What kind of iPad / iPhone support do you provide? What are my mobile site options?

As a general rule, most of the site's key functionalities can be built to work on a mobile device. However, some functionalities expected on a desktop computer (ie, navigating with a mouse) are essentially repurposed for the mobile user to provide the same content in an entirely different experience. Please contact your sales engineer or project manager if iOS or general mobile support is mandatory for your site build.

We offer several paths for mobile compatibility:

Mobile Page Templates

Example: http://www.artba.org/ (load in a desktop and mobile browser to see the difference)

This involves implementing a custom CSS stylesheet on a per-template basis to selectively hide / show data for mobile devices as well as any layout customizations. This can be done for one or more templates.

Cost: starts at $375 per template.

Mobile Web App

Demo: http://layouts.monkcms.com/mobile/

Example: http://www.carmelbaptist.org/mobile/

As opposed to a native (downloadable) application, users do not have to specifically locate an application in a third-party store to use this layout. It is immediately available in their mobile device's web browser when they visit your site.

A redirect is placed on the home page of your site and users are redirected to this "curated" experience on iOS and Android devices. The idea here is that users coming to your home page on a mobile device are likely looking for specific information, usually oriented around specific dynamic content (recent sermons, blog posts, or events) or visitor information (how to contact you, map & directions). Users can exit this interface at anytime. In addition, when accessing other URLs on your site, this curated interface won’t load.

You can edit the background color, the content and order of the tabs. This interface is best suited for phones, but can be enabled for tablets as well.

Cost: Starts at $500.

Tailored Mobile Site

Demo: http://layouts.ekklesia360.com/mobile2/

Example: http://www.fellowshipnashville.org/mobile/

Compared to the mobile web app, this option looks and feels more like a website and less like an "app". You can put in your own logo, colors, fonts, and textures.

This layout is "responsive" and supports mobile phones and tablets based on device dimensions.

Cost: Starts at $1500.

Responsive Web Design

Example: http://www.emergencenj.org/

Compared to any of the above solutions which are built specifically for mobile devices, this is instead is a full-scale web design approach in which the entire website is crafted to provide an optimal viewing experience across a full spectrum of devices. This method relies heavily on CSS media queries, fluid proportion-based CSS grids and flexible images to "respond" to the device screen size in order to produce a unique layout for each device.

The best way to see this in action is to load the example site in your web browser and slowly resize your browser width down to the width of a cell phone. Notice how the layout dynamically shrinks, and in some cases, re-arranges itself to accommodate the new screen size.

Cost: an additional 30-45% to a standard layout build.

Last edited: 2/11/2013