Politics & Government

Township Launches Version of Website For Mobile Phones

LowerMerion.org is now smartphone-friendly.

Lower Merion Township’s website, already an impressively comprehensive and intuitive tool for area residents (with one glaring exception), recently became even slicker with the development of a version of the site for smartphones.

“If you have an iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or similar mobile device, visiting the township’s website is now a more user-friendly experience than ever,” township officials said in a statement earlier this week.

The new technology is not an “App.” Rather, it is a mobile version of the site. (For those without smartphones, it may or may not be important to know that an App is an application that targets a specific platform for Apple’s enormous iPhone and iPad markets. Apps can be bought, or downloaded for free, in the “App Store.”) I'm no technophile, not by a long shot, but it seems that by choosing this path, whoever handles technology and the website for the township made a wise choice.

Find out what's happening in Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Many business people, and smartphone users over the age of 35 or 40, have long been dependent on their company-issued BlackBerry devices (a.k.a. “CrackBerry”), which have been in existence much longer than the iPhone, which was first released in mid-2007. The BlackBerry has been around since 1999. 

Combined with the rise of Google’s Android (released in 2008), “the smartphone market is increasingly fragmented when it comes to choosing which platform to target,” according to Better Web, a site that chronicles the “new media” marketplace. With more platforms to target and the explosive growth of tablets to consider, Better Web says a company (especially a nonprofit, such as the township) ought to do away with trying to target every platform. Besides, it’s much less expensive.

Find out what's happening in Ardmore-Merion-Wynnewoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“In our opinion, the best way to approach mobile in 2011 is through a mobile website,” the site says.

Additionally, “when people are looking for information, they go to Google, not the App store,” Better Web advises. And as mobile browsers become faster, “the performance gap between Apps and websites is closing.”

Like all good mobile versions of websites, Lower Merion’s new model is clean and simple, with a descending list of press releases, events and navigational links, all of them easy to manipulate on a four-inch screen.

It does not, however, improve on LowerMerion.org’s search engine, which instead of links to results, yields hundreds of numbers. If you keep clicking you’ll find what you’re looking for eventually, but it’s often maddening.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here