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back to article First WACy handset goes widget mad

The Wireless Application Community won't be properly launched until Monday lunchtime, but Filipino operator SMART couldn't wait and has jumped the gun with the first WAC-compatible handset. The Netphone looks suspiciously similar to ZTE's Android-based Blade handset, sold as the San Francisco by Orange in the UK, but SMART has …

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  1. OffBeatMammal

    I salute our widget overlords

    so this means an app store of HTML(5) based widgets like the ones that have been around on Mac and PCs for years.

    I guess if it doesn't drown in crud it's a nice idea... potentially multi-platfom (assuming browser support on Android, Nokia, WP7 etc) so simple weather or currency apps could reach a wide audience

    can't see too many complex apps (or things people would pay money for) coming out of this though... but anything that stops folks worrying about Abjective C or Java or C# to knock up a quick data dashboard... all power to it, if it takes off and gets a decent footprint in the market

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  2. Robert E A Harvey

    Competition is good

    This is how capitalism works. Jolly good, and good luck to them all. But it does rather smack of mee-tooo desperatism.

    can no-one in the listed giants come up with an Original idea that we will all flock to?

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  3. xperroni
    Heart

    The little platform that could!

    There's a lot to love about WAC: it's an industry-wide, multi-vendor, multi-OS, standards-based, web-oriented application platform. It could, in theory, translate at instant consumer market at one end (with all the feature phone makers furiously churning WAC-enabled phones) and instant industry support at the other (because it's programmed in HTML and AJAX, every web programmer is a potential WAC developer).

    I just hope the mobile industry has learned from its past failures with WAP, BONDI and JIL. Nothing will happen unless people (in particular, developers) get interested, and for that to happen industry players must remain actively committed to it. Unfortunately that isn't a common trait among feature phone makers - new models are completely forgotten almost as soon as they are released, and ISV support is anemic, when at all present.

    However, if industry support is good enough, or WAC keeps developers and users interested long enough for companies to catch up, then it could become the universal mobile application platform we've dreamed about for so long.

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  4. Bernt Oestergaard
    WTF?

    Wireless??? Come into my parlor...

    You may be getting your acronyms crossed. The WAC community is the Wholesale Apps Community, I believe. Also seems that HP is getting in on the action with a WAC clearinghouse for the three Korean mobile telcos. So telcos are getting dressed up - now we just need some apps developers to come join the party. Mine's the WTF - Wireless Tllco Fraternity

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