Web Application Development for PDA's and Cellphones

CMPUT 410 (Fall 2007)

William Lin

Kodjo Boateng

Glenn Chiong

Gunnar Monnichmann

Lukasz Kultys

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Table of Contents

Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3

Case Study: Developing PDA Web Applications for the Edmonton Journal ...................................................................................... 4

PDA Pros ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

PDA Cons .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Security ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Business Analysis ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 9

Technology Trends ................................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11

References ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 12

Appendix ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Introduction

"Mobile phones could go on to be the most common consumer electronics device on the planet," said Gartner analyst Ben Wood. By the end of 2009, some 2.6 billion mobiles will be in regular use around the world, Gartner predicts. This is a direct quote taken from a BBC article: “Mobiles head for sales milestone” that can be found on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4697405.stm.

Indeed, thanks to the business community and young teens the world over, PDA’s and Cell phones are now a more common accessory than the infamous “Jean Trouser” itself. How is this affecting the Web development community? Is an investment in Web development for PDA’s and Cell phones worthwhile and financially feasible for our company? This Report seeks to investigate these questions and present the findings through the use of the case study detail below.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Case Study: Developing PDA Web Applications for the Edmonton Journal

The following is a fictional presentation of the necessary steps involved in converting an existing website, www.edmontonjournal.com, to one that is suitable for PDA or cell phone viewing. This demonstration will illustrate the various subtleties between regular and PDA web development, as well as the challenges that are involved.

David and Goliath: Understanding the medium

The biggest contrast between a PC monitor and a PDA is the limited screen display provided by the PDA. Nowadays, all PDAS and mobile phones capable of viewing web data enable scrolling to allow users to view the contents of a web page. However, there is a limit to how much scrolling a person is willing to tolerate. Also, larger pictures and overall website design cannot be fully appreciated when one is limited to viewing only a small window of the overall picture. Any website designed for a PDA or a cell phone must be able to deal with the physical limitations of the medium’s display size. In addition to screen size, downloading speed and cost are still very expensive compared to traditional internet usage. There exists a tradeoff between the amount of content that can be offered, and maintaining a reasonable download time and cost.

To pack a suitcase: Designing the page

The challenge of designing a PDA/mobile friendly page is like packing a suit case for a long extended trip away from home. One wants to bring all the items possible to make the trip as pleasant as possible, but is limited by the space of the suit case. Newspapers are traditionally divided into several sections. Each section contains articles with headlines that attempt to grab the reader’s attention. If any headline piques the reader’s interest, then the reader will read the article underneath. It is important to preserve this kind of hierarchal relationship for a PDA/mobile website. Our proposed web page is divided into three separate pages attached by hyperlinks. The original Edmonton Journal website concept page can be found in the Appendix. (Appendix A) The first page displays a list akin to different sections of a newspaper. Readers can choose a specific section to explore by clicking on the link. (Figure 1)

Figure 1 : Site Map

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

The second page displays a list of headlines for that section. Readers can browse the headlines and click on a headline to head to the third page which displays the actual story. (Figure 2)

Figure 2 : Categorical Headline Index

The third page displays the actual article linked to by a headline on the second page. It is the bottom-most level in our categorical hierarchy and presents the actual information that a user is interested in. (Figure 3)

Figure 3 : Full Story

On each page of our PDA/cell friendly website, it was necessary to remove the non-critical elements of a page. The pictures, polls, banners, ads, links, blogs, weather report and video links from the original www.edmontonjournal.com were all taken out. This provides a clean presentation within the limited screen.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Details, Details, Details: Programming point of view.

There are many low level challenges from a programmer’s point of view in executing the design we have developed in the previous section. In order to display different content for PC and mobile/PDA users, our proposed site for the Edmonton Journal would probably need to be written using a server side web scripting language like PERL or PHP. This will generate dynamic content depending on the medium used to view the website. One of the major challenges for web application programming is that different browsers interpret a webpage differently. Usually programmers will need to check their work in at least Internet Explore and Mozilla to ensure that it looks okay. For PDA/mobile development this challenge is even greater. Different PDA/mobile devices have different screen sizes and can use their own custom web browsers. Furthermore, some of these web browsers will not recognize certain sets of HTML tags. The easiest way to program for PDA/mobile is to use a minimal set of HTML tags and keep everything black and white and as simple as possible. Consequently, programmers will need to refine their normal coding practices. During development, programmers will have to reduce their PC web browser to the size of an average PDA/mobile device. There are many different types of PDA/mobile browsers that interpret pages differently, which complicates the testing procedure. Additional costs will be incurred to purchase different types of PDA devices for testing purposes.

Money, Money, Money: Business point of view

Unless your newspaper is the comrades’ daily, all newspaper websites are intended to generate profit through ad revenues. Because physical display space is at a premium and download size is limited, we were forced to remove all the banners and ads on a website. This unfortunately takes away the major source of income for most websites: ads. Even if we had kept some simple ads in the page, profits from advertising would still be difficult to achieve. Ads rely on tracking the number of hits. Since some PDAs work by downloading an entire set of websites onto the PDA for viewing offline, these pages cannot be assumed to be viewed and page tracking numbers would not be accurate. Furthermore, the ability to perform an online financial transaction is usually limited on PDA/mobile devices. The technology and security concerns involved in transferring sensitive data via Wi-Fi are significant. This hinders a customers’ ability to make financial transactions and consequently the business ability to generate a profit. Although the ability of PDA/mobile websites is limited, it is not all lost. Business people will just need to be a little creative in order to generate profits from PDA/mobile websites. For example, grocery stores such as Sobeys or Safeway will often offer a product in their store at cost or even at a loss just so that they can get the customer in to their stores. The idea is that while the pharmacy department might not be profitable, a customer refilling his/her prescription in the grocery store will likely also buy a few things from the produce section or vegetable section while they are in the store. Likewise, a PDA/mobile website, while it does not directly generate profits, can entice the customers to visit their main sites where they will be able to make online purchases or visit sponsored ad links.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

PDA Pros

In the world of continually improving technology, mobile devices such as PDAs and cellular phones are increasing our capability in communicating information. We now can use these mobile devices to obtain up-to-date information straight from a centralized database system. For instance, a car parts “salesperson can check prices and equipment availability on the spot and provide direct feedback to the customer". (“Extended E-Business Applications Using Mobile Technology” by Anthony S. Atkins, AK Hairul Nizam PG HJ Ali, and Hanifa Shah, 2006) Thus, being able to improve customer relations and, in turn, possibly increase the amount of customers and revenue. The small nature of recent mobile devices allows for these handhelds to be just that; hand held devices! This feature gives you all of the power and capabilities of a computer in the palm of your hand. So, with the help of web applications, workers will be able to amend documents, email clients, trade stocks, etc. while on the bus, train, or even on a stroll down the block. These advantages are not just limited to the employees of a company, but also can be extended to the general public. As the popularity of mobile devices with internet capabilities continues to increase, companies can take advantage of the accessibility and portability of these mobile devices by creating web applications which are compatible for these devices. By appealing to this ever increasing handheld audience, a company’s market increases by a vast amount since consumers are now able to shop and buy online. For these reasons, the integration of web applications for mobile devices would be very beneficial for the company.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

PDA Cons

Although PDAs and cell phones are most likely the going to be "the" technology of the future, currently they suffer from many short-comings that may prove to make it a non-viable concept. One of the biggest limitations is the size of the screen on these devices. Web pages must be re-arranged and stripped down to fit. This requires a server side servlet script to restrict the size of the page and to minimize the download size. Also, there does not seem to be a standard OS that all PDAs or cell phones run on. Currently, there are 14 popular OS for PDAs alone. Trying to configure your page to work with each of them would most likely cost extra time and human resources. The fact that certain HTML tags cannot be interpreted by PDAs or cell phones further limits the ability to format the limited screen space to include everything that is required. These two earlier points also lead to the fact that that a webpage or application will usually look different on each type of PDA or cell phone. So, an initial investment is needed to purchase all these devices to study and test what the page or application will look like on it. Initial costs to develop the new technology, new hardware, training, development, and maintaining support for the service may prove to be too costly for the potential gain. Another glaring issue is the lack of global coverage. Internet access and cellular coverage is not currently global. This makes up-to-date information difficult to access. The remaining option is to synchronize at a computer terminal which, depending on your location on the planet, may be difficult as well. One of the most important factors to discourage the use of this technology is the human factor. Common businesses and consumers are very picky about what services they will and will not use. The fact that there is too much or too little information can discourage use. Striking a balance in this aspect can be difficult. A similar number of other things can also make this service seem prohibitive. Issues like a keyboard being too small, display quality and screen size are some of critical issues that can lead to a user being discouraged with the product.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Security

The most important factor that would negatively impact the pursuit of web application development for PDAs and cell phones would be the issue of security. A wide number of security problems arise when utilizing this specific medium. The most simple of these problems would be common theft. If someone loses their PDA or cell phone with all their data on it, extra resources must be used to retrieve or reconstruct all lost data. Also, the medium for which these services are propagated may not always to the best choice in every situation. For instance, in an office work environment where the need for security is extremely important (as is the case with most technology companies), it is most likely more cost-effective and safer to simply use a desktop computer or verbal communication to transmit information. One of the main reasons that e-commerce on PDAs and cell phones is still not widely available is because it is highly insecure.

As more PDAs and cell phones connect wirelessly to the internet, the issue of securing a wireless signal to protect one’s information becomes vastly more significant. Current levels of security with wireless connections are poor at best, and can be easily hacked into. This poses serious problems for companies that value security to keep their intellectual property confidential from their competitors. Compromised security due to insufficient security on a wireless transmission can costs any IT company millions of dollars. However, increasing the security on the transmissions of data wirelessly can also result in bandwidth issues. Therefore, the potential decrease in performance due to necessary enhanced security measures can be a discouraging factor in an investment in this technology.

On the other hand, the major security software companies (Symantec, F-secure, Windows Mobile Antivirus software (BETA version)) already have PDA/Cell phone anti-virus programs available and ready for download.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Business Analysis

Efficient and rapid information exchange is integral in the success of a modern business. Web technologies have enabled business users and customers to access business critical and current data in real-time. PDAs have further enhanced this capability by being able to access this data outside of the work or home environment. A PDA enhanced with web access allows a user to be constantly connected with the most up-to-date information in a convenient and portable manner. Users have the potential to be constantly aware of the current situation and can act quickly to changing events while an increased amount of knowledge.

As such, it is important to branch out into this type of market. Presently, most business customers are very technologically savvy with the use of cell phones, Blackberries and other PDAs. Customer expectations exist that these devices will enhance their productivity or at least improve their quality of work. Therefore, if we as a web development company can supply them with ready tools that will satisfy these expectations, we can become an integral part of a company’s business model. This would ensure continuing relations between our company and the customer as our products become inter-twined with their daily activities. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship. Business customers profit from increased portability and efficiency and we profit from the continued investments in our products.

The initial investment costs in producing these solutions can vary. If the current generation of PDAs is used, there will be a significant investment necessary. The research for new product development, training new staff and porting current applications to a PDA-compatible format could be very expensive. However, if the next generation of PDAs has a fully functional browser, the costs would be minimal. The development of these new PDA web sites and applications would be very similar to the way things are done presently. The appearance of the web sites may have to be altered, but there will be no new overhead costs for training new staff or new development techniques.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Technology Trends

Hardware

With the advent of new semi-conductor manufacturing technology on the scale of 45nm, mobile devices support the installation of the monstrous Windows Vista Business Edition. Thanks to the Qualcomm MSM7200 400mhz processor, 40GB of memory and 1GB of DDR2 Ram, the HTC SHIFT PDA that fits in your palm is more than capable. For 20 years, HTC has been the tiny the less popular company mobile community leader taking large steps and several PDA companies are following suit in adopting this new processor. This eliminates the processing bottle beck experienced in the past.

Software

In the past, most of the PDA browsers were poorly designed. Some crash every few pages. Currently, as PDAs become more common, standards have begun to emerge in terms of operating systems and hardware. As a result, regardless of whether a PDA is running Windows Mobile 6, Palm O/S, Symbian O/S, Linux or the Blackberry propriety O/S, there are emerging web browser standards that are similar to current desktop PC standards. Major PC browser companies want a piece of the new market share. There are now Opera, Internet explorer7, Mozilla Firefox and even Avant versions of browsers easily downloadable and ready to run on most common O/S. This trend is mirroring that in the personal computer world.

Connectivity

In terms of connectivity, the current trend for all cell phones being released in 2008 is 3G capability. This greatly reduces the time and the cost required for browsing the web with a cell phone. In fact, most next generation phones are following the PDA’s trend of incorporating Wi-Fi capabilities. As more stable and sophisticated Wi-Fi services are becoming readily available, anywhere-anytime internet browsing will become common place. The following are some examples of products that already provide Wi-Fi capabilities which allow easier web browsing: LGCE110, Sony Ericsson W960i, iPhone, Blackberry Perl, HTC TyTnII, Samsung X830.

Web Site Formatting

As of Jan. 2001, there were 1510 web pages in AvantGo's directory of PDA friendly web pages. It appears our company might actually be late investigating this new technology. Several lists of PDA/cell phone friendly pages can be found by performing a simple Google search. One of these lists can found at: http://www.cantoni.org/palm/

Among other, the following pages are PDA friendly: Google, PayPal, eBay, New York Post, GameGeek, Maxim, MTV, YouTube, BBC, CNN, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, BMW, ESPN, FOX Sports, CNET, Air Canada, etc.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Conclusion

Under current conditions, there are many factors that will impede the progress of developing the desired web applications. These cannot be ignored in our attempt to push the company forward. The fact that there is currently no standard way of processing data on mobile devices (especially PDAs) makes it difficult to train personnel. There are over 14 popular ways different ways of processing data, and it is difficult to ensure that the application will work on every mobile device. Also, on current PDAs, the company will generate less ad revenue since there is no way to track the number of page hits. Consequently, this makes the current business model somewhat obsolete. Thus, the company will be losing out on potential revenue. In addition, the security of mobile devices is very vulnerable to theft due to its small nature and to hacking due to the fact that it uses Wi-Fi. Despite these concerns, we feel that the advantages that will arise in the next few years will be worth the investment in the near future. We are observing increasing processing power of cell phones and PDAs. Cell phone and PDA browsers are converging from ‘specialized-product-specific browsers’ towards ‘third-party-already-familiar browsers’ which are simply the pocket versions of their familiar PC counterparts. Hence, the future looks bright. It can be seen that the development of web pages for these devices will becoming increasingly easy and less tedious. These devices’ browsing functionality is converging towards what we now observe for current PCs. Thus, it would be recommended for the company to wait a few years until functional browsers are readily available on these devices. Meanwhile, we should be taking the necessary preparations in anticipation of the up and coming technology, which will allow us to tap into the potential revenues.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

References

"Extended E-Business Applications Using Mobile Technology" by Anthony S. Atkins, AK Hairul Nizam PG HJ Ali, and Hanifa Shah, 2006

“Designing website for pdas” by Carter Stowellhttp://webdesign.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=webdesign&cdn=compute&tm=7&f=10&su=p284.8.150.ip_&tt=14&bt=1&bts=0&zu=http%3A//hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/99/20/index2a.html

“PDA Tip Sheet”http://www.chin.gc.ca/English/Digital_Content/Tip_Sheets/Pda/tip_sheet2.html

“Mobile Websites – Cantoni.org”http://www.cantoni.org/palm/

“Mobile head for sales milestone”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4697405.stm.

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Web Application development for PDA’s and Cell Phones 2007

Appendix

Appendix A