WhitherApps is a bandwagon-busting experiment. I believe there are far too many native client apps which could have been far better written as mobile web apps. What I’m trying to do with the project is take a few particularly obvious examples, apply a little reverse-engineering, and rewrite them, warts and all, with web technologies.

I’m focussing on native client apps that are free to download. These wouldn’t have suffered commercially had they been written this way in the first place. Obviously, I’ll also focus on feasible genres of apps. No 3D games or background apps, for example. To start with, informational media apps (such as newspapers and broadcasters) will be in the spotlight.

But otherwise, I may not need to pull too many punches. Offline access? Through the wonders of HTML5, that should be OK. Native device API access? Well, BONDI and proprietary libraries permitting, I’ll have a go – and there’s always PhoneGap too.

Each post on the site will be a walkthrough (or part of a walkhrough) of the process. As I get my hands dirty, from the protocol-sniffing to the pixel-jiggling, you can follow the steps I took.

Stay tuned and wish me luck!

We just launched v1.1, compatible with the latest version of WordPress. Download it, read the changelog, read about the features in full, or even join the team.

The plugin includes a mobile switcher to select themes based on the type of user that is visiting the site, a selection of mobile themes, extra widgets, device adaptation and a mobile administration panel to allow users to edit the site or write new posts when out and about.

Features include:

• Mobile switcher to detect mobile visitors and provide an appropriate experience
• Base mobile theme for quick-and-easy XHTML-MP compliance
• Extended mobile themes so you can unleash your mobile creativity
• Transcoding and device adaptation to optimise the mobile experience
• DeviceAtlas integration for world-class adaptation
• Mobile admin panel for when posts can’t wait
• Mobile ad widget to make you some money
• Barcode widget to help users bookmark your blog

I have a lot of fun writing this plugin and there’s a bunch of cool ideas we have for the future. Check out the Assembla project to see the work as it happens – and maybe toss us some new ideas too.

It’s always a work in progress, but thousands of users seem happy enough so far. See what you think…

I had to generate some new resumé-style posts and they probably all showed up in your feeds. Sorry.

If you’re on the new site, I hope you like it.

If you’re reading this on RSS, maybe it appeared above.

Well, now we’re back on track.

The site now serves as much as a business card as it does a blog… but I will try to put the occasional post up to remind you that I’m still alive. Well, outside of Twitter and JaJaJeEv anyway.

By the way, I’m quite please with the favicon.

I run metajam.mobi. With 14m page-views per month, it’s a surprisingly popular mobile web site.

Also launching sometime this year: vumi.mobi…

I led the ready.mobi team, and have a mobile WordPress plugin ready for release soon. I just launched an image resizing service.

You may vaguely remember WAPtastic from 1999. Then AnywhereYouGo.com. Then Argogroup’s DevZone.

But the mighty mobiForge (neé dev.mobi) was also one of my babies, and is still going strong.

For Argogroup, I built BoxOffice, a reporting and analysis platform for large-scale monitoring systems.

The dotMobi KPI platform uses registry data to track domain trends. And I think I have another one in me.

Now we’re in Nashik, India – and excited to live in one of this century’s rising superpowers.

My telecoms heritage comes from Sema Group and AnywhereYouGo.com. And the obligatory management consultancy at Ernst & Young.

SquigglySquares provides barcode fun, using a QR-code API and a slab of jQuery. TwitterLap lets you see how Twitter users’ followings intersect. It’s quite popular.