Open Source to the Rescue of Mobile App and Mobile Web Fragmentation

Open Source to the Rescue of Mobile App and Mobile Web Fragmentation?(short summary of the OSCON BoF session)

Tom DeryckereSoftware Architect / Siruna@twom

This is not a presentation!Report on the BoF session on OSCON Monday 20 july 2009Mail me if you have additions to this report.

What’s this

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Professional Open Source companyLocated in Belgium | UK | US | India | UAE | China

http://www.siruna.com

Siruna helps you to make anything mobile on any device with total peace of mind.

Siruna

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Website XML Feed

OSCON unique chance to meet fellow developers

Discuss current state of Open Source tools for mobile developers

Do they provide solutions to overcome device fragmentation?

Networking and Exchange ideas and experiences

Publish outcome after OSCON

Why a BoF session

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Browser companies− http://www.skyfire.com/ : executing websites on the server to take the load

of mobile devices:− http://www.obigo.com: full featured mobile web browser supporting most

standards including the BONDI / W3C specs

Application developers / consultants− Game developer with need for some power (going for the navit app

appraoch, mainly on one platform – iPhone). Used to develop J2ME but sees a lot of fragmentation in this world..

Handset manufacturers− Samsung working with open source operating systems based on desktop

gnome

Consumer companies− Looking at extending sales channel and promoting products through mobile

Medical records access from mobile devices for underdeveloped countriesOpen source adeptsOpen source companies− http://www.siruna.com

....

Who was around the table

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Problem of fragmentation− How to develop applications that run on different devices /

platforms− What platforms are there and what fragmentation does a

developer needs to overcome− Which tools are available to help

Mobile web development− What standards do we have− What standards should we adopt− Problem of javascript UI libraries that are not mobile friendly− Problem of flash− Transcoding solutions

Device detection (very shortly)

What was discussed

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Has always been a developer challenge− J2ME used to be a solution− Currently fragmentation on J2ME is to big

Fragmentation on two fronts− Device capabilities: screen size, GPS, touch, accelerometer,

CPU, bluetooth, ....− Operating system: webOS, WinMo, Java, Android, iPhone,

Symbian, ...• Other?

Puts difficult choices on developers− E.g. What platforms to develop for

Fragmentation

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Some numbers (AdMob)

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United States Handset Data - April 2009Requests: 3,538,714,000

More: http://metrics.admob.com/

Red: percentage of web request coming from the phoneBlue: percentage of total sold mobile devices

Numbers

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Platforms

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Platform Language

iPhone Objective C

Android Java (Dalvik JVM)

Windows mobile .NET / C++ / Java

Nokia C++, java, Flash lite

Palm Pre HTML / CSS / javascript

With own touch (services api + widgets)What some would call widgets.

Blackberry Java

Browser HTML / CSS / javascript

W3C standards, limitations

It is not only that mobile need to evolve to ‘desktop functionality’− Mobile browsers are more and more desktop like

• HTML / CSS / javascript capabilities • Problem lies not in capability, but in layouting and making

javascript gui’s that make sence on mobile

Mobile browser need mobile specific functionality• Access to GPS (not standard available on desktop browsers)• Access to camera, contact list, file system, etc ...• Mobile javascript based UI libraries• BONDI project is addressing this issue

Desktop versus mobile

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HTML / CSS / javascript gains momentum and is heading towards a middleware language to run on all devicesPhoneGap already brings this in realityMore platforms/browsers are supporting it− Webkit!

BONDI− Industry initiative defining interfaces to access mobile device

resources (calender, camera, file system, location)

Standardisation versus open tools

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Open Source project making a mobile device database available as xml fileGet device capabilities− Screen size− Which html standards− Javascript− Video capabilities− ...

API’s for Java, PHPhttp://wurfl.sourceforge.net/

WURFL

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http://ready.mobi− Test on objective paramters/site semantics -> not always

linked to how well a site works

No Open Source− Adobe device central (only for flash?)− Yospace.com

Crowdsourcing based testing companies− Mob4hire.com

Mobile testing

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Use html / CSS / javascript to build applicationsUIIphone / android / BlackBerryAccess to native functionality− Geo location− Vibration− Accelerometer− Sound− Contact support− Camera

Under developmenthttp://phonegap.com/

PhoneGAP

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Mobile webContent adaptation engineMulti-platform distributionTakes online content and formats it for mobile − Semi automatic: using an xml based scripting language +

adaptation engine

Device detection, image transcoding, CSS adaptation, content selection, ...Manage different versions of one site for different device categoriesOther open source example: Morfeohttp://www.siruna.com / http://open.siruna.com / http://composer.siruna.com

Siruna

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Web browser engine (both mobile / desktop)− Nokia− Safari− Android− Palm Pre− QT

Contributing to WebKit can change the mobile web!

http://webkit.org/

WebKit

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Open Source operating systems (Symbian, Android, ....) iPhone application developmentOpen source scripting for mobile− Python runs on different devices

Widgets− Often HTML/CSS/javascript based web application

....

What we did not talk about

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Mail : [email protected] Blog: http://www.mobiledrupal.comTwitter: @twom, @sirunaSiruna: http://www.siruna.com,

http://open.siruna.com

Contact

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