Jan Standal

Mobile AJAX Mythbusters?

Monday, October 2, 2006 12:33:56 PM

AJAX, mobile, analysis, browser, browsers, convergence, devices, webdeveloper, opera

Some days ago, TomSoft wrote an article discussing a few myths of the 'mobile Ajax'. I think many (including myself) share Thomas' view that it's important not to hype technologies, and that its important not to draw conclusions like 'the mobile web 2.0 equals mobile AJAX' (meaning that AJAX is something running in the browser). The Web 2.0 is a much broader term, and limit it to a single set of technologies does not make sense. He is also correct when stating the there are alternatives currently deployed on lots of mobile phones and that mobile AJAX is not a way to bypass the operators. In fact most of the interest in the world for Mobile AJAX solutions derives from Operators who are interested in superior user experiences across devices and medias.

What I question is the following:

Looks good, but unfortunately, I have no Ajax enabled browser out of the thousands of handsets we have here at MobileScope….

How you manage to have thousands of phones without an AJAX capable browser? Opera Mobile is estimated to ship on approximately 46 different handset model in 2006 and Nokia ships their new web browser on a significant model. This means that there are already millions of AJAX enabled mobile phone in the market.

Seems that the Write Once Run Anywhere myth is back!! It was actually already not achievable through technology designed for this, so I did not see how Ajax app (which is basically designed for one or two platform) will be able to address suddenly thousands of different platforms…..

I haven't heard anyone claim this anywhere. But we are in Opera reusing lots and lots of AJAX solutions on other devices than it was originally designed for. Whether SoonR in their demo reused any code from their PC version is not sufficient to argue otherwise.

As for Li Mikas comment in his blog:

So finally... OPERA mobile AJAX platform got themselves a partner... SOONR.com to develop a mobile ajax app running on their OPERA platform

This has nothing to do with Opera Platform. It's a standard AJAX application, that just happens to be running on a mobile phone rather than a PC. Opera Platform on the other hand is a full AJAX framework for creating user interfaces and applications with.

Summing up. The discussion points Thomas brings forward are very valid, but there is a clear difference between advocating for which technologies will succeed in the future and which ones are available today.

Emulating what exactly?The opinions expressed here...

Comments

Anonymous # Monday, October 2, 2006 5:38:59 PM

Thomas Landspurg writes: Hello Jan, Regarding Opera Mobile, do you have a list of handset where opera mini is shipped? I was not aware that you had deal with manufacturer to ship it, but it may happens that we are in the wrong area, or have the wrong handsets, but the fact is that I do not have any handsets with Opera Mini in it.... For Nokia, I've tried SoonR several of their browser, including Nokia N80 which is one of the newest handset (at least for me wihout seeing any single Ajax-ed feature. I have no doubt that some high end-techno geek phone might be Ajax enabled, but when looking at mass market device, landscape is different....

Anonymous # Monday, October 2, 2006 8:24:00 PM

li mika writes: hi jan, Interesting comments... You must be working for OPERA ;P You mentioned above "Opera Mobile is estimated to ship on approximately 46 different handset model in 2006"... I'd like to know how many of these are AJAX enabled, if i'm not wrong, OPERA AJAX PLATFORM for mobile was only announced not too long ago. And old OPERA Mobile browser does not come with AJAX, just look at some of the nokia series 60 handsets i have, even my n70, n80 are all non-AJAX versions. If you said the SOONR deal has nothing to do with OPERA, why would they do a joint press release on SOONR site? :-) OPERA Platform needs references and SOONR became one ready customer. http://www.soonr.com/web/front/press_release.jsp?pressrelease=9

Jan StandalThink # Tuesday, October 3, 2006 1:05:00 PM

Hi Thomas and Mika;

Thanks for your feedback.

Yes I do work for Opera as a product manager. This is however my private blog, and such it does not reflect the opinion of the company.

Opera Mini does not yet ship on any mobiles directly from the handset vendor, but it is included by operators like T-Mobile. The latest public information about which phones were included on is available in our Q2 presentation (http://www.opera.com/company/investors/).

I would also expect that the SoonR application should work in the Nokia browser, but I know that there have been complaints about them not supporting media handheld (among others). This could be the reason, but I cannot speak on the behalf of neither Nokia or SoonR.

As for Opera Platform and Opera Mobile there seems so be some misunderstandings here. Opera Mobile (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/) is the full web browser (based on the same rendering engine as the PC browser). This means that it supports AJAX, and have done since version 8*. This means that the Opera browser on your N70 does support AJAX**. The SoonR demo is created and runs in Opera Mobile, such it has nothing to do with Opera Platform.

Opera Platform (http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/platform/) is a product running on top of Opera Mobile, and consists of an AJAX framework for executing widgets and creating user interfaces (somewhat comparable with other AJAX frameworks like DOJO and Zimbra). We published a demo version of a SDK last autumn, which created lots of interest.

Let me know if this makes things clearer.

* Before that (Opera 7.x) we supported DOM Load which is an alternative to XHR (XMLHttpRequest).
** The SoonR demo is requiring Opera 8.65 since their using some features only available in that version.

Anonymous # Monday, October 30, 2006 8:02:38 PM

Louenas writes: Hello, Is there any open source Ajax framework for mobile browser based app? Is Soonr a framework or an application? Thanks in advance, Louenas

Jan StandalThink # Wednesday, November 1, 2006 9:21:20 AM

Hi Louenas,

SoonR is an application/service and not a framework. The only full AJAX framework today is Opera Platform.

As for open source, there are lots of interesting things being published very soon .

Anonymous # Wednesday, February 14, 2007 6:11:38 PM

Anonymous writes: Greetings, I am one of the SoonR folks. You can find out a lot about what we are doing with Ajax / Opera on our website. In fact there's a page with resources like a reviewer's guide and samples. Goto http://www.soonr.com/web/front/ajax.jsp for Ajax overview. The press center http://www.soonr.com/web/front/press_center.jsp has lots of docs, screen shots, etc. If you have specific questions, please give me a yell at song@soonr.com As for Ajax support, you do have to turn it on in the settings if SoonR doesn't automatically detect the phone. Thanks for your interest in SoonR.