Mark Arteaga

I previously wrote about the new IE Mobile 6 browser which brings an improved browsing experience to Windows Mobile.  From a web developers point of view, this changes a few things also, particularly the user agent string.  With the new IE Mobile 6, the user has the option to render a 'desktop version' or a 'mobile version' of the web site.

Within your web application you will need to look at the User-Agent string sent by the browser. 

When the user is browsing using the 'Mobile Device' option you will get the following:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIE Mobile 6.0)

When the user is browsing using the 'Desktop' option you will get the following User-Agent string:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)

To view the User-Agent string on the device open up IE Mobile on the device and type in about:version in the address bar.  You will get the following for the 'Mobile' option (Click on the image to see it in full size):

And the following for the 'Desktop' option:

As a web developer I believe that is all you need to know. 

But what if you don't have a mobile optimised site and ignore the headers and the user never changes to 'Desktop' view?  IE Mobile 6 recognizes this and automatically renders the page appropriately.  Here is my blog (which ironically doesn't have a mobile optimised version) rendered by IE Mobile 6:

If you are interested in more technical details on IE 6 Mobile check out the Internet Explorer Mobile blog or the Internet Explorer Mobile Reference on MSDN.

Today at Tech-Ed EMEA Microsoft announced the availability of Internet Explorer Mobile 6.  What does this mean?  Well now you will get a better mobile browsing experience on Windows Mobile devices.  IE Mobile 6 features include:

• Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering), with rendering engine from Internet Explorer 6 on PC
• Layout fixes for mobile screen (e.g. text wrap)
• Enhanced Script and AJAX support – Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8
• Multimedia – Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content
  • Optional royalty-free component for OEMs
• Deeper integration with search – Address bar and homepage.
• Improved user experience
  • Enhanced cursor navigation model
  • Touch and gesture support – pan support
  • Multiple zoom levels
  • Easy switching between mobile / desktop view

Why is this important?  Well previously, IE Mobile was a built separately from the desktop and focused on mobile optimised sites.  Now with the desktop IE 6 engine included with IE Mobile, Windows Mobile users will have the best of both worlds with the ability to view mobile optimised sites and the ability to view full desktop web sites right on their device..

Compared with other popular mobile browsers, I'm told IE Mobile 6 matches in comparison.  I have not verified this for myself but if someone does please let me know.

And here is a screen shot of IE Mobile running within the new Windows Mobile 6.1.4 emulator

Here is CNBC running within the emulator in 'Mobile View':

and switching to 'Desktop View' renders the desktop version:

You'll notice the menu popup which is the exact same functionality as the desktop browsing experience. 

What about video?  Here is a screen shot of Dirty Money series promo video playing in the emulator without issues.

Overall I think this is a good move from Microsoft to bring the IE 6 rendering engine over to Windows Mobile.  It allows us developers to develop applications using web standards or using .NET Compact Framework and has made browsing on your Windows Mobile device a lot faster and easier. Only drawback on this is it's not a separate download, I'm hoping this will change but we'll have to wait and see.