Posts filed under 'MobileWidgets'
Interested in creating mobile widgets? Just check our latest tutorial on how to simply create and deploy mobile widgets using Webwga platform using standard and easy to learn technologies, like XML and JavaScript.
Yes, Webwag is since some monthes compliant with JavaScript (in fact a subset of JavaScript), but this make very easy for any Web developer who know a little bit XML/JavaScript to write great mobile widget.
The tutorial describe how to create a translator widget, using a web service and some Ajax techniques. And we’ve just opened the Developers corner on the forum, so support will be given to all our developers.
April 28th, 2008
Big week for Webwag! After the yesterday announce that Webwag was finalist of the GlobalMobileAwards, we just announce today our new iPhone version. You saw a video some time ago, but now this version is live: just point your browser to http://iphone.webwag.com (or http://webwag.com with your iPhone) and you’ll have access to your exact same account on your mobile. OF course, this works also on your iPod touch.
We created a user experience close to the default iPhone user experience, but with the full Webwag features:
- You can add/remove new tabs
- Add new widget
- A first preview level with number of unread articles in your feed
- Dynamic icons for some widgets: flickr, weather
Now, webwag covers a wide range of mobile and web device: web browser, mobile version (java me) and iPhone.
Try it, and tell us what you think!
We also launched the first step of our new Webwag V2, with some nice features:
- resizable columns
- variable number of columns
- enhanced discovery
- new themes
Identificateurs Technorati : webwag, iphone, ipod, wireless
January 23rd, 2008
This iRiver unit presented during the last CES looks great. There is even a touchscreen that serve as a remote controller, but you can display much more info on it: RSS feed, weather, video, etc… Sounds a great widget platform, for your digital life…
Through multiroom (in French)
January 14th, 2008
Finally, we had a chance yesterday to access to Yahoo!Go 3.0 SDK. As a frequent reader of this blog, you should know that Widgets is a favorite topic, so I was curious and excited about achivement of Yahoo!Go 3.0 and his SDK.
The home screen is really good, looks great. Very nice theme, with a background image and a caroussel of “widgets”. Things become bad you start to dig into the content. In fact, what is Yahoo!Go3.0 is very similar to Yahoo!Go 2.0: an enhanced browser to the yahoo content. All pages are similar to wap page, but with some improvment in the navigation. There is however some specific part that have some higher capacitities, like the “map” part which contains a GoogleMap type navigation.What really kills the experience is that the answer to every keypress (and I’ve tested this on an N95, which is usually a very fast phone) takes too much time!
So now , let’s look at the widget part and the SDK: in fact, what is promoted as “widgets” is in fact some enhanced xml/wap pages created with the “BluePrint” language. The good thing is that pages can be easily integrated within the Yahoo!Go content, and can also benefit from the integrated advertising feature.
So Yahoo!Go 3.0 is more or less an enhanced mobile browser without Ajax capacities, and these widget are XML component that can be part of the page. One of the benefit of such basic approach is that these “widgets”, can be deployed even on simple Wap/xHtml pages. The bad thing, is that it’s quite impossible to do “real widget”: very little interaction possible between the application and the user, no local caching, no access to phone features…. Seems like a step back in the times “before ajax”. Does it really make sens to build a download app if you just provides a browsing experience?
Identificateurs Technorati : yahoo, mobile, mobilewidgets
January 10th, 2008
According to Techcrunch, Yahoo is the latest entrant in the mobile widget race. Basically, the “big” part of Yahoo!Go 3.0 is the support of widget, and the availability of an SDK for developpers.
So it will be interesting to see this. Yahoo!Go was already huge and slow, so let’s hope that 3.0 won’t be too big this time.
It’s also interesting to notice that MyYahoo does not seems to allow (unless I’ve missed something) third party widget development, while Yahoo!Go mobile allows it…. 
Let’s wait tommorow, and “a few weeks”, to get an access to the SDK. In the meantime, if you want to experiment mobile widget now, don’t forget to check webwag: http://webwag.com/mobile and http://api.webwag.com
Identificateurs Technorati : mobilewidgets, yahoo, yahoo!go
January 7th, 2008
Last week was “LeWeb3” week, with several interesting announces around widgets.
First, Goojet, the last entrant in that space announced his beta at the event.
Orange also showed an iPhone version of there own portal, BubbleTop, and a preview of their mobile client. Nice UI but not yet available….
Also, some first info about the future iPhone Webwag version. Here is a short video (in French):
This version is in beta test, more to come soon!
December 19th, 2007
We’ve finally announced the seed funding of Webwag that was kept silent since some time. The press release is here.
And finally, Techcrunch finally made a reference to us (ok, Techchrunch fr only but better than nothing).
Also, we’ll be in the states in the coming weeks, in the bay area: for the Web2.0 Summit, and WidgetSummit conference, Mobile2.0 Event where we are speaker, and at the CTIA where will be announcing (let’s cross fingers) some interesting things.
October 15th, 2007
Webwag is a small team, but very reactive! We already have the equivalent of the iPhone widget available on webwag, look:
How to do it? Just go to your webwag factory, and add an HTML container, and in this container, put the following code:
<iframe xsrc=”http://iphone.facebook.com” mce_src=”http://iphone.facebook.com” height=400 width=350 />
and that’s it…..
Yes, that is just embeeding the iPhone version of the Facebook site on Webwag, but this one is optimized for small screen, so it fit very well to be embeeded in a startpage like Webwag. I expect so to see more of these site optimized for mobile browsing, and then, these site will be easily embeeded in pages like Webwag. That’s an interesting side effect of the iPhone hype.
Identificateurs Technorati : facebook, webwag, widgets, iphone
August 15th, 2007
Apparently, a company name Ricavision is preparing a SideShow Fridge Magnet. Sideshow are Windows Vista widget, and these widget will be able to run on this specific magnet device.
Not yet a real “physical widget”, but interesting anyway. Here is the link to the full press release.
Through Ian Dixon’s blog
Identificateurs Technorati : physical widgets, widgets
August 10th, 2007
As discussed earlier, our SDK is open to third party developers. To get it, just drop us an email at feedback@webwag.com .
It’s very easy to create your own mobile widget, with very little code. If you are a web widget developer, you will be familiar rapidely with mobile widget.
So let’s dig into a widget, and let’s see how we can create one very easily
A widget is made of two main part:
- an XML description of the UI
- a script, which contains the behavior of the widget.
Let’s start with the clock, which is one of the easiest one, and let’s jump directly into the source of the widget (source code is here ):
The widget is enclosed into a “widget” tag, and the first part contains the UI description:
- image tells the engine that there is an image to display, and the url of the image is “clock.png”. By default, URL will be relative to the source file of the widget itself.
- then, to “poly‘ elements. Poly are polygons (but limited to three points for now) that are displayed on screen. cx and cy define the center of the polygon relative to the origin of the widget, and poly contains the x,y pair of points that define the login. Here we have three point (p1={0,0},p2={0,0],p3={20,0}) which is basically a line.
borderColor define the border color of that polygon.
The last item, is a non visible one: timer, and this element will just call a callback at a specified interval , in that case, at every 200/10 seconds, so every 20 seconds….
the script is quite easy:
- a function (onTimerFired) and a “main” part which just call that function.
Note that onTimerFired will be the default function called by the timer element. The content of the function is simple:
time() return the current time in the form DD/MM/YY ss:mm, like 07/07/2007 13:12
then explode will convert this string in an array, using the space as a spearator.
So timeArr[3] will contains 13:12
Next line, 13:12 is then exploded once again and put in another array, so hour[0] will contains 13 while
hour[1] whil contains 12.
The next two line, just set the angle properties of the two polygons created earlier. nameCl and hourCl are
the name used in the definition of these polygons, so now the script can refer to them directly.
We could access to most of the attributes of the UI elements directly, like hourCl.cx=13 our minCl.borderColor=”0xFF0000″
So as you see, with less then 10 lines of code, we have created a nice looking analog clock running on most of the mobile devices….
More tutorial and full documentation are availables on our devleoper pages…..
Identificateurs Technorati : webwag, mobileajax, mobile widgets
August 7th, 2007
Great news with the new look of the web site, and the official launch of the mobile version (in fact, since a couple of days, but we were too busy putting everything up to blog it!).
So, go and try webwag.com to experiment the new WebWab look. Flashy colors are avalaible, as well as more relaxing green or grey.
This is also the launch of the long awaited Webwag mobile version! >Now everybody with a recent J2me phone can experiment true mobile widgets.
Just go to the website, register and open the small “phone” icon and follow the steps…
This is the first major milestone in the Webwag vision of the “Personnal Digital Hub”, allowing access to all your content from various devices, whatever are the technologies.
Mobile is only the first step, and you will see others in that direction.
The SDK will be released later on but we will select a few motivated developper if they want to experiment it earlier.
Widgets use an XML description for UI, and a simple scripting language for behavior. Every JavaScript developper will be familiar with these technologies in a few hours, even if more complex widgets require more work: we don’t deal with the same issues as in the browser world!
June 13th, 2007
Last week was “Mobile Widget week” in London, with what seems to be a nice Mobile Monday about widgets. I was not here, but here is a list of related links to this event:
This one is not directly related to this mobile widget week, but as usual, techtype haves some strong views, which are most of the time very interesting. And I really like the title!
May 25th, 2007
Is from Widgetop….Look nice, but probably not running on any existing phone and hardly useable. A clock for instance, is probably the worst thing to do in a mobile using css/html/javascript, but this will make Ajiit happy….
May 21st, 2007
Want to test the new Webwag mobile extension? Then go to http://beta.webwag.com and use your webwag account (or create one!).
There only are few handsets officially supported (N70, K750, K800, LG Chocolote, Sagem My800x) but should work on more handsets, just try it, and let us know the results.
- Register and create your webwag account
- Add the widgets you like in your page
- Add them into your “mobile screen”. To open your mobile screen, click on the “mobile” icon on the top left, or click on the “mobile” icon on the existing box.
- “save and install” will send you an installation SMS that you should receive within minutes with a link to download it on your mobile. On most of the handsets, the link will be selectable within the SMS. On some handsets (like the LG, Motorola) you can use this link from a specific menu from the SMS message.
If you have problems receiving the SMS, let us now
Feedback, issue, just email us at: feedback@webwag.com
Faq:
* Are all widgets available from Web and mobile?
No, only a subset of existing widgets are today available on mobile:
- RSS
- Flickr
- Email
- Note
- Weather
- Clock
- Background
* Is it the same widget running on web wand mobile?
The widgets use the same data, but are different, because of size issue.
* But why not having just a web browser running these mobile widgets?
Because first, technically very few handset have the capacities to run complex widgets within browser, and also because we think that usage are different from web and mobile.
* Do you plan to support more handsets?
Of course, we are already working on this.
* Waow, sounds so cool, how can I participate and create my own widget?
The SDK is not yet public, but just email us and we will notify you when ready (feedback@webwag.com)
May 14th, 2007
Widget Week in Londn: sounds cool. This include a MobileMonday dedicated to widgets (and of course, with a Webwag mobile demonstration!)
Technorati Tags: mobilewidgets, mobile monday
May 14th, 2007
Sun officially launched today “JavaFX” (previously know as F3). It’s a scripting language that could be used to easily create rich content application for Java powered device.
This seems to be the Sun’s answer to Apollo and SilverLight, from Microsoft. Honestly, the answer is a little bit disapointing
- One more language! The language itself, is nothing really fancy. No major killing feature, not as dynamic as Ruby for instance, and not close enough to other “standards” like Javascript or Java. So why create another language, while there are so many?
- Integration, deployment: I take a look at the first sample and libraries. The library is something between 1 and 2 meg, on top of a standard JavaVM (JavaSE!). So, it’s huge. That’s one of the big weaknesses of Java today: the runtime is already so big, the installation so long, but worst, the starting time once everything has been installed.
- Target: mobile. Sun claims that it’s a good candidate for mobile application. Of course, it’s the next battlefield. But honestly, JavaFX is way too big to fit on existing mass market devices or any existing J2me implementation, so it needs to be embedded natively probably. I do not beleive that JavaFX mobile will be a serious candidate in the next 18 months, too early.
- Why not pushing further SVG? SVG is the current standard in vector graphics (and Flash is the de-facto standard). So why not push more SVG, by creating a better binding with SVG and Java, and/or Javascript?
So I do not believe that JavaFX will be big. It’s another missed opportunity from Sun to reinvent themselves. They had a widely deployed VM, that had the “network is the computer vision”, and now they desperately trying to follow on the RIA…Ajax is an intermediate technology, soit’s a fantastic opportunity to create something really new, Microsoft and Adobe are on the train, and Sun still trying to jump in…
Technorati Tags: javafx, javaone, ajax, silverlight, apollo
May 9th, 2007
Here are the first screenshots of the first result of the Mobease/Webwag acquisition: Webwag mobile, a full mobile widget engine….Beta just started on a small number of handsets, but more to come.
This engine haves mobile Ajax capacities, scripting, OTA update, and much more…..
I will soon write more about the technical details of the engines, as the API will be totally free and open, so developper can write real mobile and web widgets, that can be accessed from anywhere…
May 4th, 2007
Nokia just announced Seris 60 mobile Widgets. Obviously an hot topic for Nokia which is supporting also Widsets. Unfortunatly, there is no real demo available, just some animation right now, but the site claims:
“Widgets are lightweight Web applications developed using familiar,
standards-based Web technologies used to create Web pages: HTML, CSS,
JavaScript, and even advanced AJAX. They give S60 users a full Web
experience with instant access to the most essential Web 2.0 services
and Internet content. With widgets, people can personalize the content
and services that matter most to them.
“
No availibility date has been announced.
Technorati Tags: mobile, nokia, mobilewidgets, mobileajax, widsets
April 16th, 2007
Seems that mobile widget is a really fast moving area. Our first product (MobiFindIt!, a mobile search engine) has just been launched, and our second one, mobidget is not yet public (but you won’t have to wait too much) and we are already acquired! The happy owner of Mobease is Webwag, one of the actor of the start page space…
+ 
We were discussing, and even working together since some time, the WOD (Widget On Demand) being one of the first result of this great collaboration.
I’ll will take the role of WebWag CTO. It’s a really interesting space, as we are one of the few company with a strong experience both in mobile and in Web technologies, Ajax, Web2.0, etc… But there is an incredible amount of work to be done, both for improving the current platform and adding all our cool new innovations.
Widget are now increasingly popular, mobile widget are on the same trends too, the launch of the iPhone increased a lot the visibility on this space. Technically speaking, there are a lot of challenges, both on web and mobile (Ajax and his challengers like Flash, RDA, Mobile Ajax, etc….) that show that there are a lot of open possibilities.
But more than technology used to achieve this, widget and personnal page are in my view the best example of web and mobile integration, where user can access to the same data from various devices. The usage (of these devices) will be different, but they all provide an ubiquitous access to your personnal datas and area of interest.
As you guess, the integration of mobease technologies (Mobile Search, Mobile Widget) will provides a superior user experience when combined with the Web.
I will also speak as a Webwag representent at the next Benchmark conference on the Web2.0 this Tuesday in Paris.
Technorati Tags: web2.0, mobease, webwag, mobilewidgets, widgets, mobile ajax
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March 26th, 2007
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