Re: AJAX on mobile phones

Chris Smith wrote:

Of course, since you seem so hot on Opera, I'm sure you have it on your mobile phone, right?

Wrong. My mobile phone is exactly what a mobile _phone_ should be. A _phone_. Not a stripped down PC combined with a coffee machine.

> So let us know whether Google Suggest works
properly, how about it? Google Suggest is about the simplest possible AJAX application, so it should create worthwhile results. I notice that gmail, the more famous Google-AJAX product, has a non-AJAX version specifically for mobile phones, by the way.

Google also has its search page "specifically for mobile phones". Only the word should be: _pages_. Namely, there have been quite a few standards (sic!) for mobile devices so far. Remember WAP ($MQ: which one?)? All the versions of WML? Newer devices support XHTML, thank god. With different DOCTYPES, I might add. So in fact, one should tailor one's web app to hundreds (literaly!) of different devices and their (so called) capabilities. This is, needless to say, a mammoth task. Not everybody is up to it, or, more preciselly, has the resources for it. Not even Google. There are a lot of mobile phones like mine still in use today. But I don't think Google will make a Gmail interface compliant with WML 1.0. And I don't blame them. I wouldn't either. What I mean to say is: I know one can't install the most capable version of Opera onto every possible device. Onto newer (newest?) ones one can, though. Someday, hopefully, there will only be one version, for PCs and <khm/> devices alike. When, instead of trying to incorporate coffee machines into them, someone will fill them with propper processors and an additional G of RAM.

Second, Opera Mobile is COMPLETELY INCAPABLE of running on the great majority of mobile phones. 

Welcome to the real world.

> JBenchmark, for example, has comp0iled
benchmark results for over 400 Java-capable phones, and I'd assume there are at least twice as many web-enabled phones out there. According to their web site, Opera Mobile runs on about a couple dozen phones. Those couple dozen do not happen to include a single one of the seven phones that I've ever owned, and I make pretty normal mobile phone choices... 

Oh? What's normal in your book? Seriously.

so I have a hard time believing they picked the most popular. Instead, they seem to have picked the phones that they had business reasons for pursuing.

Finally, Opera Mobile is a commercial application, and getting it pre-
installed is even more unlikely than its being compatible. I don't know too many mobile phone users who care enough to BUY a different web browser than the one they get for free.

Opera may be doing well financially,

Reasonably well. If they were gready, they could do much better. M$ is more than eager to pay, I'm sure. That would, of course, mean the end of Opera as we know it.

> but the number of Opera Mobile
users out there is small indeed compared to the total users of all other browsers, which are lesser known and probably considerably less advanced. Very rarely does a software developer have the luxury of telling all their users to go buy a new $300 phone, then potentially download a commercial browser if the phone didn't come bundled with it, just to use this one application. 

Right. But that's preciselly what we should tell them. And more (see below).

Anyway, Opera have that covered, too. They're making deals with hardware manufacturers to preinstall their browser onto those <khm/> devices.

You're acting like I've never heard of the Opera browser before. It's starting to get a bit insulting. If you don't start paying attention to the conversation, rather than assuming I'm just talking trash about your pet browser,

I don't have a pet browser. In my line of work I can't afford one. Having to test my web app(s) for different platforms (including devices ;-) ) / browsers, I should have approx 743299 of them. :-|

> then don't bother answering.

Sorry if I sounded like that. I'm fed up with having to tailor every little ... page for those 743299 combinations just because nowadays everybody thinks that their particular "invention" of a wheel is better than the next one. But I don't think that JavaScript support, XML parser and a XmlHttpRequest are such an impossibility like you seem to think. There are a lot more mem- and performance- hogs beside those three.

Moreover, I totally agree with
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/browse_thread/thread/91a0a3b02216d36a/b3587c669e196cce?lnk=st&q=%22It+is+time+the+developer+or+system+designer+to+tell+the+user+that+to+truely+attain+rich+user+interface+they+have+to+dump+the+browsers.%22&rnum=1#b3587c669e196cce

More preciselly: we should ditch the underlying protocol(s) and replace them with something more manageable, and not trying to revive the existing one(s) with an AJAX makeover.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Norways Opera Software Signs Motorola Phone Deal
    ... license its browser for Motorola phones for three years, Opera said on ... Opera will receive a royalty payment per mobile phone sold, ...
    (comp.dcom.telecom)
  • Re: Britains got talent
    ... night this week on ITV1. ... I don't like opera, but the mobile phone guy singing Nessun Dorma actually brought tears to my eyes. ...
    (uk.media.tv.misc)
  • Re: Force page to WML
    ... > I'm a new beginner to develop web page on mobile phone by using VB.NET ... > to see the result in Opera (this browser supports both of WML and HTML) ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet.mobile)
  • Re: AJAX on mobile phones
    ... Chris Smith wrote: ... 'cause my mobile phone comes with its own browser that's not Opera. ... As far as I'm aware, Opera is not *the* browser for anything, unless you work in Opera's marketing department. ...
    (comp.lang.java.programmer)
  • RE: OT: Mozilla/Firefox (was:Re: Windoze ends year with a major cert ...)
    ... >> squeeking the corporations don't know people can't access their web ... There is no browser that has won anything yet. ... Opera browser also supports voice activation features for the techies ... big name partners like Google: ...
    (comp.os.vms)