What is a (mobile) Widget
July 5th, 2006
This is a translation of an article that I wrote for a French blog, about “mobile widgets”. It’s a general introduction and description of the widget, and especially mobile widget concept:
So, what is a mobile widget:
A widget is generally speaking a small application, a little bit of code, that does one simple thing but does it well. The second important things about a widget, is that they can be combined together. The last one being the fact that usually, it’s fairly easy to develop a new widget (comparing to developing a full application).
To be able to run a Widget, you need a “Widget Engine”, which is the framework needed to run these micro applications. On the PC, the most popular is Konfabulator, and Dashboard on Mac OS-X. Web applications haves also their own widget, that can run within the browser, like clock, web counter, etc….These applications exists since a long time, it was called previously plugins, components, extensions, gadgets, but the real innovation is that it’s now in user hands: they can combine these widgets to create their own unique application. Typically, the user can choose to have CNN news, Paris weather, a Flicker photo stream, a clock, etc….
This approach fits particularly well on mobile world, where space on screen is limited, and where it’s not easy to switch between applications. Some companies like Widsets, Bluepulse, mFoundry, Bling and Opera have developed some widget engines. Not all of them haves the same approach, even if all of them recognize the filiations with Widget. Most of them are for the moment personal news /RSS reader (Widset) but extremely well done, others allows some interaction with the user (plusmo, mFoundry, etc…). All of these engines -except Opera widget - are for now available on top of J2me. The interest of widget is both for users and developers:
- For the user, he can create his own application buy choosing and customizing his widget set.
- For the developer, he can easily develop and deploy application for end user. Of course, not all application can fit into the widget description, but I believe that in the future, a good combination of Web/Ajax based application and Widget will fill 80% of the needs.
I recommend particularly two applications: Plusmo, which is in my mind on of the most interesting one but with a poor UI, and Widsets, which is the opposite: a great UI but the application itself is lacking of maturity. Of course, I am not any more objective as we (Webwag) also have a mobile widget engine.
I believe that Widget will be the equivalent of “Web2.0″ app for mobile: adapted to small screen size, solving in an elegant way the portability issue, providing real interest for the end user it’s certain that this kind of application will become more frequent in the future months.
Of course, there is still a lot of open question: does a “standard” wil emerge (see C.Enrique post
on this)? Can Desktop be reused on mobile? (I think that the question
is more “is there an interest to reuse desktop widget on mobile”).
If now widgets are in most of the case a way to access to some RSS content in an easy way, I believe that their scope will extend to integrate more interactivity with end user, and conquer more space on your phone sceen!
Technorati Tags: j2me, javame, mobilewidgets, widgets
Entry Filed under: Ajax, JavaME, MobileAjax, MobileWidgets
9 Comments Add your own
1. C. Enrique Ortiz Mobility&hellip | July 5th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Tom on Widgets…
A very good post by Tom Landspurg on (mobile) widgets. See his post What is a (mobile) Widget.
Tom gets it right… on the definition, the concepts and challenges behind widgets.
I’m looking forward to see a kick ass widget engine for mobi…
2. mobmash blog » Blog&hellip | July 6th, 2006 at 1:26 am
[…] TomSoft » What is a (mobile) Widget “I believe that Widget will be the equivalent of “Web2.0″ app for mobile: adapted to small screen size, solving in an elegant way the portability issue, providing real interest for the end user” (tags: mobile applications widgets) […]
3. Keitai / Freedom, Opennes&hellip | July 13th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
[…] Then of course there’s data. Whether you scan a QR code, punch in a short code found on a subway poster, download a widget, access an on-device-portal, discover and click through a mobile ad, or use a scratch card to access or discover content—you still incur data charges. There’s tons of studies pointing to the fact that mobile data use is growing but still highly under-utilized by certain segments of the population. I don’t know about you but having an Alexandria’s worth of mobile content to choose from would certainly make me use it more. As would reasonable prices of course. […]
4. Ankit Nigam | May 23rd, 2007 at 6:21 am
The widget basic is explained very clearly gr8 for a beginer i am looking for more detail explanation for as to how can the widgets can enhance the entire UI of the mobile devices .
I am looking into hoe to take widgets beyond just some add on good to have features to the nxt level were the widget engine can drive all the basic apps on the phones with a desent performance
5. Muthukumaran | May 24th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
In a world where everything (kidding
- actually many mobile apps) would be enabled by widgets would be a reality when devices (or device manufacturers) become less sceptical about exposing the local resources for being accessed by widgets.
To be precise, the “sandbox” within which mobile widgets run is a kinda de-ja-vu of J2ME world wherein lots of public demand (or artificial demand) has led to myriad JSRs to expose local resources of mobile devices incrementally over a period of time so that midlets have really become “useful”.
And that kind of revolution would only make widgets useful….
May be its a matter of time ….
6. INDRA SEN | November 13th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
good comment on mobile widget
can you explain widget engine in detail?
7. Matunbo | January 8th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Do you know if a widget or small aplication exists for mobiles, that records voip conversations like HR or easyvoiprecorder do on PC?
Thanks!
Matunbo
8. Ghazi Ramadan | January 20th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
The definition of Mobile Widgets is fairly good described. But I do not think that Widgets in the Mobile World need to be combined due to the form factor of the phone.
With regards to Standards, it’s difficult to push forward as different Widget Engines offer different facilities to Widget Developers. Our Browser, a mobile SMS-Style Browser, offers SMS and Voice Services for Widgets as well as HTTP services. Others offer only HTTP services.
Ghazi Ramadan
iOTA Sphere
MYiOTA Mobile Media Browser
9. Erdem | May 19th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Great post Tom,
maturity, possibility of widespreading by gowing low end is indeed very important.
Ever heard of GLOWE? check http://www.glowe.org
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