“handheld” Media Type, RIP?

Published on Jun 30, 2009, filed under development, css. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

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Website authors don’t use handheld as it’s barely supported; mobile browser vendors don’t support handheld because it’s barely used.

This is kind of the situation I think we’re facing—please prove me otherwise—, and it’s a problem. CSS’s handheld media type would be valuable to tailor content and services to mobile devices. The catch-22 we’re dealing with instead means two things:

• Media types, with the exception of print, could become useless. (That’s not including media features, however.)

• We may come to depend on user agents so smart (think content scaling) and connections so fast and affordable that site owners don’t have to offer alternative, mobile-optimized access to their services.

The CSS Working Group may disagree with my thinking but I like the idea that vendors meet consumer needs to make the second point a reality: providing us with smart software and reasonable prices to avoid a mess caused by… yes, who.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)