Abstract

Just what does it mean for the internet to “go mobile”? If we look around at some of the recent attempts to bring the internet to mobile devices, we might be forgiven for thinking it means a poor approximation of what we can do on our desktop Web browsers. For example, WAP phones give us access to the mobile internet, but the small screen and phone keypad input means that the capabilities of a “normal” Web browser are severely compromised. Many of the features we rely on for browsing are not there, displayed information is primarily text -based, and techniques for doing things like bookmarking are very different from what we might do on our non-mobile PCs. Combined with often shaky wireless network capabilities and limited WAP-enabled sites, we are presented with some of the features of Web browsing, but not all of them; with the ability to do some of the Web-based tasks we usually do, but not all of them. The result can be frustrating, especially in light of many of the claims that mobile operators made for the freedom that these new wireless internet services would provide us through the mobile phone.