Dotmobi style guides are based on W3C Mobile Web Initiative Best practice, so they should be OK for the head of W3C .

Tim is partially wrong in the sense that internet content is not running today on all hardware, as it often does not run on low-end phones. Only mobile friendly internet content (à la dotMobi) is actually running on all hardware.

I believe you misspoke wrt iPhone.  He makes an inference that Network World interprets as his opposition to the iPod as a closed music ecosystem.  The iPhone is probably the best example of an open mobile web appliance with its browser application (I don’t own one).

Hmm...you’re right Brad. I wouldn’t say that the iPhone’s browser is the “best” example of an open mobile web appliance, but it is a good one—it’s open and developers can offer things through it. On reflection, I don’t think it would come under his complaints.

On the question of iPhone, as Brad said, Safari Mobile is probably the best experience of the open web on a small device. Where Apple is driving web design is what gets interesting, for example, the default font size is tiny as the entire page is rendered in 480x320, so you have to stretch it. However if you go to Facebook.com it will autodetect and in fact take you to special iPhone pages with layout designed for touch with large font size.

So is this unifying or dividing? Does Apple get to set standards defacto?