Enterprise J2ME Developing Mobile Java Applications [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

3.1 Benefits of Smart Clients

Microbrowser-based thin client technologies (e.g., Wireless Application Protocol, WAP) were instrumental in bringing mobile Internet to masses in the early days of mobile commerce. But WAP-based mobile commerce has never been very popular due to the lack of usability on the client side. The new generation of smart client mobile technology (e.g., J2ME, and Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework) promises to bring feature-rich clients to mobile applications. The benefits of smart clients over thin clients include the following.

Smart clients have richer and more pervasive user interfaces. In particular, the judicial use of threads can drastically improve user perception of the application performance.

Smart clients can be more easily personalized. Extreme personalization is one of the most touted benefits of the freedom (mobile) economy.

On-device data storage reduces network traffic, especially unnecessary round trips; enables transactions; supports the "offline" mode when the network is temporarily unavailable; and hence improves overall performance, reliability, and availability of mobile applications.

Smart clients can leverage device extensions. For example, a smart client program can talk with the device's built-in (or attached) GPS module and bar-code scanners. A smart client can also integrate with device-specific software (e.g., email and messaging clients) to improve the user's workflow.

Smart clients support more powerful and flexible security schemes, such as content-based security and distributed single sign-on.

Smart clients support advanced integration technologies. They are easy to plug into existing corporate infrastructure. Supports for asynchronous messaging and XML Web Services are crucial for reliable and maintainable mobile solutions.

The focus of this entire book is to introduce technologies, architectures, and tools that maximize those benefits. The iFeedBack example in this chapter presents a bird's eye view of the smart client paradigm through a concrete application.