The Wireless Internet Explained
Learn to understand technologies and standards of wireless computing as they relate to the Internet.
TABLE OF CONTENTS The Wireless Internet Explained
Chapter 5: Applications
Overview
The entire wireless infrastructure is useless unless we have applications that use it. The search for the killer application, which would justify investment in mobile technologies, has often been compared with the quest for the Holy Grail. It is elusive and it is questionable whether there ever will be a single application that can justify the investment.
Instead, it is the composite of both existing and potential applications, which act as the incentive. But before we actually begin to discuss the applications, we need to be sure that we understand what it means to enable them for wireless and mobile use. It might seem intuitive but there are many different ways that the task can be approached.
This chapter begins with an overview of the distinctions between mobile and traditional applications, as well as a broad categorization of approaches that can be used to make applications work over wireless networks. It covers some of the common mobile applications and focuses on e-mail to demonstrate the many different ways it can be enabled for mobility.
The chapter concludes with a look at how future applications can be optimized for wireless access so that they do not need an enabler to operate in a mobile environment.
Copyright Butterworth-Heinemann 2002 under license agreement with Books24x7
