On 20 Sep 2008, at 07:33, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
...
From what I see WAP is mostly dead, and the few companies I knew
focusing purely on WAP technology no longer exist.
Thanks Wichert!
Yes, this has been my stance for a long while. WAP started out with
many architectural issues, and has made hard work of it, despite its
several versions, ever since. Meanwhile laptops become cheaper, and
browers better. Media are becoming richer, and it's hard for desktop
browsers to keep up, let alone mobile devices.
Ari Jaaksi proclaims that mobile is dead but his posting attracted
several thoughtful comments. The way I see it, it may be just the
mobile ghetto web that is dead. The idea of a separate Mobile internet
with http://mobile.domain.tld URLs should certainly be a part of
history. But for some (long?) time we will need a web that is
sensitive to screen size and resolution, and device capabilities.
I found this comment to the above blog useful:
"I too worked on WAP browser with Ari (hi Ari! :) and I have to
disagree a little. I too used to believe the "mobile web" would become
unnecessary. But as a heavy user of our Web Browser for S60, I've
found myself preferring mobile-friendly versions for my frequently-
used content. mobile.wundergound.com is perfect for quickly checking
the weather, compared to the full
www.wunderground.com. .mobileapp.espn.go.com is so much faster for
getting the baseball standings than www.espn.com. Etc. But for
exploring new pages, the full view is really nice.
I believe there will be convergence in about 6-8 years when a huge
percentage of web traffic is from full browsers on small screens. Then
site developers will learn the tricks to make pages flow better on
both big and small screens, so there will be less need for separate
versions.Google News text version is a great example of a site that
looks good on either size screen.
Google has implemented our recommendations very nicely: when it
recognizes a mobile web browser it shows links at the bottom to switch
between Classic and Mobile. And best of all, it sets a cookie to
remember, so google.com shows up as you last left it.
I do believe that almost everyone will have the full web in their
pocket by 2015, and in developed countries probably sooner. But it
will never fully match the big-screen experience, and that's ok.
Developers will adapt when there's sufficient demand, and things will
"just fit" most of the time."
So we can take a step in that direction using PloneWurfl, by
activating content elements, viewlets, etc, depending on device
capabilities. By sizing images to suit. I always see form handing as
one of the trickiest area in Plone. Fragmenting dialogs by hand into
long sequences is painful, so I will be looking for a way to
automagically fragment forms so that a cpt can also source a series of
entry cards.
My client has thought about this long and hard, and WAP is on his
'essential' list. I can clearly see some special advantages, including
identity tracking which has some important ramifications.
I'm going to air my concerns, as usual ;), but will support the
decision if mobile is to be catered for. There are some powerful
requirements coming together in this project, and I hope that Plone/
Zope can become the platform for implementation.
I appreciate your comments,
Best regards,
--r.
Russ Ferriday - Topia Systems - Open Source content management with
Plone and Zope
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - office: +44 2076 1777588 - mobile: +44 7789 338868 -
skype: ferriday
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