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When I read this article by Henrik Eneroth about redesigning Safari’s interface I thought we as webdesigners somehow do this with websites and web-apps. While Apple misses to add different behavior for different browser-sizes it’s a kind of standard to build a website with a special mobile version that looks not like the website on a desktop computer but fulfills the need of someone who visits the mobile version of the website.

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In Vitaly Friedman’s (Smasing Magazine) presentation “Webdesigntrends 2011” I recognized this nice photo.

Vitaly states that someone who visits your page with a mobile device may need other information as someone who visits your page with a “normal sized” computer. That’s why I somethimes – even when I’m designing “responsive” – leave out some elements that are not really nescessary on a mobile screen, e.g. a slider with some nice-looking images.

This approche should be brought to apps, too.
There are some examples where this works already. For instance there is Reeder for Mac, for iPad and iPhone. The desktop-app uses a similar design-pattern as Lion’s Mail for Mac: three Columns. There are more details in every next column you open.

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Whatever… You should definitely visit Mr. Eneroth’s post on re-designing the browser-window as it is kinda important and thoughtful for everyone who has some connection to design.