Russell Beattie

Did anyone else notice the Zagat web page in one of the new iPhone commercials is a .mobi site? It's not the zagat.com site that's shown, it's the zagat.mobi site (you'll have to spoof your user-agent to see it).

I wonder if Apple is trying to send the message that the iPhone is quite compatible with the mobile web as well? It *can't* be a coincidence that the URL for Zagat is shown at the top of the browser for that part of the commercial, and the other two sites are already navigated down to the right spot without the address bar. There must be a reason for it.

Zagat actually redirects iPhones to the mobile-specific site automatically, which is also pretty interesting. Should a Mobile Safari user be defaulted to a mobile oriented site or not? Google seems to think so with their dedicated iPhone site, and with this commercial, Apple seems to have given its blessing to the idea as well.

Or is it simply that Zagat.mobi looked better on TV? Probably. :-)

-Russ