by Marc
3. September 2008 16:21
OK, who remembers WAP? In particular the over-hyped drivel being spouted in adverts of the time about "mobile internet".
WAP was the first major attempt to get mobile phones doing something else besides making phone calls. It was, to put it kindly, rubbish. Even the internet as it was then (and we're talking about last century here folks, when having a 56K modem was luxury) was still too much for the tiny mobile phone screens and bandwidth available at the time.
So the industry created WAP, which was an attempt to introduce a slimmed down version of HTML that could be transmitted over the available bandwidth and interpreted by the phones of the time. WAP sites were text only (perhaps you'd get a banner graphic if you were lucky) and slow.
You've probably guessed by now that I wasn't in love with it when it first turned up and if I was writing this prediction then it would have been a solid "going nowhere".
I think that's true by and large, WAP itself did go nowhere. It did spawn user interest though and prompt the development of phones and networks that make "mobile internet" more than a pipedream. It might have taken 8 years for the iPhone 3G to turn up and do the job properly, but "Mobile internet" is very much a reality these days and things can only get better from there.
So was I right? Yes, mostly. WAP was useless, but I didn't see what it would turn into. Or at least if I did, I didn't record it anywhere so I can't prove it! We'll call that one a draw...