Mobile widgets: toy now, tool later

Tags: Business,  Java ME,  Mobile applications,  Review
July 4, 2006 by Barbara

Nokia-funded Widsets has been oft mentioned in the blog world in the past few weeks. In my opinion, this is an alpha release - but when you plan to make a community-driven widget library, that's probably a good plan.

The product, in short, is supposed to be a set of Yahoo-like or Apple-like widgets for the phone. Its current implementation leaves so much to be desired that it is rendered into toy status. Many of the major issues are addressed nicely in the TomSoft review. My experience was that the application does indeed work on my phone, but the Nokia-style user interface is extremely incongruous (why won't my back button work like a back button? Short-sighted design decisions). Most of the widgets are merely RSS readers.

I use widgets as quickly available, information-snacking type tools. Widsets, on the other hand, requires me to navigate to a J2ME application, launch it (with the ensuing delay), and then wait for the information to be updated. Information snacking after a 1 minute delay? Hardly. Hence my assessment that it is still a toy.

Despite the toy status, widgets are likely to become important in the mobile space, as they allow for true customization. If we look beyond the obvious limitations with Widsets and similar applications, we find a nice growth path. If there is a sufficiently compelling set of widgets, the widget rendering engine can be rewritten in a more immediately available language. QUALCOMM's BREW + uiOne platform would be particularly compelling for the CDMA market, though perhaps a Nokia company would be dissuaded from going that route. Other user interface customization schemes would work well.

Or perhaps Nokia has plans for enabling Java applications to be always running. Now that would be really exciting.


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2 Comments

  1. Hi there,

    and thanks for trying out WidSets! BTW, I hope you have checked out the features in the updated release (http://blog.widsets.com/widsets/2006/06/widsets_expands.html), which addresses some (but not all) of the issues you’ve mentioned. We’ll be addressing the others as quickly as we can, but as you mention, we just launched the service.

    When it comes to WidSets and Nokia, we (WidSets) as a small group are actually allowed to have pretty much our own mandate. We try to implement our own vision of having a great service available for most mobile users out there. Because we’re a small group we have to start with something that works on most phones, i.e. J2ME. Support for Brew and others are thus not left out for any policy reasons. Some more info here (http://blog.widsets.com/widsets/2006/06/about_widsets_a.html)

    Regarding the UI/back button etc, what phone are you using and which specific widset are you referencing to? We’re defintely interested in enhancing the user experience, so any comments are appreciated! And if you have lots of them, please share them with the other people in the WidSets Forum!

    Regarding the way you are using WidSets on your phone, that’s not exactly how we planned it. The idea is that you start it once, and keep it running. We do know that this work great on many phones, but on some phones the application might get interrupted by other apps. Anyway, using it in “always-on mode” you will get alerts (and the icons change, as you have mentioned) whenever there is new information pushed to you from our servers, so that you know when to check the stuff out. That’s the way people use it now, mostly.

    We are adding two-way functionality over the summer, providing more interesting services on the mobile. I hope you’ll have the time to check them out and that you’ll like them!

    Cheers,
    HeGe

    Comment by HeGe — July 5, 2006 @ 2:24 am

  2. I’m using a Sanyo MM-7500 (which is reported as a MM-7400). If I want to do anything with the phone - like make a phone call, send a text message, or use a different application - I have to exit WidSets. Please do let me know if other devices’ behavior is different!

    At the moment, WidSets is a toy with potential. There is a lot of work necessary to bring the user experience up to par, especially on non-Nokia devices; the work includes base UI, widget templates, and device support. I’m not ready to invest in being a part of the user community, as my time available for such activities is limited. On the other hand, I am available for paid consulting, or you can certainly buy our Java style guide.

    Comment by Barbara — July 7, 2006 @ 9:31 am

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