Can't shed too much light on the topic, but the main thing going for WML
(WAP) is the it's very compact and well defined - WML files are XML with a
strict DTD.
Bottom line more than saving on bandwidth WML allows for a light weight
faster browser - smaller code and with less memory requirements - a major
issue for mobile units.
As for religious arguments about technology, they are amusing at best...
IMHO what clients ask for is the current "winner" and that's what they'll
get since they are footing the tab.
Noam
----------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, 30 October 2000 22:23
To: Fusebox
Subject: RE: Wireless
I would have to agree about browsing the web using any sort of pda.
It has
no value other then viewing very limited amounts of information. The
usability just isn't there to support anything more complex. But my
question
is, isn't wap made specifically for wireless connections? Isn't
there an
advantage to using wap over html when you only have 16kbps to work
with?
The reason I ask is I've been asked to develop a fairly simple
application
management system and they want their field agents to use laptops to
enter
these applications via wireless connection. So wouldn't it make
things much
quicker to use wml rather than html to build this application. I've
been
reading up on wap and have found allot as far as development goes,
but
nothing that points to this assumption I have made, and that is that
wap
applications work much faster than html applications. Can anyone
comment on
this?
Rick
-----Original Message-----
From: Sean Blenkhorn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 4:16 PM
To: Fusebox
Subject: RE: Wireless
Bottom line is that WAP has its places... to completely dismiss the
technology as being useless is only going to hurt you in the end.
You guys
have both made very valid points from each side of the spectrum....
but the
bottom line is WAP has it's places. It isn't for gaming, it isn't
for
surfing porn, it IS for access to vital information from anywhere...
you are
completely correct in not building an E-commmerce site where the
user is
going to enter loads of information.... but to have an information
retrieval
site, SMS, Alerts, and that sort of information it is EXTREMELY
useful and
valuable. You really have to look at it on a case by case situation
and
judge then. So you can't just dismiss the technology all together.
Just my 2 cents. :)
-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Chowdhury [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 4:44 PM
To: Fusebox
Subject: RE: Wireless
Frankly I think WAP is all hype and no reality. The standard which
is based
on HDML and agreed to by all the major phone manufacturers, has
major
usability flaws which I will outline below. In addition, there is
very
little consumer demand for it.
>From interactive week, May 29:
"What do consumers want? IDC asked mobile-phone users how interested
they
were in Net access using their phones. Just 7 percent said they were
uninterested. Unfortunately, 75 percent said they were very
uninterested.
It's a classic case of top-down push marketing, Parr says, a
coincidence of
vendor need; wireless providers trying to scramble up the value
chain in
order to increase per-subscriber revenue, cover high costs and slow
churn,
with technology prowess, because they can. Service providers want
Internet-style growth without the open platforms and commodity
pricing that
fueled it."
In Europe, Deutsch Telecom found that it's users used WAP less than
once per
week.
Here is what the Wall Street Journal had to say in June, 2000 about
the WAP
experience,"...too often, the experience is one of overloaded
servers, a few
unimaginative services and a few lines of text scrolling slowly up a
screen
halfthe size of a credit card."
I mean think about it. You have a one inch square screen with 4
lines of
text each line about 12 characters. All typing has to be done using
a cell
phone numeric pad. Do you know how long it takes to type in one's
email
address let alone a shipping address using a ten digit keypad. Hell,
there
isn't even an @ sign without pressing the 1 key repeatedly and who's
gonna
know to do that. Now ask yourself what ordinary person on the street
is
going to bother going through the pain of searching amazon for a
particular
title and then ordering it, typing billing address and credit card
number...
I think there are a few extremely limited uses for WAP mostly having
to do
with receiving a small message, (which any email capable cell phone
can do)
and maybe typing in a yes or no answer. Most people don't care about
internet on their phone. There also maybe some information junkies
that need
sports scores and stock quotes (again something just regular email
to your
[EMAIL PROTECTED] will accomplish). All the applications I've
seen
just aren't compelling unless I'm really bored. You're not going to
surf the
web while you're stuck in a traffic jam.
Now let's talk development. Every phone has a different screen size.
In
addition, every individual manufacturer is responsible for
implementing WAP.
What this leads to is the IE vs Netscape nightmare but 50 times
worse
because you've got all these different manufacturers all doing their
own
thing and all adding their own maddening inconsistencies over how
the
navigation is done.
Lastly it's really expensive for the individual. You're paying per
minute
for internet access. In addition, because the connections don't stay
open
all the time while you're surfing, the phone has to keep reattaching
the
connections. Since cell phone companies charge in one minute
increments each
attempt to connect is an additional minute. So one minute on the
internet
plus 3 connection attempts means you just got charged for 4 minutes.
Nice
little racket they have going don't they.
I think as a consultancy if you can charge clueless companies
hopping onto
the great WAP bandwagon go for it. It's like taking candy from a
baby. I
work for a firm that is not a consulatancy, we have an actual
service that
we sell, playing games by email. We needed a wireless play to get
our second
round of financing. We looked long and hard at WAP and concluded
that it
isn't there yet, in spite of incredible pressure from the VCs
funding us.
Palms are. Nice screen, easy text entry, good UI. In spite of this I
don't
expect ordinary consumers to use our service. They just don't want
it.
They'd rather look at people or listen to the radio.
I think its impressive that you got porn refreshing on a cell phone.
Personally I'd rather buy a playboy.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Sean Renet
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 12:57 PM
To: Fusebox
Subject: Re: Wireless
First of all, this doesn't sound very stateless. It may be good for
a video
game that requires no internet state, but how would your Palm
architecture
handle multiple simultaneous users?
Secondly saying "stay away from wap" is the worst advice you are
ever going
to give anyone. That is like saying don't program for Netscape or
don't
learn Java because it takes too long to code. The fact is, WAP is
the
second gold rush. The train is leaving with or without you. And
yes just
like HTML you have to program for different browsers. The dream of
standardization is exactly that, a dream. I am also very bullish on
Palm,
however I am not going to paint my self into a corner with only one
wireless
solution. Companies with only one solution of anything are going to
join
the pile of dot gones.
Last, exactly what tweaking of your servers did you have to
reconfigure? I
have now put up several WAP sites and have yet to reconfigure
anything. One
of the WAP sites was a porn site that required simulated full motion
video.
You can do just about everything in WAP that you can do in HTML save
killer
UI. And once more if you are using coldfusion I am guessing all the
work is
being done server side anyway so repurposing data is just a matter
of
syntax.
Becareful about staying away from new technologies. It is way
better to
have experience in all technologies, than to wake up one day and
realize no
one likes your betamax. WAP is a no brainer, it is already widely
used. If
you or your company have not invested time into developing for WAP,
perhaps
you should. My last three clients I took over from other CF
development
corporations because they did not have a wireless solution or they
only had
one. Long ago it was easy to convince a client to use one
technology over
another if that is all you knew. Now clients are much more
informed. If
you say our only wireless solution is Palm and that is what we are
going to
build for you, you are going to have clients that take your scope
document
elsewhere.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Chowdhury" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Fusebox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 9:56 AM
Subject: RE: Wireless
> Yeah, stay away from WAP. What a bogus thing that is. We're doing
wireless
> gaming and have standardised on Palm.net architecture. Basically
you have
an
> HTML browser but you download all the graphics to the palm at the
very
> beginning using a Hotsync. After this all you do is send the palm
an html
> page referencing the graphics that are already loaded on the palm.
The
> upshot of this is that you can deliver nice rich looking pages
with pretty
> sophisticated functionality just by sending a "web clipping" that
contains
> text and links to graphics already on the palm. Our pages are
about 2k
each
> which really isn't bad. In addition, any static pages like rules,
privacy
> can also be downloaded just once and then stored using a hotsync
along
with
> the graphics.
>
> Because you're using HTML you don't have to really tweak your
servers or
> configs like you would with wap, and you can repurpose all your
current
> content.
>
> ed
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Rick Lamb
> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 12:24 PM
> To: Fusebox
> Subject: Wireless
>
>
> Any of you guys have any recommendations for building cf apps for
wireless
> clients (connecting between 14 and 16 kbps)?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rick
>
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> --
> To Unsubscribe visit
>
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or
> send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
'unsubscribe' in
> the body.
>
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or
send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
'unsubscribe' in
the body.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or
send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
'unsubscribe' in
the body.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or
send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
'unsubscribe' in
the body.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or
send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
'unsubscribe' in
the body.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or
send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in
the body.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/fusebox or send a
message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in the body.
