Upshot: Everything you’d want to know about developing or porting a website for Mobile Devices, even ones older than iPhone/Android. Yes this still matters. Any downsides? Gets a bit dense at time, but pain is good for you.

I was really impressed with the coverage & focus of Head First Mobile Web by Lyza Danger Gardner & Jason Grigsby.

As with other books in the Headfirst series, with all the pictures & useful asides, things can get a bit dense, …and that happens here— with sections on porting CMS sites to mobile, as well as making sure your website is compatible with the plethora of types of mobile devices: iOS/Android, as well as earlier WAP/XHTML “non-smart” handsets.

Optimizing your website to the smallest size for any mobile device still matters as US telcos move users— sometimes while still in contract— to tiered data plans that discourage the full use of smartphones.

You’ll be learning Mobile-First RWD (Responsive Web Design) and server-side device detection with WURFL. This will be with PHP, so looking at code that begins with “<?..” should not scare you. Neither should HTML, Javascript, or CSS. If you don’t have these basics under your belt, I might recommend the Headfirst books that cover those subjects at first.

Highly recommended to folks who already have a solid grounding in web development.

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Disclosures/biases: I received the eBook download(s) from O’Reilly for review purposes.