According to the latest statistics, not surprisingly, over 45% of mobile internet users in Australia now have an iPhone. With this trend on the uprise, it would be quite naive not to realise the potential of this device and how we as designers can use this for our gain.

According to the latest statistics, over 45% of mobile internet users in Australia now have an iPhone. In light of this growing trend, we, designers, must realise the potential of this device and the benefits it offers.

In this article we explain the effects Vartro can add to make your iPhone design look and feel like an application. Our goal is to create a unique iPhone user experience without the need to hire an iPhone application developer. Below are just some of the options offered to you at Vartro:

As part of the conversion, we also include a PHP iPhone detection script which redirects the user to the appropriate page. (e.g. www.example.com and iphone.example.com)

The process to make your iPhone website live is simple:

1.   Submit your iPhone website design to Vartro
2.   Choose the features you want
3.   We do the rest!

Click here to see the example or learn more about it.

Now follow these steps to add and view your website on the iPhone:

1. Bookmark Website – View your website on the iPhone, then click the “+” icon to add it to your home screen.

2. Launch Website – Tap the new icon on your home screen to launch your website. A start-up screen will appear while the website content loads in the background.

So next time you design a website for a client, offer them an iPhone website. Not only will your client be impressed, but they will know that you are the go-to-person for online expertise.

*Note: Due to our non-disclosure policy, we cannot show examples of our clients’ iPhone website designs, so we are demonstrating our own.

With monitor screens getting bigger by the day and new screening devices emerging into the market, it is important to understand that screen resolution affects our designs. There is more to building a website than just creativity – more importantly you need to cater to the end user, who is your potential customer. As Michelangelo once said “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.”

In this article we take a look at heavy weight players within the Australian web industry – the top ten websites which receive massive amounts of traffic according to Alexa (excludes international websites and government based websites). This data gives us a good indication of the current resolution trends expected by a majority of the Australian population.

Based on the above results, we can see that web design width dimensions are beginning to grow. The default 960px width is slowly increasing due to technology enhancements and user demand, so designers need to take this into consideration.

With all that said, 978px is the new 960px. Use your brain, do some research – 960px width will be outdated soon, so by sticking to the current trend research and learning your audience expectations, you can’t go wrong with screen size.

Remember to keep these dimensions in mind while designing your next website, then send it through to Vartro for award worthy conversion. We are happy to assist you with any queries related to this topic.

Vartro is supporting and encouraging employees and customers to take responsibility for leading the way to a sustainable future.

Earth Hour is an initiative that aims to inspire households and businesses to take action on climate change by turning their lights off.

At 8.30pm on Saturday 27 March 2010, millions of people from around the world will join together for Earth Hour. Together, we can show how lots of little actions add up to one big statement on climate change.

Earth Hour is now a global event, but the idea was born here in Australia. Earth Hour aims to raise awareness of the role every individual and business can play in reducing our impact on the environment. At Vartro, we believe in taking responsibility for our environmental footprint.

Find out more information about Earth Hour and how you can get involved.
Everyone can do their little bit to spread the word.

AdMob regularly receive requests to do deeper dives into regions within their network. As a complement to their usual Monthly Report they have produced an additional report this month that highlights countries within Southeast Asia including India, Indonesia, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Some of the highlights from the report include:

• Nokia has a deeply entrenched position in the region with 52% of manufacturer share based on Q4 2009 traffic, and the Nokia N90 is the most popular Symbian OS device in most countries.
• In Indonesia, Vietnam and India, Nokia is the dominant handset manufacturer. The vast majority of traffic in these countries comes from feature phones. The trends in these countries are broadly reflective of trends in the region.
• Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia exhibit different trends than most of the countries in the region. Smartphones are more prevalent in these three areas with the iPhone OS being the most widely used operating system.
• The percentage of smartphone traffic varies widely across the region. Singapore had the greatest amount of traffic from smartphone devices at 77% of Q4 2009 requests and Vietnam had the lowest at 22%.

The Q4 2009 Southeast Asia report can be viewed here (PDF – 502KB). For those new to the Metrics report, please visit AdMob blog post for more information on the methodology and how to use the numbers in context.

There are so many conversion services today promising to deliver more than they can chew. At Vartro we believe quality work is what is lacking in the conversion market. With a decade worth of conversion experience, we only produce code that is award worthy.

Originally established in Melbourne, Australia, when it comes to XHTML/CSS code, we have coded websites to meet award criteria. Our goal is to produce exceptional code using your design. Satisfactory is not good enough for us. We cater not only for websites, but also iPhone and mobile website conversion.

With technology growing at an exponential rate, users have discovered the power of the internet. The mobile web is a branch that clients are increasingly starting to follow. Vartro is a team of designers that are up-to-date with technology. We are always looking for ways to improve our services to meet your demands.

Our main focus is on delivering quality conversion – we don’t take shortcuts or cheat to get your design coded. We take the time to find the best solution in every case.

With all that said, we’re really excited about the website launch. We have worked very hard over the past few months to build a site that will make your life easier and smarter, not harder!