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Toolkit Available For WAP programming
Posted by
timothy
on Tue May 30, 2000 11:07 PM
from the eentsy-weentsy-movies? dept.
from the eentsy-weentsy-movies? dept.
mge writes: "According to this story in some local Aussie IT pages, Nokia is looking for developers to make online games for mobile phones and it has established R&D centres in Helsinki, Belgrade and Sydney to provide content for the company's new mobile entertainment centre. There's a WAP Client Toolkit, Game Construction Toolkit, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), documentation and sample source code for applications to download. An Australian company, Fluffy Spider Technologies, is also offering assistance to game developers. They have posted free code online for a simple Tic Tac Toe game. Of course, they want games, but how about automated dial-ins (to take advantage of lower call/ISP rates), smart forms etc ... " Well someone needs to start giving all our smart phones something to think about, eh?
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Toolkit Available For WAP programming
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WAP shmAP (Score:3)
I don't want several things added to my cell phone but I can think of several things I DO want added to it. I want an electric ink screen rather than buttons and an LCD. There's a funny thing about devices that don't continuously need electricity, they preserve battery life a great deal. Electric ink in its various forms holds the image you put on it until another charge is applied to it and besides which the charge is meager compared to the backlight of an LCD. Such a screen compined with touch sensors could be altered to display any language easily and different keypads. Another thing I do want on a cell phone is a decent data rate that makes downloading of fancy XML dataforms quick and relatively painless. If we're going to WAP cell phones do we really need companies like Nokia and Motorola defining how we WAP our data (pun intended)? How about we use old skool HTML before Netscape and M$ extended it to be modernized sandskrit. Wow maybe we can even listen to those W3C guys talking about something called "HTML standards". It seems to me XML is not the greatest of ideas in some cases for limited bandwidth toys like cell phones and handheld computers. The main problem I see is bandwidth, with XML the processing is done almost entirely by your client machine. While this is fine and dandy on a four exahertz home system with a DSL hook-up a mobile device is somewhat limited by the battery and bandwidth which are both costing you money. People wouldn't be jizzing all over the internet right now if you had to pay by the house/minute/Planck second for access.
More to the point of this article why aren't we seeing more Java for these new and wonderful toys? According to McNealy a couple years ago by now we ought to be seeing Java everywhere. Networked phones seem like the perfect niche. JIT compiling and Applets let you write your WAP toy once and run it on any phone you get your hands on. Don't like Motorola's XML parser? Pop in a third party browser written in Java and you're good to go. Jini's marketing plans come back to me now, as do Bluetooth. I put my cell phone and laptop on a desk and turn both on and WAP! I have a wireless internet connection. Not only do I get to share my connection but I also get to upload a new program for the phone. Eh, oh well.
Jeez - whatta bunch of whiners! (Score:3)
* Of course it's basic at the moment - it's a new standard. It's got a way to go before it develops, but it's already being used to produce useable and useful sites.
* OK, so its not Open Source - and Geoworks is kicking up a stink over an alleged patent they have on WAP, but nobody seriously believes Geoworks' claims and it is completely free to develop WAP - just the same as HTML.
* Phones have small screens and so WAP is text based. Yup. So what? There's a lot of info that can be made available through text - or don't you guys use telnet?
* WAP is insecure|slow|boring|expensive / there are too few sites / can't handle video/audio etc. Give it time. When I started using the net all the above was true as well. People invent and create around such obstacles.
* WML isn't as rich as HTML. Right tools for right interface. Do you need <font size="7"> on your phone? WML is a new markup language that resembles HTML, but is built using XML and includes the features that are necessary for the current development of phones.
* WML won't last. Quite possibly right. I kinda see WAP as a bridging technology to other better methods of accessing the huge amount of info that's on the net - however it's an extremely important bridging technology because for the first time, mobile Internet access is a reality - for the masses. It'll take a while to fill out and mature, but the cat is out of the bag and you ain't gonna be able to stuff it back in again.
Finally, I suspect that many of the posters here are Americans. Nope, I'm not going to get into some kinda racial slur here, but the US has a terrible relationship to mobile phone technology. Maybe if you lived in a country where mobile phone use was as cheap, simple and ubiquitous as those of us in Europe or Japan (and other areas), then you would understand how truly revolutionary it is being able to get access to a portion of the huge, huge wealth of information that is available on the Internet.
Beyond that, mobile phones are quite simply easier to understand and use for many people than computers. Even my Mum understands what WAP is about and uses an SMS banking service on her mobile phone. She's been on the web maybe 4 times! Does she really need a computer in her life? I think not - but if she had access to say, a theatre ticket booking system, her bank account balance and a simple message service she would actually make use of such tools.
Well, that's my rant over - if you've read this far I hope that you'll maybe reconsider your view of WAP - if not, that's your perogative and I'll look forward to hearing your views in 2 years when you are whining that you missed the boat.
Feel free to check out some of the WAP services already available here;
http://wapwarp.com [wapwarp.com]
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Re:Been here :/ (Score:3)
It seems (and there's quite a lot of support for this theory) that WAP is really just a temporary hack put there until they get 3G services sorted. I'm damn glad of this -- ever since I started working on WAP I've hated it. It seems such a badly-thought-out solution.
Guesses are that there just aren't going to be enough WAP-capable handsets in circulation before 3G takes off two years hence. Nokia and the others can't make them fast enough.
The networks, the manufacturers, the content providers, all seem to be paying lip-service to WAP while focusing on 3G and other technologies. This is a fair point.
Most developers I've spoken to say this, though: "It's not worth getting into WAP. Let's wait for 3G". However, I'll put this to you: WAP is an experiment. Not an experiment in technology (3G tech is so different that WAP techie experience will be useless). It's an experiment in business models. How will we make money out of "m-Commerce" and "free" wireless services? How do people interact with wireless services? What are going to be the primary uses of wireless services?
We have all these great ideas like revenue sharing and loss-leading (based on building a membership base across mobile and traditional internet platforms). Do we know whether they're going to work? The best thing to do is dip our toes in the water while they're getting 3G ready. Once that comes, WAP will probably go the way of Gopher.
For now, the companies who pass over WAP for 3G will enter the arena of wireless internet with NO EXPERIENCE, and NO ESTABLISHED BRAND within the wireless domain.
Okay, I'm talking fluent Suit now. I run an internet games business and I'm also the main developer. I have to see both sides of the coin. Even so, I'm dreading having to write games for WAP.
Tally me up for a 'WAP really sucks' vote, though.
Sorry, can't download Game Construction Kit... (Score:3)
Yawn. What a disappointment. Here I wanted to see how quickly I could port my 3D "tetris" game to a cell phone and I have to wait another four months. This is a good reminder of how poor the quality of Slashdot information and Slashdot community information is. Well, here's one member of the community trying to get the facts I've learned out. We'll see if you moderators cooperate. :-) (Is my criticism of Slashdot too insightful for you? Oh, sorry, I'm not supposed to mention the invisible moderators in a plea for points, either overt or reverse- sychologically, right?)
Sarcastically yours,
--LP
WAP vs. i-mode (Score:3)
Damn straight. And the bizarre thing is, these is a WAP equivalent that does not suck: NTT Docomo's i-mode [nttdocomo.com]. Unfortunately, it's a proprietary PDC (Japan-only) system and so it will never be seen elsewhere, but it has managed to avoid the key mistakes which are likely to doom WAP to oblivion.
- Mistake 1: WAP phones do not allow access to the Internet (yes, I know about gateways and such, but they're a hack). i-mode phones do. Result: right off the bat the i-mode can access a lot more content.
- Mistake 2: WAP is so overpriced it's not even funny. Here in Finland, which usually has very low prices for cellular use, a single WAP call can easily cost several dollars -- compare this with less than 10c for an SMS or a one-minute call. In Japan, i-mode costs a low fixed monthly fee and e.g. e-mail costs one yen (approx. 1c) a pop.
- Mistake 3: WAP phones are normal phones with teensy screens. i-mode phones have huge displays, the never models even have color screen. Usability is much better.
i-mode looks set to have 10 million subscribers by the end of the year. In Finland I don't know a soul who actually uses WAP, and I work at a company that develops WAP applications! Like most people here, I'll wait until UMTS is rolled out before buying my next phone, WAP simply does not provide any incentive to upgrade now.Cheers,
-j.
Pong (Score:3)
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Ericsson Wap Tools (Score:3)
WAP : "P" for "Patented". (Score:3)
http://www.freeprotocols.org/wapTrap/WapShortPa
WAP is simply not an open standard. We already have a technology for such applications, whjich is proven, open and runs pretty well : HTTP.
Re:WAP : "P" for "Patented". (Score:4)
Actually, what will incite developers to use WAP is the existence of phones and gateways that support it!
The people who decide whether this happens are not geeks reading Slashdot, it is the big wireless carriers who have invested huge amounts of money in their networks. Why do they choose WAP? Quite simply there is no other set of protocols that more adequately addresses the issues involved in deploying applications over the wireless networks they have spent all their money on.
http://www.freeprotocols.org/wapTrap/WapShortPate
WAP is simply not an open standard. We already have a technology for such applications, whjich is proven, open and runs pretty well : HTTP.
HTTP is not analagous to WAP. WAP is more like TCP/IP + HTTP + HTTPS + HTML + a browser operating environment + Javascript, but all designed in such a way that it can run over all the disparate kinds of networks that exist in the world today. In fact, WAP does use HTTP, but that is just a small part of the picture.
As for WAP not being an open standard -- there are real efforts being made to make WAP and internet standards converge (e.g. both WML -> XHTML and HTML -> XHTML).
This will happen at about the same pace as it takes the wireless carriers to convert their networks into beasts that look a lot more like the internet at large (similar bandwidth, IP based, etc.).
Re:I'm WAP'ed Out (Score:4)
Well, it isn't completely new, it's a dialect of XML.
My prediction is that we are going to Moore's Law WAP to death in short order ("I'd like 'The Patently Obvious' for $400, Alex")
The limiting factors for WAP devices by and large aren't processor power, so Moore's law doesn't apply. The two major factors are screen size and network speed.
The only guideline I know for network speed is Neilsen's Law [useit.com], which is significantly slower than Moore's, and that only covers Internet bandwidth, not Wireless bandwidth. And screen size is fixed. If you don't think that calls for a different UI, try posting to /. off a cell phone.
Your next mobile phone pitch... (Score:4)
*'castle with flying bats' card pack not included.
I'm scared to drive now. (Score:4)
Let it be known that I have no arguments against Asteroids or Missle Command. I would accept that.
Been here :/ (Score:5)
The fact that its based on XML is cool, the syntax is clear, the addition of a scripting language is fairly sensible, and yet I have many gripes:
Motorola and Nokia have implemented their browsers completely differently, you simply cannot write a simple WAP application that will perform well and be userfriendly on both, you have to do it twice, once for each browser basically.
Additionally, the WAP markup itself is full of redundencies, there are invariably several ways to achieve each effect. This would be fine except that each browser implementation treats them differently, causing something that is easily navigable in one browser to be a total mess in another.
This on top of the already obvious flaws such as over-zealous caching despite headers, terrible error handling, buggy simulators (Nokia in particular) and confusingly unintuitive choices for various aspects make WAP at its current stage impractical to develop in with anything short of a Motorola and Nokia phone right in front of you to test with.
I note however that if you can get your hands on a couple of phones to test with, things become easier, and with a bit of wire sniffing and using a decent backend language like PHP, you can whip up WAP applications fairly quickly. Its just not a small-time developers game at this stage
I'm WAP'ed Out (Score:5)
I've been trying to read a bit about WAP at the WAP forum [wapforum.com] and the W3C [w3.org] but the whole thing strikes me as semi-interim and only half heartedly standard and open.
My basic complaint is the premise. On the one hand we see a whole new type of device with legions of people trying to figure out how to make efficient GUIs while conserving either display space, or storage, or whatnot with WAP ...and on the other hand we have multi-zillion dollar companies building infrastructure and vastly powerful processors, that will render the need for "efficiency" as irrelevant as my 2gb hard drive.
My prediction is that we are going to Moore's Law WAP to death in short order ("I'd like 'The Patently Obvious' for $400, Alex")