WPtouch Makes WordPress Sites Mobile Friendly

16 November 2011 By 2 Comments

wptouch wordpress plugin for mobile

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/

Internet experts and analysts have been prophetizing for years that the next big thing will be the mobile web.  2011 is the year that this has finally become a reality. The iPhone brought about mobiles with the facilities of a desktop computer and more. Cheaper android phones brought this to the masses.

A larger and larger percentage of people will be viewing your website from their mobile phones.  Have you checked to see what your own site looks like on a mobile.  Many sites today will look fine on a mobile phone or tablet, but is it fully functional and easy to use? In many cases posts will be awkward to read or it will be nearly impossible to post a comment.

On the last redesign of this blog, moving it into WordPress, I moved the sidebars to the right so that mobile users didn’t need to always scroll over to get to the main content.  Even with this change, users would still need to resize and scroll to read a post.

I noticed a few WordPress sites that had a completely different format when viewed on a mobile. The format was perfectly suited to the mobile screen and made it easier to read and navigate.  I researched how this was done and found on Google+ from Chris Brogan, who also uses the Genesis Theme Framework, that he was using WPtouch.

WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung touch and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile devices.

The admin panel allows you to customize many aspects of its appearance, and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your site to touch mobile visitors, without modifying a single bit of code (or affecting) your regular desktop theme.

The theme also includes the ability for visitors to switch between WPtouch view and your site’s regular theme.

There is also a Pro version that I haven’t tried yet. Prices are from $39 for a single site on up for multiple sites and developers licences. The Pro version includes an iPad friendly version as well. You can see the details at http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch-pro

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Tools, WordPress
About Ann Donnelly

Ann Donnelly is a Partner in O'Mahony Donnelly responsible for Sales, Marketing and Business Development. She came to Ireland after working years in a multinational corporation, where she worked her way from temp to management. Her specialty is getting more business using the internet.

  • http://www.austinot.com/ Brittany Highland

    Unfortunately, WPTouch doesn’t seem to support all Genesis child themes. We’ve been having trouble with ours. It looks like we will need to upgrade to WPTouch – Pro or find another alternative.

    • Anonymous

      Thanks for the comment Brittany. Let me know if you do come up with a good alternative.  

      Luckily WPTpuch worked with the Prose child theme for Genesis that I use, but it is very basic.  Fine for a straight blog, but not enough customisation in the free version for a website that wants more branding and featuring various pages, I have a hotel client that wants something much more customisable and I don’t even now if WPTouch Pro will do the trick. Many theme developers, Genesis and others, are coming out with mobile ready themes; but I think many of us are turning to the premium mobile theme plugins.  

      I’d love to hear what plugins/themes people have used with mobile devices in mind and the pros and cons of each. You hate to spend the money to find out that it’s awkward to use or doesn’t really do what you think it will.