Even when targeting just the iPhone, redirecting to mobile-friendly sites is already causing problems for the web. This will only get worse as sites begin to detect user agents for other mobile browsers. We are headed towards a fragmented internet, where desktop sites and mobile sites live in independent ecosystems and movement between them is fragile and perilous.
What is a good solution for this problem? Don’t say user agents. Peeking at user agents is so last decade. Media queries are part of the answer, but mobile phones have limited screen space and performance is crucial. There’s a lot of content that is best to not even load. How do web developers detect these performance-sensitive environments and react accordingly?