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The Wireless Application Protocol : Writing Applications for the Mobile Internet Addison-Wesley Publishing Your Price: 44.95 Authors: Sandeep Singhal, Thomas Bridgman, David Bevis, Stefan Hild, Jim Chan, Lalitha Suryanarayana, Daniel Mauney, Jari Alvinen Pages: 448 Publication Date: October 2000 WAP--The Wireless Application Protocol: Writing Applications for the Mobile Internet focuses on the mobile Internet, the technology that powers it, and strategies for writing content and applications for this new environment. It is divided into five parts, plus appendices: Part I introduces the mobile Internet. It discusses how the mobile Internet is emerging at the nexus of the traditional World Wide Web and wireless communications. The mobile Internet is driving new business models, partnerships, and competition. In this environment, providers are seeking to expand their existing Internet content and applications, as well as to deploy new services that take advantage of handheld devices' unique capabilities. Part II introduces WAP, the mobile Internet standard. The wireless environment brings with it several unique challenges that make traditional Internet Web browsing impractical from mobile devices. The WAP standard was defined to address these user interface and network challenges. This suite of protocols defines a complete mobile Internet platform, along with the mechanisms needed to bridge the gap between the mobile environment and the wired Internet. Part III discusses how the WAP standards can be applied to implement mobile Internet content and services. The Wireless Markup Language (WML) is a content format that is attuned to devices having small screens and limited user input capabilities. The Wireless Binary eXtensible Markup Language (WBXML) enables the delivery of arbitrary data over low-capacity networks. The WMLScript language provides a rich execution environment for client-side application logic. The mobile Internet introduces its own set of usability requirements, many of them arising from its non-Internet-savvy user population. Hence, the creation of mobile applications requires that the developer follow a rigorous usability design process. Part IV describes how to build and deploy advanced sophisticated WAP services. WAP User Agent Profiles (UAProf) allow application developers to customize their content to match the unique capabilities of the individual devices targeted. WAP provides sophisticated capabilities for push messaging. The Wireless Telephony Application (WTA) offers capabilities that bridge the gap between the data and voice environments. In the end, the holy grail is the deployment of integrated, reliable, and secure Web applications that can serve existing desktop, emerging mobile, and future clients; accomplishing this goal requires the cooperation of many business entities. Part V peers into the future of the mobile Internet, commenting on WAP's role in its evolution. The appendices include information describing how to obtain the freely available WAP development environments, as well as reference guides to WML, WMLScript, and WAP User Agent Profiles. The companion Web site includes a full WAP simulation environment, including a browser, along with all of the code examples from the book and some additional example applications.