First Steps
Before we get into the realty check,
let’s take a peek at the historic
technology barriers that plagued
the adoption of LBS and how the
industry got over them.
Incompatible devices:
Initial days of LBS had not many
internet-supporting handsets and
even if available, had poor user
interface mechanisms and just monochrome
displays of four 15 character lines
of text. Highly advanced models
added the ability to display 2 bitplane
grayscale images. They had to contend
with WML/HDML web browsers that
were limited to surfing the handful
of websites that actually supported
these markup languages. HTML sites,
which make up the vast majority
of the WWW, were off limits.
Precisely for this reason, mobile
internet never took off as consumers
were not taking to the mobile alternative
which was far primitive to their
desktop experience. But changing
times and advancing technologies
made it possible to feature graphical
displays, big screens, beefy processors,
expandable memory, MP3/MP4 players,
cameras, video recorders and what
not on mobile phones. Of course,
one can talk on them too. Loaded
with MS Office, applications everyone
depends on every day and Internet
Explorer that allows browsing and
mailing, these phones support a
range of LBS. Reason for people
on the move to upgrade their non-internet
and WAP only devices to a modern
phone capable of running compelling
applications.
Unavailability of development tools:
Lack of set standards severely restricted
the programming models in the initial
days. Adding to the woes of developers,
no tools were available in the market
to build applications for mobile
devices. But the last three years
have seen several integrated development
environments that facilitated mobile
applications just the same way as
developing a desktop or web application.
But again when people were ready
to build mobile applications, there
were too many markup languages to
deal with. Initially, HDML (handheld
device markup language) was in vogue.
It is conceptually like HTML, but
optimised for mobile phones. When
reasonable applications were built
using HDML, WML (Wireless Markup
Language), adopted by a different
set of devices as a standard, gained
significance. Applications built
on HDML couldn’t be run with
WML. A lot of UI logic broke as
people moved from one markup variant
to another, calling for more than
a simple development exercise.
Then came the ASP .NET Mobile Controls.
Being part of Visual Studio .NET,
it enables the developer to work
visually and intuitively, dragging
UI elements onto a form and double
clicking on these elements to add
their code in Visual Basic or C#.
Slow network speeds was another
dampener. But the ubiquitous availability
of 2.5G on a single network platform
for nearly all carriers changed
the scene for better. The introduction
of 3G and 3.5G in a big way will
further better the services.
Expensive GIS:
LBS applications were built on GIS
systems which were quite expensive.
In this regard, many issues propped
like data management and GIS interdependency.
Wireless operators, or any organisation
wanting to integrate the element
of location, don't want to become
GIS experts. They don't want to
bear the costs of GIS software and
data licensing not to mention the
dedicated GIS servers and staff
needed to maintain the GIS infrastructure.
They simply want to provide their
users with compelling applications
that just happen to need these technologies.
