Next Generation Wireless Applications: Creating Mobile Applications in a Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 World, 2nd Edition

2.2 WHAT IS A ‘WIRELESS APPLICATION’?

In the previous section, I outlined what I had in mind when I used the words ‘Next Generation’ in the title of this book. The next idea for introduction and explanation is what I mean by ‘Wireless Application’. It doesn't mean any application that has something to do with wireless communications. That might include, for example, billing software in a mobile operator's back office operation, or it might include a network accelerator application for speeding up access to the Internet from a mobile browser. I'm not going to discuss these types of application directly in this book. For the most part, I am interested in applications that have some kind of user interface on the handset and that are usually mobile in nature, meaning that they utilise the wireless communications capability of the device they run on. As we shall see later, most applications in this category either reside on the handset itself or are accessible via a player or browser on the device. Either way, the application on the handset might be pre-installed or downloadable over the air (OTA).

However, I am not concerned exclusively with describing only the technologies used to implement wireless applications directly. As I stated earlier, the next generation is underpinned by a huge variety of technologies, protocols and standards. It is important to understand at least some of these in order to implement mobile services more effectively. To enable us to navigate through the wider ...