We’re regularly asked ‘Does MyOffice work with a Blackberry?’ or ‘Does MyOffice work with an iPhone?’ and up until now we’ve had to say no … but things have changed. We’ve recently introduced a ‘mobile’ web browser version that will work on any phone that can surf the net. So that includes devices like Blackberrys, iPhones, Gphones, the new Nokia N95 etc.
This complements our existing Pocket PC version designed to run on PDAs.
Virtuall all new phones these days have the capability to access the internet … and the new ‘mobile’ version of MyOffice will workon all of them. The difficulty with mobile phones is that mostly they have a very small screen to work with. Some powerful phones like the iPhone allow you to view normal sized web pages by zooming and scrolling. Software like Opera Mobile gives you the same capability.
Having said that we decided that we wanted our mobile web browser version to be simple and easy to understand and to work within the confines of a small screen. That naturally lead us to designing list views with expandable detail pages.
So, for example, when you log on and view your diaries there’s a drop down selection to let you choose which diary you want to look at. The diary page opens automatically with your default diary and lists appointments for today. We display the descriptive text in the list and if you want to see more information about the appointment you can drill down and view the entire appointment. Because MyOffice lets you configure an unlimited number of fields in the appointment we manage the display of this data by letting the user choose what they see using up and down arrows to explode or implode the additional data. I think it works quite well. It’s intuitive and easy to navigate.
We’ve applied the same interface to all the modules. Currently you can use the Mobile Web Browser version to view and edit diaries, contacts. Tasks are coming soon.
The introduction of the Mobile Web Browser version means that we now have 4 versions of MyOffice, all included in the subscription price.
(1) Windows version - our main flagship product and the one you would normally elect to use on a day to day basis. You can install it on as many PCs as you like.
(2) Web Browser version - designed for use from hotels, airport lounges, internet cafes, etc. It doesn’t have the same functionality as the Windows version but is more than adequate for checking appointments, emails and contacts.
(3) Pocket PC version - which you install on Pocket PC PDAs. It connects online via gprs or wireless.
(4) Mobile Web Browser version - which can be used from any phone that can connect to the internet.
So, where do we go next in development terms? Well, we’ll continue to develop and enhance our main product - the Windows version, and we have plans to improve the Web Browser version over the course of the coming year …. and the new Mobile Web Browser version will undoubtedly be enhanced as we receive feedback from users.
You can connect to the Mobile Web Browser by going to www.myoffice.net/mobile on your phone.