At the minute I’m spending a lot of time on my phone. This means that every time I visit a website I’m getting a completely broken experience. Some websites show me the default desktop version, some show me a mobile variant. That’s fine, I can cope with that, but we then enter a whole world of pain.
Pop-ups.
These things are so annoying. I’m sure that the people running the websites are trying to be helpful, but I, like you, just want the information I requested. I don’t want to be prompted to download an app, I don’t want to be told about how my cookies are being used, I just want the original information I requested. That then leads me onto my second problem..
Sites that just don’t work.
You may have seen this. You request a page or click a link via Google, the website detects that you’re on a mobile phone and decides to send you to the homepage and completely ignore the page you actually wanted. Sometimes it’s even worse. There could be a mobile website but it’ll show you the full-fat site even when the mobile version is actually the one you wanted, or perhaps the other way around. Sometimes there’s no mobile website at all.
To be honest, I’m quite glad that Google are rumoured to be checking mobile websites to see if they work, because currently there’s not enough of them that work correctly.
I feel your pain – the worst thing is when you get used to e.g. the full version of a website in your mobile browser and then the site figures out how to detect mobile browsers (or creates a mobile site) and ships you off there instead….suddenly you have no idea where everything went!!
Similarly, the “app in your face” tactic has long been an annoyance, as illustrated in a “NSFW” way by the posts over at http://idontwantyour****ingapp.tumblr.com 🙂
It narks me too – the number of times I revert to my alternative browsers which mimic desktop browsers are too many to count these days (i.e. Atomic Web).
I’m sure it wouldn’t be beyond the will of man to create a mobile browser, which has the same functionality as a desktop browser, but which is actually usable on a touchscreen. That would really make my day. Most of them work ok, but just not quite well enough to be usable. It’s not like the devices lack the power to run a full browser these days.
However, the few sites which do mobile really well are an absolute joy to use. In fact, in some cases they are actually easier to use than the desktop versions (a flight comparison site springs immediately to mind).