Minutes

Date: 12/5/2006

Scribe: Stephane Boyera

Session: Afternoon breakout session

- Topic: What is the Mobile Web

There are four ways of providing applications on mobile phones :

- SMS Applications

- Web/Web Browsing

- Voice : calling a voice gateway

- Native applications : Java applications, apps written for the OS of the phone

- Advantages and drawbacks of each

• SMS applications
  • Plus
    • easy to use for users
    • quite easy application development (less than web apps, but still quite easy)
    • zvailable on all phones
    • low network requirements (GSM network perfect)
    • cost for user is low and predictable
    • free push mechanism (people don't pay to receive info)
  • Minus
    • discoverabilities of services (users have to know the service to use it)
    • appropriate for small query-based application, not appropriate for structured interaction.
    • very limited user interaction
    • interoperability problems of data transfer across operators
    • application hosting requires infrastructure
    • hard input mechanism (limited keyboard)
• Voice applications
  • Plus
    • easy to use for illeterate people
    • easy input mechanism
    • lost and predictable cost (price of communication)
    • low network requirements (GSM network perfect)
  • Minus
    • bad user experience for rendering (for a long suite of information)
    • expensive hosting
    • hard authoring
    • difficult localization/internationalization (missing lots of languages)
• Web applications
  • Plus
    • interoperable platforms
    • easy to develop for author
    • very low and reliable hosting costs
    • discoverabilities of services (search engine)
    • extensibility
    • easy user interaction
    • lots of content available
    • seamless usage with PC browser
  • Minus
    • hard input mechanism (limited keyboard)
    • cost model : unpredictability of the cost of browsing, and hogh-cost for data service
    • good browsing experience requires high bandwidth gprs/3g/... (text browsing may fit to GSM)
    • hard phone configuration
    • unavailability of browsers on entry phones
    • hard usage for inexperimented web users (entering URIs, ...)
• Native applications
  • Plus
    • Best level of user experience
    • Specialized applications, which have access to all informatinos on the phone
    • quite easy to develop and reuse if Java
  • Minus
    • hard authoring
    • lots of specificities depending on phone
    • unpredictability of cost depending on the network usage hidden to the user