Vodafone’s new Mobile service may well replicate what users would expect to see on a PC, but on the flipside it doesn’t let users view pages built specifically for mobiles.

 

The Novarra powered Vodafone browser allows users to see websites outside of the relaunched Live portal but does not recognise mobile-specific WAP sites, it instead tells the user that they’re trying to access content from a PC and not a mobile.

A spokesperson said: "What we’ve done is work with some of our suppliers, such as Novarra, to ensure that pages display properly." Apparently it "understands how the web page is put together and repurposes that for mobile," with the Novarra technology able to detect which handset was being used.

"Some made-for-mobile sites were going through the rendering engine but only for a few hours," said content head for Voda, said Al Russell. "We have a solution in place and have spoken with all our aggregation partners."

Vodafone’s spokesperson said 96 per cent of their handsets would benefit from the technology, because they have GPRS. Users can also expect lower data usage and faster download speeds as the process squeezes pages to roughly a tenth of their size, although some Flash-heavy sites may still not render as intended.