As you browse the Web, you may come across sites that differ significantly when viewed on the NOOK Tablet compared with the exact same sites viewed on a computer. That’s because web designers have created pages specifically designed to be viewed with mobile devices such as the NOOK and smartphones, taking into account that mobile devices have smaller screens than computer screens.
ABC News for example, has sites designed especially for mobile viewing. Head to the same site at the exact same time of day with a smartphone and a computer, and you see very different pages, even though the content of the pages is the same.
These pages are formatted to be read on the phone, so very often they don’t include complex layouts, and instead present articles and other information in scrollable lists. They generally don’t let you zoom in and zoom out. You’ll navigate primarily by scrolling and clicking links.
The websites know which kind of page to display by detecting what kind of device you’re using. Sometimes, though, the websites get confused, and so you may visit the website one day and get delivered a page designed for a mobile device, and another day and get one designed for a large computer monitor.
Odder still, sometimes the type of page switches depending upon the orientation of your NOOK Tablet. Visit a page when you’re in the vertical orientation, and it displays the page for a mobile device; turn the NOOK horizontally to landscape mode and the page displays for a full-blown computer monitor. Turn it back to vertical, and it switches to the mobile site again.
Tip
There are a few things you can try if you come across a page that displays for a mobile device that doesn’t look good on your NOOK. Try changing the orientation; sometimes that works. You may also want to look around the page to see whether there’s a link you can click that will let you display the full version of a page, rather than the mobile version. The techie news site Techdirt.com, for example, includes a link like that.
