Thursday, December 13,2007 @ 10:35am
Sources: MySpace prepping iPhone web client
Social networking site MySpace is developing its own optimized web client for the iPhone and iPod touch, Electronista has confirmed through authoritative sources. The News Corp-owned company hopes to create a reworked version of the site tailored just to Apple's multi-touch devices. Like the Facebook mobile site already in service, the site will significantly re-optimize profile pages, notifications, and other information from the site in a format suitable both to the screen size and to the need for large, touch-friendly buttons and links. The company has taken steps in recent months to rework the traditional desktop page into a more conventional and also flexible layout.
This version is known to be entirely separate from MySpace Mobile Web, which is designed primarily for conventional phones with very limited web browsers and screens, according to the tip. The company also develops custom programs for many of these same phones to take advantage of their controls but has not been able to do so with the iPhone, which will lack an official native software developer kit (SDK) until February.
Insiders have noted, however, that MySpace's signature music and video players for member profiles remain significant issues for the creation of the mobile page. On a computer, the content requires an Adobe Flash animation browser plug-in that currently does not exist for Apple's mobile version of Safari and may force MySpace to strip out or significantly rework the media playback tools to accommodate the iPhone.
A release date for the client is uncertain but should occur "soon," those familiar with the project say.
The web client is not believed to be connected with previous reports obtained by Electronista that Apple has been seeding an early SDK for native iPhone applications to several high-profile developers, though the previous report mentions at least one major social networking site as a recipient that remains unnamed.