Now hear this: if you already use the mobile web and are pretty confident, if you know what RSS and CSS stand for, if you've trialled more than one mobile web browser, this tutorial isn't for you (although you might want to note the address for others). For newcomers to S60, especially if you've found this tutorial via a search engine, read on...
The chances are that you've heard a lot about the Internet on a mobile phone but have been too scared to try it. Either you're not sure exactly what to do or you're afraid it's going to cost too much or you're afraid of contracting spyware or a virus.
Let's put some facts down straight away. If you follow the advice in this tutorial and the articles that follow, you'll be able to look up train times, check out what films are on at the cinema, read the latest news, check how your eBay auctions are doing and even do a little online shopping. And a whole lot more. For an insignificant cost on your mobile phone bill.
You see, the Web as viewed from a PC or Mac means truckloads of graphics, animations, pop-up windows and so on, all of which really needs broadband speeds to deliver, with Megabytes of data flowing freely as if there's no tomorrow. Recognising that your smartphone has a tiny screen (typically 1/20th the screen area of a desktop), a relatively slow chip inside, limited memory and decidedly limited download speeds (your GPRS link is generally slower than a dial-up modem on a desktop, and 3G data speeds may not be 100% reliable), many major web sites have produced mobile versions, with much of the same useful content but without all the graphical clutter.
The upshot of all this is that you can surf happily, doing some of the tasks mentioned above, for 15 mins or so while on the train or waiting in line, and the session will probably only use up 100 Kilobytes or so of data, which even on the most expensive (outrageous UK) pay as you go data rates only works out at 70 pence, the same as for a small ice-cream or half a cup of coffee.
The concern over security is misplaced, too, as Symbian OS-based smartphones (that's all S60 phones) are immune to traditional Internet 'worms' and effectively secure to malware and spyware in that in order to be installed on your phone, you'd have to explicitly say 'Yes' to reception, 'Yes' to installation, 'Yes' to 'Are you sure', etc. etc.
Over the course of these tutorials, Ewan Spence, Rafe Blandford and I will be explaining, in detail, how to go about accessing the mobile web and how to save yourself a lot of tedious typing.
Most of the tutorials will centre around using an existing (maintained by somebody else) mobile web portal (e.g. my free 3-Lib one) to access all kinds of useful information. In other words, you only ever have to type in and 'bookmark' one mobile web address. Ever. Everything else is then simply point and click. And as you get more confident you might well find other mobile sites that you'd like to get back to you again, in which case we'll show you how to save them as bookmarks too.
However, the first real tutorial will start you off gently, by looking at a practical example of the mobile web that doesn't require you to type anything on your smartphone keypad at all. Ewan shows how to get real-time info on the state of London's tubes and buses.
Jargonbuster: It's worth noting that there are actually two varieties of mobile web page, although you often don't actually need to know which one's being used and many web portals intermingle the two quite happily. 'WAP' pages are designed for even the lowliest of phones and are served up in byte-size chunks using a special protocol. 'HTML' pages are more like the web pages you use on the desktop, just without the bloat. If you have a Nokia S60 2nd Edition smartphone (e.g. 6630, N70), then you'll find that 'Web' handles both types of pages equally well. But do watch out if you use a S60 3rd Edition smartphone (e.g. N80, 3250, N91), as the main 'Web' browser won't handle WAP links; for these you'll have to use the also-supplied 'Services' browser. In fact, as we're not talking graphics-heavy pages, you're probably best off doing everything in Services, as it will also handle simple HTML pages. We'll have a separate Services tutorial for you shortly.
Steve Litchfield