Chaz, unfortunately, it appears that WAP, in one form or another, is going to be around for a while. Even as screen sizes get larger, it still won't be enough to put full-blown HTML (or something similar) onto a cell phone. That is, unless you have some sort of gargantuan device such as the Communicator or the pDq. I doubt that too many users will want to give up that much convenience in order to have a more data-friendly phone.
One potential solution to all of this may come from a startup called Microvision. They seem to have created something known as a Virtual Retinal Display (VRD). It uses high-brightness LEDs to fire beams of light straight into a human eye, with the result being that a viewer gets the impression that he/she's looking at a full-screen, high-resolution image, even though the image may be projected from a device as small as a cell phone. Here's the link to a press release discussing a prototype display they created for handsets:
biz.yahoo.com
The possibilities are endless. You could use thin client software to access a web browser hosted on a server, and view unaltered HTML web pages. You could access other software and work on things like a Microsoft Word report (keypad permitting).
Of course, this might all be a pipe dream. They're only at the prototype stage for cell phones, and the version of their product that's used for medical and industrial purposes currently sells in the quadruple digits, although the company has said that this is only due to the fact that it's coming out of development stage, and that costs should be reasonable for cell phone/PDA use once it reaches mass production. Even if they're telling the truth, and not just trying to promote their company, it'll most likely still be a few years at least before such a product comes to market.
Eric |
