Luca Passani

Creating a wireless application that works on as many devices as possible is not difficult, it's useless! If you invest a huge amount of resources today, chances are that a new device will ship tomorrow and you'll need to tweak your application again...unless you use WURFL and its framework. Fragmentation of the Wireless Platform Each and every wireless technology (with the possible exception of SMS) needs to face a major challenge: those wireless devices out there are all different from one another. WAP, J2ME, MMS, WAP-Push... no wireless developer can escape the need to target his or her apps to specific devices to squeeze the last drop of performance out of them. This process is exhausting for developers and expensive for their managers. Periodically, we are reminded that this or that committee [in W3C/OMA/JCP/Pick your favorite] will fix that for the [J2ME/WAP/WAP... (more)

Openwave's V7 Mobile Browser: Enhancing Phone Usability

With the advent of Phoneware and with V7 in particular, there is now a much richer mobile phone platform to deploy content for. What does this mean for handset manufacturers, carriers, and developers? When friends and acquaintances ask who I work for, I say Openwave and observe the perplexed look on their faces. I am then quick to mention that our business is all about WAP, MMS, and wireless. If I worked for Nokia, everyone would recognize the company brand right away, even though Openwave software is present on more mobile phones. The difference is that Openwave is behind the s... (more)

Presenting the Openwave Usability Interface (OUI)

Last year, I was telling Wireless Business & Technology (volume 1, issue 1) readers that poor usability was keeping a great technology (WAP) from taking off. At the same time, things were changing, so I encouraged developers to keep treading that WAP path. One year later, it's time to look at the WAP landscape again, draw some conclusions, and show you a new product that will blow your mind. Let's start with a rundown on what's happened since last year: Openwave has released and licensed its new GUI browser (mobile browser 5.0; internally we call it V5). Phones with the new brow... (more)