Comments on: S60: More Mobile Ajax

By: Franklin Davis

Franklin Davis — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:45:49 +0000

@Mark B: Web Browser for S60 has full JavaScript engine — same as Apple Safari. AFAIK Opera Mobile (the full app) also has good JS support, and Access NetFront has pretty good JS.

Opera Mini is not a full Web browser on the device — it is a small display app, and the actual rendering is done by a server that is effectively running Opera and sending the results to the client for display, so it has very limited ability to support JS in the client.

By: Mika Tuupola

Mika Tuupola — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 08:23:24 +0000

There is one big issue with S60 browser. You can update it only if your phone happens to run same service pack of S60 software as browser was built on.

For example. I bought N73 when it came out. Browser was great but it did not have all the features advertised in S60 website. I could not find update download. So I asked Nokia where to get it. It took several mails before I got an answer.

Sorry the new version is only available for 3rd edition feature pack 1 and not available to update N73, which is a 3rd edition phone.

So there I was. Brand new phone with outdated browser. Browser which could not be updated because phone has wrong service pack of S60 software…

By: Rocco

Rocco — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 20:24:29 +0000

@Damien: we have a similar library. can you get in touch with me through my homepage (link on name)? we’re trying to gather some people to start an open source ajax-toolkit-for-mobile project and are also doing some other mobile ajax related work. would be great to co-operate!

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 06:26:06 +0000

IT Mill Toolkit, for instance, works quite well - but as you note, the screen size is usually quite limiting. You really have to design for the screen size, or the usability will suffer. Having said that, some of the new phones ("communicators", like the E90), have screens large enough to be useful for quite complex applications. It's an interesting new arena for Ajax applications - with more and more communities and collaboration online, more and more people are looking for ways to stay "connected" all the time. Those of you attending AjaxWorld 2007 have probably seen IT Mill running some examples on some interesting devices.

By: Franklin Davis

Franklin Davis — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 05:33:28 +0000

Actually, Web Browser for S60 (based on WebKit, same as Safari) has full Ajax support. I know of one service that is specifically tuned for S60 — soonr.com. See http://www.soonr.com/web/front/press_release.jsp?pressrelease=15

By: Damien

Damien — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:47:44 +0000

I’ve been developing AJAX apps for mobile devices for a while, mostly on Mobile IE for Windows Mobile 5, and Opera Mobile 8.5. It works great. I have a 500 Byte AJAX library that is a tiny workhorse. I also use a 2.7KB DHTML effects library that works nicely on all browsers that support CSS. Even with limited bandwidth, i have been able to get decent results. Of course, WiFi is always better if you have it on your device.

Opera really is the only option out there so far for mobile/embedded browsers. They are licensing their mobile browser to run on devices based on linux, WinCE, etc.. and the best part is, the mobile browser seems to have most of the HTML/Javascript/DOM capabilities of the desktop XP browser. It’s an interesting time to be a developer with all the mobile device options available now.

By: Rocco

Rocco — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 18:08:27 +0000

@Paul: i couldn’t agree more. maps on mobiles still means heaps of data – as long as it’s not SVG.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:27:25 +0000

I have an E70 and use bloglines all the time on my phone… works great.

By: Paul M. Watson

Paul M. Watson — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:47:28 +0000

Ajax on a phone means, to me, the possibility of smarter and less data transfer. The whole page doesn’t have to be reloaded, just the sports score figure or the weather temperature figure.

It doesn’t mean, once again to me, enabling flashy UIs. Not yet at least.