State of cHTML / XHTML for Japanese mobiles?

[zCat]

I'm looking at making part of one of my sites available to Japanese mobile users. Unfortunately I'm not up to speed with the latest developments in the market (it's been a couple of years since I last used a Japanese mobile); while searching around I noticed XHTML (or a subset thereof) is making an appearance. Is this widely supported (maybe even with UTF-8) by current handsets, or would it be safer to stick to cHTML?

While I'm at it, are there any must-read sites (Japanese or English) on the (technical) state of the mobile market? I've found Docomo's page at [nttdocomo.co.jp...] which is quite useful, but have met a dead-end research-wise.

[jeffposaka]

I have a b2 evolution blog encoded in xhtml 1.1 and valid css that works on docomo and AU handsets. All the images need to be gifs though, jpegs will not display. The databases are utf-8.

[bill]

Standard XHTML 1.0 seems to work on the DoCoMo and AU phones I've tested. (XHTML 1.1 is problematic even on PC browsers so make sure you know what you're doing if you choose that.) However, DoCoMo does let you use its own version of XHTML that allows for a bit more presentation in the markup. I don't think there's much CSS support on the standard phone browsers yet.

All the images need to be gifs though, jpegs will not display.

That doesn't seem to be the case with my phones. I can see JPEGs in the browsers no problem.

The old cHTML will still work though for a down and dirty site. I have an old keitai site from the late 90s that still works. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

The biggest change we're seeing with the Japanese mobiles is that many of them are adding full Internet browser support. That makes the development of mobile sites easier. You'll still want to allow for the smaller screen real-estate, but you can use straightforward HTML for the coding.

[zCat]

Thanks for the info. I shall have to arrange a trip to Japan sometime soon.

Anyway, I've just discovered one of the simulators on the DoCoMo site above seems to work with XHTML 1.0 / UTF-8, which is useful (I hope never again to have to deal with SJIS...).