Lessons learned in deploying a wireless, intranet application on mobile devices

Abstract

Wireless mobile applications provide a new set of design challenges for application designers. While many programmers are familiar with creating traditional desktop applications, they are not familiar with the challenges of the wireless mobile domain. Instead of having keyboards, mice, and high-resolution screens, the mobile application designer is constantly reminded that the handheld, mobile application is a very different (not deprived) input/output device. We describe our attempt to use these devices in creating a wireless corporate information application. The paper can be broken into several key efforts. First, we examine the hardware/networking requirements of the problem. Second, we examine our development environment for application coding and testing. Finally, we describe design issues encountered while developing applications for this environment.