5.1 Why are mobile applications different from traditional applications?

It would be convenient if all the applications that have been developed over the past years could simply be dropped into a mobile environment and continue to work without any additional effort. There are two main reasons why it is not quite that easy, both of which were briefly mentioned in Chapter 3. These reasons are as follows:

1. Many mobile platforms are closed.

2. There is much more diversity in the machine interfaces of mobile platforms.

A closed platform makes it impossible to install the application on the device itself. However, beyond that, it also often imposes a particular type of connectivity and may even require a specific intermediate technology. If the phone only uses WAP, then your only choice is to use WAP or not use it at all!

The mobile applications also need to have a way to present content and receive input from a wide range of devices. This can be very challenging, especially since the number and types of available client devices are continually changing, with new products coming on the market all the time.

Both of these reasons must be addressed in order to allow a wide range of mobile users to access the application.