Re: How many folks are developing apps for "smart phones"?

[Pete Helgren <pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

 The challenge in web app vs phone app is managing the data volume. 
Most web applications these days don't concern themselves with bandwidth 
restrictions because most folks have some sort of broadband connection 
and they aren't charged by the MB.  Phones have bandwidth issues and you 
are charged by data volume (most plans do). So if you have a 1mb page 
and you page in and out of it a few times depending on the phone (some 
phones don't use caching because of local storage limitations) you can 
end up moving a lot of data.

A phone app, on the other hand, can request just the data needed to be 
displayed but then you have issues of managing the application on the 
local phone.

I was surprised at how it easy was to get an application built for a 
mobile device and then challenged by how hard it is to do it right. You 
have to change your thinking about how to deliver the content.  I 
enjoyed the challenge though and it is a lot of fun once you master the 
basics.

Pete Helgren
Value Added Software, Inc
www.valadd.com
www.opensource4i.com


On 9/21/2010 11:14 AM, Scott Klement wrote:
> I'm currently experimenting with some of this stuff.  Primarily for our
> sales reps that travel to customer's sites...  it's useful to have
> certain stuff available on their phone from anywhere.  (Order status,
> inventory status, product specifications...)
>
> We're doing it using web technology...  just web pages that we're
> testing on smartphone touchscreen interfaces.
>
> It could be done in any language, of course...  right now I'm doing it
> with RPG&  CGIDEV2 for the order/inventory status, and PHP for the
> product specs.
>
> And nothing has made it to production yet, it's very much a "experiment"
> in the IT department right now...  a proof of concept if you will.
>
>
> On 9/21/2010 10:43 AM, BT Consulting wrote:
> > Gang,
> >
> > I haven't been on here for awhile so I might have missed discussions on this.
> >
> > How many folks are developing apps that provide modern access to iseries data via
> > "smart phones"?  I think it goes without saying "smart phone" access to data is the
> > "in" thing.  I'm ask about this to see if the iseries community is into this modern way of accessing data.  I'm not talking about 5250 emulation, although I'm sure there is a need for such access, I'm talking about graphical applications that access company information stored on an iseries with respect to business areas such as customer, product, sales,ordering, system management, business intelligence/ data warehouse applications, etc., etc.
> >
> > If many ARE doing such apps, I'd like to know if it is, indeed, a popular type of application development for the iseries, what sort of apps are popular, pros and cons developing these sorts of apps for the iseries, problems, what types of languages are used for such applications, etc?
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Dave Odom