The mobile phone system

Mobile user.
Handoff problems.

Extremely-mobile roving user (compare with semi-mobile user of wireless LAN).

Mobile phone standards
- GSM
- CDMA (and here)
- 2.5G
- GPRS (and here)
- EDGE (Enhanced GPRS)
- I-Mode (and here)
- 3G (and here and here)
- 4G
Data transmission on the mobile phone network.
Lots of competing standards. Check back in 5 years.
SIM cards

Entry-level mobile phone

Can browse the Web, sort of.

Public domain image from here.

GPRS (and here) - "2.5G" - dialup speeds, e.g. O2 offers up to 53 k bps
WAP (and here)
WML
Limitations of WAP
Google translates HTML to WML on the fly, so WAP users can view the Web, sort of.
My links for my mobile phone (simple GPRS phone) shows how to view HTML pages, and how to make a phone number clickable.

Web access on a WAP phone will look something like this.
Quite difficult to use, but ok if you want to look up something quick.
Public domain image from here.

Smartphone / PDA / Pocket PC

Medium to high speed Internet through 3G when roaming.
High-speed Internet at Wi-Fi hotspots.

XDA Exec (and more images).

3G (and here and here)
3G speeds in Ireland
- three.ie promises up to 3.6 M bps
- Has anyone seen this in practice? On a laptop? On a mobile? On a PDA?
- speed tests
- mobile speed tests
PDAs
Operating System
- Windows CE (also here)
- Windows Mobile
Web browser
- Microbrowsers
- Pocket IE - Browse the web on PDA running Windows Mobile.
- Opera Mobile - Browse the web on PDA running Windows Mobile.
- Opera Mini - Browse the web on a simpler Java-enabled phone.

Web access on a Dell Axim X30.
See terms of use of image.

Web access on a Sharp Zaurus.
See terms of use of image.

What I want

What I want in a Handheld computer	What I have now
hand-held or pocket-size device Quality color graphics Usable keyboard	XDA Exec = HTC Universal - released Sept 2005 Windows Mobile VGA screen (640 x 480)
Wi-Fi where available mobile phone (3G) where no Wi-Fi mobile phone (GPRS) where no 3G	yes
Fixed rate (pay per month, not per minute or per kilobyte, and reasonable price)	O2 3G prices 15 euro/month for 1 G download limit 30 euro/month for 10 G download limit
always-on high-speed broadband	mobile speed tests Wi-Fi fine - 1 M bps seen 3G - only does older speeds - the device is not capable of more than 380 k bps. 380 k bps actually seen on O2 3G network newer devices would get HSDPA high-speed 3G, 3.6 Mbps on O2 network.
Full-function web browser	Pocket IE
telnet (ssh)	PockeTTY
ftp (ftp browser)	GetIt FTP can I get a ftp browser? (put remote ftp site on filesystem path, like WebDrive)
Full-function editor, normal desktop applications, etc.	See software (and here)
Large (gigabyte) hard disk	Standard SD cards, can buy 64 G card
normal file system	yes FAT32 with Long File Names can copy website, browse it on disk, relative links work
Battery that lasts 1 week	only a few hours, enough for commuting
Works in Ireland and abroad transparently	no - O2 unlimited package doesn't work abroad - have to switch to (very) expensive pay per megabyte
Sturdy, shockproof, waterproof	not really

iPhone

Web access on an iPhone.
From mes-newslive.blogspot.com.
See also here.

The iPhone is an amazing machine, but there are some problems for me with it.
A problem that is fixed in newer iPhone:

No copy and paste.

Mobile development

Mobile development
Emulators (so can develop on PC)