Some time ago I took to briefly scanning some German news sources via my cell phone, e.g. the Frankfurter Allgemeine or Der Spiegel. It’s not a bad way to spend an idle fifteen minutes here or there. I also check out the Amsterdamse Dagblad, although I find this to be a little sensationalistic and not up to the level of the others. On the other hand, I don’t know Dutch as well as I know German, and usually find it helpful, therefore, that the stories in the AD are apparently considerably pared down for the mobile version.
When I moved to a new neighborhood in January, I was dismayed to observe that my mobile signal, which had been excellent all around the old place and neighborhood, was now so feeble that my phone doesn’t work even for just making calls along one perimeter of my apartment, and using to get online was an excercise in patience. We used to have air cards from the same service provider, which actually allowed us to cancel them because of a known issue in the area. But as far as I’ve seen they’re not doing anything to fix it. Now the signal is getting even weaker, and the problem is that big splash or article pages from Die Zeit and the FAZ take so long to load they fail. Der Spiegel has a mobile version, but that doesn’t seem to work too well. I suspect it may have something to do with the umlauts, even though they don’t cause problems with the other papers.
And this brings me to my question: Is there a German news outlet that has a good online version of itself that is designed for low bandwith and/or feeble signals? Either by paring down the articles, or by offering the content in small pieces? Only being able to get the Amsteramse Dagblad isn’t cutting it for me. “Some knowledge” of Dutch is a dangerous thing when you know German–you confuse words like Dutch “overleden” (perished) with German “überleben” (survive).