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Best Online Mobile Website Previewer?

by Robert M Gouge
7 replies
I'm looking for a site or tool that will allow me to see what visitors will see when loading my site from the most popular mobile platforms in the world.

Does anyone know of such a site or tool that does this without displaying really bogus results? (The few I've tried just didn't work very well and seemed buggy)
#mobile #online #previewer #website
  • Profile picture of the author Robert M Gouge
    Why was this moved to this subforum? It has nothing to do with product reviews and ratings
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    • Profile picture of the author Greg guitar
      Originally Posted by Robert M Gouge View Post

      Why was this moved to this subforum? It has nothing to do with product reviews and ratings
      It doesn't? When you ask people for the best [whatever], is that not asking for reviews? Where else you would even try to put a thread asking for reviews than the review section? It is the first and only place I thought to look, and thanks for starting it; I found your thread right away.
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  • Profile picture of the author highrider21
    You can try using google's mobile viewer at: Test Your Site

    It just shows a preview of your website in a small mobile phone but I would assume it is accurate because it is google. I have WP touch installed on my website and when I check other mobile website viewers it shows my regular wordpress site, but when I use google's it shows the mobile version, so it seems to be accurate.

    There is also a firefox plugin called User Agent Switcher which is suppose to show how your site looks from different User Agents like iphone or android. But I installed it and I don't understand how it is suppose to work, I don't see any icon or anything on my firefox browser to switch the user agent, but I know it is installed.

    I am also interested in any good mobile viewers besides these that people know of.

    On a side note, I think the best approach to building for mobile is to build "adaptive" websites that change according to the screen size whether it be a desktop, tablet, or a smartphone. Instead of building a separate mobile site that detects the user agent and redirects the viewer to.
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  • Profile picture of the author smartdept
    The Google previewer is neat, yet it just shows a screen grab.

    The tool I use, which is BY FAR the best, is (if you have a mac) sign up as an Apple Developer (it's free) and download the xCode software with iPhone Emulator.

    the iPhone emulator is incredible. It's really the best way to test.
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    It's A Database For Your Content With SERIOUS Distribution Power...

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    • Profile picture of the author Robert M Gouge
      Originally Posted by smartdept View Post

      The Google previewer is neat, yet it just shows a screen grab.

      The tool I use, which is BY FAR the best, is (if you have a mac) sign up as an Apple Developer (it's free) and download the xCode software with iPhone Emulator.

      the iPhone emulator is incredible. It's really the best way to test.
      Thanks for the reply, but, unfortunately, I don't have a mac.
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  • Profile picture of the author jackheape
    I use the user agent switcher on Firefox; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...chrispederick/. They is also one for Chrome. It does not have the fancy templates that show you a picture of the phone, but it does show you what is being called up by the mobile template. Good enough. And it has all of the various phones, versions etc.
    I also use http://ready.mobi which does a mobile page check.
    Most of the ones you find doing a Google search are crap.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jay Moreno
      Originally Posted by jackheape View Post

      I use the user agent switcher on Firefox; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...chrispederick/. They is also one for Chrome. It does not have the fancy templates that show you a picture of the phone, but it does show you what is being called up by the mobile template. Good enough. And it has all of the various phones, versions etc.
      I also use mobiReady - dotMobi compliance & mobileOK checker which does a mobile page check.
      Most of the ones you find doing a Google search are crap.
      Just FYI ready.mobi is extremely outdated and really designed for testing tradional XHTML MP compatible sites - the screen size emulation is much much smaller that that of any smartphone.

      In my opinion the best online/accurate emulator and better still - FREE resource has to be Mobile Application Testing on Real Devices ? Welcome to DeviceAnywhere from Keynote

      For quickly checking sites we use our own in house tool that represents what a site looks like if the site has a responsive theme, doesnt have a responsive theme, or uses a user agent redirect to send visitors to a standalone mobile optimized site or triggers a mobile optimized adaptive layer.

      For speed and visualization this is by far the fastest way to accurately check if a site is mobile optimized or not without having to pull up the site on your actual phone. One click, three views - move on

      Example here:


      Sometimes when you can't find the tools you need you have to build them yourself...
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      Sorry, I am too busy helping people to think of a cool signature!
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