Mobile plugins for WordPress compared

As you probably know, Google has changed its search algorithm again. This time to benefit mobile searchers.

Since April 21, mobile users of Google search are presented results not only relevant to their query, but also leading to sites offering a positive user experience on mobile devices.

Almost half of the search queries are executed from phones and tables, so no website can afford to scare mobile users away by offering these visitors a bad user experience. Every website has to be mobile friendly.

There are two ways to make a WordPress website mobile friendly. Either with the theme, or with a plugin.

Your best bet is a responsive theme. A responsive theme adapts the presentation of the web page to fit the screen of the user’s device.  A responsive theme is also a better option in terms of branding.

In case you are considering switching to a responsive theme, have a look a Theming WP, a sister site of this blog. All themes reviewed over there are responsive.

When you are not ready (yet) to switch to a responsive theme, you can opt for a plugin.

When such a plugin detects a mobile device, it instantly jumps between the theme and the user and acts as a middleman. The plugin transforms the non-responsive web page into a more mobile friendly presentation.

In this post we have a look at five popular mobile plugins for WordPress:

• ElegantThemes HandHeld
• JetPack by WordPress.com
• Obox Mobile
• WP Mobile Detector
• WPtouch

Mobile Test Environment

For this test we used the Webpoli.nl website, since Webpoli.com is still under construction.

The Webpoli theme is built upon the Genesis 2.0 Framework, which is responsive. So first we need to “switch off” the responsiveness of the theme. This achieve that, the media queries were replaced with this piece of code:

@media only screen and (min-width: 320px) and (max-width: 1200px) {

.wrap {
    width: 1200px;
}

That did the trick.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to test all these plugins properly with viewport tools like Firesizer or Window Resizer on a local machine. Because of that, the live site was cloned and activated on another domain.

To examine the functionality of the mobile plugins, the test site was visited with an old Samsung S3 (720×1280) smartphone and a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 (1600 x 2560).

The images above show our starting point – a non-responsive Webpoli theme. Now that we have a test environment, we can start the test.

ElegantThemes HandHeld

HandHeld does not recognize the Galaxy Tab as a mobile device, so there is only one screen capture – created with the phone.

Unfortunately, the plugin does not recognize the Genesis Home page template (front-page.php), but is allows you to select a static home page.

The plugin adds an ET Mobile Plugin page to the WordPress settings that allow you to select a child theme, and show or hide comments.

There are no settings regarding Featured Images.

The plugin creates a mobile menu of with the available pages – ignoring the blog menu.

HandHeld comes with PhotoShop layered (PSD) files for Home, Page, Post, and Gallery Post.

ElegantThemes HandHeld is available with EelegantThemes Developer plan for $89, or the LifeTime Acces plan for $249.

JetPack by WordPress.com

Please note, you need a WordPress.com account to use the free JetPack.

Upon activation, JetPack suggests to install several modules for the best experience.

However, I prefer to disable everything first, and in second stage, I only activate what I really need. So, in this case I only activate the Mobile Theme.

The JetPack Mobile Theme settings offer only two options.

You can choose between excerpts or the full content, and display or hide Featured Images.

Here I select excerpts with thumbnails.

Creates mobile menu of the blog menu – it ignores the header navigation.

Obox Mobile

This premium plugin adds a Obox Mobile panel to the WordPress admin menu with four pages: General, Customizations, Adverts, and Update.

It is possible to set a static page as the home page, as well as the blog feed. Although the plugin allows you to select the widgetized homepage as the front page, I was not able to see with the phone.

The settings of the plugin give you the opportunity to display or hide elements of the post meta.

The Customization page nicely integrates the WordPress Customizer and give you plenty of customization options.

The plugin also adds a Mobile Navigation to the Menu Locations of WordPress (Appearance >> Menus), which allows you to create a menu specifically for mobile users.

Obox Mobile plugin recognizes the tablet as a mobile device and presents the blog feed in a readable format. The Obox Mobile Standard Pack comes at $79.

WP Mobile Detector

The free WP Mobile Detector plugin requires all permissions (777) for its cache folder (plugins/wp-mobile-detector/cache/).

The 777 permissions were only granted, because the plugin is installed on a test site. I am wondering why this has not been solved otherwise, for example by creating a subdirectory with the uploads folder.

The WP Mobile Detector adds a panel at the bottom of the admin menu with three pages: Settings, Stats, and Mobile Themes.

The Settings let you choose to serve tablet users the desktop site or the mobile version. You can also disable the stats.

WP Mobile Detector installs with six mobile themes.

WPtouch

The WPtouch panel includes six pages. For the free version, only three pages are relevant: Core Settings, Theme Settings, and Menus.

A great deal of the Theme Settings is only available for the Pro version, which starts at $69 for a single site.

However the Theme Settings of the free version do offer you five options regarding displaying Featured Images.

The Regionalization of the plugin starts in auto-detect mode, and is localized for 24 languages. Despite the aut0-detect, you can switch to any of the available languages with a drop-down menu.

WPtouch allows you to select a different menu for the mobile users, so you can compose a dedicated menu for this groups of visitors.

The plugin does not recognize Genesis Home page template (front-page.php), and sets the blog page as the homepage.

Only the Pro version of the plugin support tablets.

Wrapping up

First of all, all plugins above bring your mobile users a better experience than a mobile-unfriendly website.

The fact that all plugins seem to wrestle with the Genesis front-page.php template is not so strange. With Genesis you do have to set a static home page. Genesis “knows” you prefer a static home page, as soon as you add content to a homepage widget.

The best mobile plugin based on this test is definitely Obox Mobile.

Obox Mobile recognizes not only smartphones, but also tablets. It displays Featured Images on both, and allows you to compose a menu specifically for mobile users.

And last but not least, Obox Mobile offers a nice pallet of customization options. These are accessible from the Obox Mobile panel, or otherwise from a WordPress Customizer adapted for this plugin.

How about you?

Is your website mobile friendly. When yes, do you have responsive theme or did you install a plugin?

Looking forward learning about your experiences.