With the ever increasing accessibility of smart phones, coupled with the rapid advancement of mobile internet technology, more and more people are reaching for their phones and tablets to carry out their everyday internet browsing. According to research carried out by International Data Corporation, mobile internet users are set to surpass wired internet users by 2015, growing at an average annual rate of 16.6%.
As such, adapting your website to cater to this ever growing market should be of high priority, especially from a commercial perspective. Trying to find the address or contact details of a company when they don’t have a responsive mobile design can result in an extremely frustrating experience, as well as losing out on a potential customer.
If you are one of the 56,000,000+ people that have adopted the WordPress CMS, there are a range of ways to inject mobile friendly capabilities into your website, the primary one being responsive themes. This allows you to serve a simpler version of your website if someone is visiting from their smartphone or tablet, stripping back unnecessary functions and assets to reduce load times and display important information. This article is a collation of the best mobile themes available.
Breathe ($30)
Oozing with fluid transition animations, Breathe is a simplistic yet aesthetically pleasing mobile theme with an emphasis on ease of use. Boasting a widegtised footer area and support for almost every mobile browser, it’s a great platform for establishing your mobile presence.
Touch Mobile ($30)
Touch Mobile by 22lines is built upon the powerful HTML5 and CSS3 frameworks, featuring touch screen support with swipe galleries, multiple colour schemes, Analytics integration and much more.
mymobile ($25)
mymobile is an aesthetically pleasing theme that has clearly drawn upon mobile apps for design inspiration. Mobile detection code is fully implemented, making the process of serving mobile friendly versions of your site incredibly easy.
Mobile Pro ($25)
Although Mobile Pro is predominantly geared toward iPads and other tablets, due to its high responsiveness it also displays perfectly on smaller mobile devices. It automatically detects the device you are using and reacts accordingly, resizing and reorganising its components.
Simple Mobile ($25)
Simple Mobile is a clean and intuitive mobile theme, with collapsible multi-level menus and widgetised areas.
Side ($25)
Side is a visually stunning theme, bursting with retina elements such as graphics, icons, and buttons. Although best suited to the iPhone, it also looks great on Android and other smart phone devices.
Tiger ($30)
Featuring an impressive and customisable admin backend, Tiger is packed full of features that cater to both tablets and phones. Touch Screen support with a collapsible side menu helps display core information in a clear and digestible manner.
iKon ($25)
The iKon theme was created exclusively for iPhone and Android devices, boasting portrait and landscape support, multiple colour themes and a built in ajax powered contact form.
WPAppTouch (Free)
WPAppTouch is a theme that is designed to look like a native mobile app. Due to its basic appearance it’s fast loading with fluid animations when navigating between pages. It’s also one of the few free mobile themes available.
mobiTheme ($25)
If you’re looking for a simplistic, bright and powerful mobile solution for your website then mobiTheme is a great choice. Featuring unlimited colours, widetised areas and fluid animations, it’s perfect for personal blogs.
Leon ($8)
Leon boasts a ‘honey comb’ style menu that is activated with a central button, resulting in a unique and enjoyable browsing experience that wows you with its clever animation. As the picture suggests, each honey comb ‘cell’ navigates you to the appropriate page, with touch and swipe support.
SOFA iBloggr ($25)
iBloggr was built from the ground up to work flawlessly with iPhone and iPod touch devices. It fits perfectly into a 320px screen while also looking acceptable on a desktop, and is highly customisable through its intuitive admin panel.
On Demand ($49.99)
Although On Demand is rather high priced, it’s packed full of great features that more than make up for it. Its ‘click-to-call’ feature makes it easy for potential customers to instantly get in touch, with advanced video embedding options which are functional on select Android and iPhone devices.
WordPress Mobile Theme (Free)
Like its name suggests, WordPress Mobile Theme is a no nonsense approach to converting your website into a mobile friendly, simplistic design.
1stGiantLeap ($25)
1stGiantLeap is a highly responsive theme that automatically detects when the device is rotated, and switches to landscape or portrait accordingly. Featuring 4 colour schemes preinstalled and a large (for mobiles!) image slider, it’s a great choice for visually driven websites.
H8.Mobile ($9)
Despite its rather unfriendly name, H8.Mobile is a fully featured, well-rounded mobile site design. This self-described ‘elegant and cool template’ is a clean cut theme with HTML driven swipe functionality, and is 100% iPhone and Android ready.
Handheld ($89 — Package)
Although Handheld appears to be the most expensive theme in this compilation, it’s actually included in Elegant Theme’s premium package. It’s a Plugin that runs alongside your usual desktop theme, and is visible to users on a mobile device, making the process simple and stress free.
Does your website feature an impressive mobile design? Do you use a WordPress template we didn’t cover here? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image/thumbnail, mobile image via Shutterstock
Source : internetwebsitedesign[dot]biz
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