Today, I ditched one more plugin call WPtouch after Jetpack team released 1.8 version of this plugin. In 1.8 version of Jetpack, there is only one new feature added, but I’m sure those who are using this WordPress plugin, will love to enable it right away. Jetpack plugin now let you make your blog mobile compatible.
2017 update: If you are using a responsive WordPress theme, you don’t need to enable mobile module of Jetpack plugin.
How to enable Jetpack Mobile Theme?
If you have Jetpack plugin installed, go to updates and update it to latest version. If you have not yet installed Jetpack, download it from WordPress repo or simply search “Jetpack” from Add new plugin in your WordPress dashboard and install it. Click on Jetpack and look for mobile theme feature. Click on Activate to activate this module.
Once you have enabled mobile theme feature for Jetpack, you can click on configure to change few settings. Right now, there is only one setting option offered by this module, but for a mobile theme, this is very useful.
You can control to show full post or excerpt on the home page or archive pages. I recommend you to enable excerpts on the homepage and on the archive page. This will help users to quickly browse more post when they are accessing your WordPress blog from mobile devices.
Once you save the settings, make sure to delete all your cache, else you might not see the change. Also, if you are using any other plugin which optimizes WordPress blog for mobile or tablet, you might like to deactivate it t avoid any conflicts.
Though, at this time I miss few things which could be added in mobile theme module like adding the logo, setting custom menu and sidebar option. One important thing which is missing is an option to monetize. I was using WPtouch plugin, and it let me add Adsense for my mobile site but something which I need to miss in Jetpack mobile theme.
By default it’s a 1 column theme, that means your sidebar widgets will be displayed after the post, but still, it’s useful as your readers can focus more on content when viewing your WordPress site from mobile.
Jetpack mobile module: Good or bad?
The good thing about this module is you can ditch one more WordPress plugin on your blog but it lacks many features which should be there. Another thing is, readability of your content improves and it supports all major mobile operating system, so you don’t need to worry about walking an extra mile for your mobile readers.
Another useful feature is, your readers can also switch between desktop mode and mobile mode, which is useful when they accessing your site from big screen tablets. Here is a screenshot of ShoutMeLoud after activating this plugin and viewed on iPhone:
As I mentioned above, this module comes with the limited set of features and configuration have nothing much to offer. Especially, if you have a large number of people accessing your site via mobile, you might not like to miss the option to monetize it, which Jetpack plugin lacks. In this case, I would recommend stick to WPtouch plugin which offers a better option.
If you are using a responsive WordPress theme, you don’t need any mobile plugin. Not sure? Here are tools to check the responsiveness of your theme.
Anyhow, if you have not yet made your WordPress site mobile friendly, install Jetpack WordPress plugin and activate the mobile theme and make your site mobile friendly.
Do let me know which method you prefer to make your WordPress site mobile friendly? Do you use any plugin or any 3rd party services?
The mobile theme actually misses out on many monetization channels… And we all know 60% or more of our traffic come from mobile… I found this post very useful. Now I can go ahead to disable that mobile module.
Admin please how can I add jetpack comment to wptouch mobile theme? It is showing default wordpress comment system …
thanks a lot for this article, and jetpack has been the most popular wordpress plugin. BUT i always prefer not to use the mobile friendly option, because i find that option weird. when i enable that feature, i see the mobile version is enabled for both desktop and mobile site. so i prefer rather then using this, use a responsive theme.
thanks
IMO, this is by design. Regular desktop theme usually looks fine on tablet screens.
@Anton
I agree the design is not very sleek, but I like it from the readability point of view. From branding POV we miss out a lot. Though, it’s a quick way to activate mobile theme for lazy bloggers. Is int it? 🙂
I installed jetpack and activated mobile theme. But there seems to be an issue with it. The blog opens in desktop theme when accessed from a tab. Any idea why this happens?
hie there .. after the upgradation of jetpack to 2.02 Sharing buttons are not working … do any one have any idea about that???
There is a simple and elegant way to monetize your blog even with Jetpack Mobile Theme. It uses the documented features (mobile sidebar and child themes), which means that it will not break on upgrades. More details in my post – http://technotes.khitrenovich.com/enable-ads-jetpack-mobile-theme/.
Just found out. You have to click on the “learn more” in the plugins section of the jetpack theme for mobile theme. After that a “deactivate” button will appear next to the “learn more button.”
It is very easy to activate the plugin but how about deactivating it? You did not say anything about it.
its simple.. just go to your plugins menus.. find jet pack there … click on deactivate option … thats it ..
it seems good plugin but does it work on all platform like on windows OS phones also……….
Well, thats great news. Just got to know about the feature in JePack. But, still it need more updates to be used. Till then i am with WPTouch plugin!!
I have also been using Wptouch for a while now and I never added the adsense code to my mobile website.
Since, I run a single-author blog I never needed to use too many plugins for adsense integration and I used customized codes and scripts for running adsense on my blog. So, whenever someone visited my site from mobile version (from Wptouch) it displayed the ads anyway for you don’t have to bother about ads if you don’t use too many.
I haven’t yet tried Jetpack mobile site yet, though, I think ads would still be displayed on it through my custom codes and scripts. So… may be it’s not as bad if it comes to single-author blogs.
P.S. I’m also going to delete Wptouch now, probably!
hie …
i have an issue with the plugin after updating jet pack to v 1.8 … site stats option is not working …
on clicking on site stat option its just simplly showing this error….
“We were unable to get your stats just now. Please try again.”
can ny one plz telll me am i only 1 who is getting this after updating or is there any one with me ….
thanks
regards
manjinder
It will happen and you will have to restore the old version of jetpack. You wont lose the statistics, dont worry !!!