Everyone is talking about the mobile revolution, but today Google announced the next step in it. All of Google Sites properties are now receiving automatic mobile rendering. The new update is compatible with iOS 3.0+ and Android 2.2+ devices. According to Google’s announcement:
By going to General settings under More actions > Manage site and clicking on Automatically adjust site for mobile phones, your Google site will be automatically adjusted whenever it’s viewed from an iOS or Android 2.2+ device:
The most noticeable automatic adjustments include:
- Aligning the header layout and top bar
- Fitting the width of the site to match the device’s width
- Smart handling of sidebars, horizontal navigation, and dropdown links
After you’ve enabled this feature, you can preview the page from your computer as a mobile viewer using More actions > Preview as viewer (Mobile).
In addition to that, Google says that you can hide links in your site’s footer to save vertical space, as well as a search option for your Site and Site categories.
To access the new capability you can use either iOS 3.0+ or Android 2.2+ to navigate to Google Sites. It’s a nice, but probably not huge, step in the march forward to more and more wireless access. It’s also likely to prompt other web heavyweights to move in this same direction.