Top-10 iPhone Optimized Websites

By Brandon Eley Oct. 1, 2007, 10:20am PT 80 Comments

The iPhone does a great job of displaying any website with its Safari web browser and high-resolution display. With the easy touch controls on the iPhone, navigating just about any website is a breeze.

Still, websites developed specifically for the iPhone are optimal because they utilize the screen to the fullest extent, and use less bandwidth (which if you’re on EDGE much, is a necessity).

Below are my top 10 iPhone optimized websites. These stay in my bookmarks and get visited daily.

  1. Facebook – http://iphone.facebook.com/

    Probably the best iPhone-optimized website I’ve seen, Facebook has most of the features of the regular website, shrunk down and bandwidth-optimized. It’s super easy to navigate and has me using Facebook almost exclusively over that “other” site.

  2. Digg – http://www.digg.com/iphone/

    It’s Digg on your iPhone. It’s fast and very easy to browse. I probably hit this site twice a day to check out what’s new.

  3. Amazon.com – http://www.amazon.com/

    I just discovered Amazon this past week. I was in Staples and wanted to check the price of something, so I hit Amazon.com with my iPhone. To my surprise, they had an iPhone optimized version! It doesn’t have the slick design of other iPhone sites, but is 100% functional and loads fast, which is what I want when I’m standing in a store and need to compare prices.

  4. eBay – http://iphone.ebay.com/

    After I checked Amazon.com, I decided to look for eBay. They too have an iPhone optimized site, and it’s fast! It doesn’t load photos by default, so you get almost instant search results, and can easily load any photos you want by clicking the “Picture” tab.

  5. Google – http://google.com/

    Google Mobile is a great iPhone optimized site, even if it was designed long before the iPhone was released. It loads fast and fills the screen. Just go to google.com and click “mobile” instead of “classic.”

  6. TaDa List – http://tadalist.com/

    One major flaw in the iPhone is the lack of a todo list software package. TaDa list is a fast, simple to-do list that I’ve used many times before. I switched to the more robust Backpack, but use TaDa List while on my iPhone for jotting down quick lists.

  7. Leaflets – http://www.getleaflets.com/

    Leaflets is a great resource for finding iPhone formatted content and websites. From sports to games to weather, you can find it on an inerface very similar to the iPhone’s native applications.

  8. Yahoo Search (configure in preferences)

    My iPhone came setup for Google by default, but I found the Yahoo! search better formatted for my iPhone. The results are similar in most instances, so I use the Yahoo! search.

  9. GoMovies – http://webologistdesign.com/gomovies/demo/

    Get movie times and theater inforamtion nicely formatted and fast. I’ve visited several theater company websites looking for showtimes, and while it’s not a problem, the image-heavy sites are slow to load. I much prefer this optimized site that loads in a fraction of the time.

  10. Your WordPress blog! – http://iwphone.contentrobot.com/

    That’s right, you can have an iPhone optimized blog with no effort on your part (other than uploading a plugin and theme). I’ve tested it with my personal blog and is as simple as it sounds. Just upload the plugin and theme, turn the plugin on and your WordPress blog is optimized for the iPhone. Visitors coming from the iPhone will get the optimized version.

    UPDATE: iPhone-optimized WordPress Admin plugin.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.