few UK stats:

Mobile Insight: Smartphone ownership reaches UK tipping point | Odyssey Mobile
Ofcom | Figure 1.4 Smartphone ownership among mobile phone owners

Worldwide:

New research: Global surge in smartphone usage, UK sees biggest jump with 15% increase - Google Mobile Ads Blog
Direct link to PDF from above article: http://services.google.com/fh/files/...s _2011v3.pdf

[Limbo]

Inevitable Info Graphic - not too sure on validity of source, but references seem to add up - created mid 2012

[Limbo]

Home of the author of my firs link above: http://yiibu.com

[CM_]

great idea mate

some has posted this up before which is excellent for layout ideas
iOS Mobile Patterns

[handcraftedweb]

There's a bug in iOS Safari in that it zooms sometimes on reorientation. Here's a hacky fix with JS. Seems to work.

Description: A Fix for the iOS Orientationchange Zoom Bug | Filament Group, Inc., Boston, MA
Source: https://github.com/scottjehl/iOS-Orientationchange-Fix

[Limbo]

^Good stuff chaps

I've been reading that IOS Safari doesn't cache anything over 25kb... worth noting that the minified jQuery, Mootools, prototype etc are all well over that (around the 100kb mark)

I'm not sure if this is the case on IOS6, but is on IOS5...

[top_buzz]

Should be thinking more about android now too seeing as it has 75% market share.

[Limbo]

Yep - definitely.

[top_buzz]

That presentation was good but I'm not sure how important those old phones are now. Seems a lot has changed in those 2-3 years.

The mobile first thing and media queries for desktop thing was interesting.

[Limbo]

I think there's definitely a consideration to be made at the very least. People who use 'smartphones' aren't all young and tech savvy. And the lines between smart and capable are blurred in the mid price phone market.

Basically, build it from the ground up as if it were WAP then like we do (should) anyway it's progressive enhancement...

The thing that I find hard is where to draw the line, at what point do I say, well if it's not got a serious OS then it's not a smartphone.

Symbian for example - has a huge market share, but is already out of date as Nokia plans to launch all it's new phones with Win8

[PointandStare]

Originally Posted by top_buzz

Should be thinking more about android now too seeing as it has 75% market share.

90% in China - that's a huuuuuoooooge market share by anyones standards.
Android Dominating in China as It Passes 90% Smartphone Market Share

[top_buzz]

I know there's always going to be some old biddy knocking about with a 10 year old wap phone who checks hotmail once a week but don't most people these days upgrade every 2 years?

[Limbo]

Those in the UK might. But our reality isn't the same as even our close neighbours.

For example - the UK smartphone market is MASSIVE compared to some of our European counterparts - if Italy was a demographic you wanted to target then considering more than just Android/IOS is going to be important.

The thing I'm trying to set out is a point at which I say, none, or limited support. On desktops we know where the cut of is - post IE6 most likely.

Mobile makes the cut off points of reduced support more relevant, and less obvious.

[KingCraig]

Not everyone does. My sisters still have really old phones.

[DustMite]

After reading some info on Mobile web design, I should design my site with mobile in mind first, then desktop, argghh. What if I did desktop first, although it's still a photoshop file ? Can I still work around it, I suppose I still can, as it is still a Ps file Mobile web sites are more restricted then desktop, no JS, no sprites, nearly a plain jane site with some text and some images. I know some people who visited my current site on the iPhone and it looked like crap, so I don't know if I should design a mobile site or not, arghhh.

[handcraftedweb]

Mobile web sites are more restricted then desktop, no JS, no sprites

No. Apple and Android phones have modern browsers in them that have good support for HTML5, JS and a good chunk of CSS3. See stats below, 87% of mobile web access is via iOS or Android.

[handcraftedweb]

stats (Oct. 2012):
Web browsing statistics: mobile tops 10% | BGR
summary: web access for Oct. via mobile (including tablets) was 10.3% (vs. 7.2% in March). iOS accounted for 60% of that, Android 27%.

more stats (June 2012):
23 Eye-Opening Mobile Marketing Stats You Should Know

[webdesigner21]

Great information

[handcraftedweb]

HTML5 Boilerplate Mobile:
Mobile Boilerplate: A best practice baseline for your mobile web app

HTML5 Initializr - builds a custom HTML5 Boilerplate, has responsive option (best place to start IMO):
Initializr - Start an HTML5 Boilerplate project in 15 seconds!

Mobile browser HTML5 capabilities list:
Mobile HTML5 - compatibility on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Symbian and other mobile and tablet devices

HTML5 Rocks mobile:
Mobile - HTML5 Rocks

Mobile first HTML5 tutorial:
Creating a Mobile-First Responsive Web Design - HTML5 Rocks

More HTML5 mobile tips (good info on meta tags):
"Mobifying" Your HTML5 Site - HTML5 Rocks

edit add: Brad Frost's big list of responsive resources:
Responsive Web Design Resources | This Is Responsive