Android Web Wigets

Yet Another Mobile Platform • Pervasive, rich, attractive, mostly open • Enjoys wide industry support • Shipping 60,000 cell phones per day but still competing for market share • Used i

Web Widgets

on Android

MobileMonday Developer Day, Dusseldorf, 23 February 2010

Status Quo: Ecosystem View

• Android is not YAMP! (Yet Another Mobile Platform)

• Pervasive, rich, attractive, (mostly) open

• Enjoys wide industry support

• Shipping 60,000 cell phones per day (but still

competing for market share)

• Used increasingly in non-mobile verticals, such as

smart home

• Paradigm shift for mobile Java

Status Quo: Developer View

• Android is YAMP in their portfolio!

• Requires new porting efforts, knowledge, testing,

devices, marketing

• Avalanche of versions (1.0-2.1) in just two years!

• OEMs & operators customize UI, features, APIs to

bring value and differentiate

• Different features and screen sizes to be addressed

Porting for and within Android ecosystem is a

full time job!

Q: What happens in 2-5 years?

Hopefully not!

Source: abcnews.go.com

Can web apps help?

Mobile Web App Ecosystem

Browser

Web Server

Web Server

Web Server

Traditional Approach to Mobile Web Apps

Advantages:

• Easy, easy, easy!

• Common web technologies, portable, variety of tools

• Lots of web developers 

• Apps in the cloud easy to update

How about web widgets?

Web Widgets (for Mobile)

Define web widget:

• Application, written using common web technologies (HTML, JS,

SVG, Flash, etc.)

• Deployed as a single package file into the end user's browser

• Processed and interpreted as a set of locally-hosted web pages

• Obeying lifecycle, security and networking requirements

• Lifecycle feels like a native app

• Originally developed by Opera and called Opera Widgets:

http://widgets.opera.com

• Evolved further into W3C Widget specification:

http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/

Web Widget Anatomy

<?x ml

ver sio n="

.xml

• Packaging format: single zip file, wgt extension

• Mime type: application/widget

• Configuration (manifest) file: config.xml

• Entry point: index.html or custom file

• Content: HTML, JS, any resource, any mime type recognized by the

browser (Flash, SVG, video, etc.)

• Security and networking enforcement

• Signing

Web Widget Ecosystem

Web Server

Browser

Web Servic e

xyz Server

Widget

Web Widgets (for Mobile)

Advantages:

• Easy, easy, easy!

• Common web technologies, portable, several SDKs

• Lots of web developers 

• Works in offline mode

• Lifecycle feels like a native app

Disadvantages:

• No integration with phone functions, like location, messaging, PIM, address book, etc

What about JIL/BONDI/WAC?

Beyond W3C Widgets

• BONDI “uses web technologies and builds upon them to provide

new APIs to the key mobile phone functionality like Contacts,

Calendar, Messaging & Location”

• JIL will “enable different widgets and applications to run

seamlessly on different handset platforms and operating systems across different mobile operators, while safeguarding customer security, data privacy and billing systems”

• Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) “aims to unite a

fragmented marketplace by involving players from all related

industries to create a community based on openness and

transparency to the benefit of all”

Translation please: cross-platform app model, based on W3C

Widgets, extended by built-in JavaScript APIs for device access

Use Cases

• Social Address Book

– Contact list from the native address book

– Existing Facebook friends automatically detected

– Direct access to the friend’s wall

– Messaging editor with merged SMS and Facebook history

– Buttons to initiate a voice/video call

• Sticky GeoNotes

– Paper notes are so lame 

– Leave a text/voice/video message for your family and colleagues

– Based on your current location

Enriched Web Widget Ecosystem

Messagin g

Browser

Web Servic e

xyz Server

Widget

Why Should You Care?

• Too many BIG players pushing for it!

• JIL devices shipped in 2009

• BONDI devices shipping in 2010

• Cross-platform apps easier to develop!

But beware of these pitfalls:

• Browser-specifc workarounds

• Screen sizes and orientation

• Large amounts of business logic and networking code in JS may not be too much fun

Beyond JIL/BONDI/WAC

(Problem solved! What else can we ask for?)

Beyond JIL/BONDI/WAC

Wouldn’t you like to:

… expose your own services to widgets?

… write business logic in Java rather than JavaScript?

… write networking code in Java rather than JavaScript?

… leave the widget code to UI designers and developers?

You’d be out of luck nowadays: current implementations

don’t provide means to extend the device APIs

Mobile OSGi

But there are efforts in that direction based on mobile OSGi:

• OSGi used on mobile, embedded, smart home, enterprise platforms, and spreading

• Mobile OSGi (JSR 232) deployed on a wide variety of mobile platforms (Android, Symbian, WM, BREW)

• Enables dynamic code deployment and update, dynamic service wiring, code reuse, versioning and more:

http://www.osgi.org/About/WhyOSGi

• OSGi complements, not replaces Android platform

http://www.osgi.org/About/Technology

Mobile OSGi + Web Widgets

Messagin g

Web Server App

Service

Mobile OSGi

Browser

Web Servic e

xyz Server

Widget

Remote OSGi ServicesMobile OSGi and Web Widgets? So, how does it work:

public interface MyService {

public void doSomething(String param);

}

MyService instance = new MyServiceImpl();

Properties props = new Properties();

props.put("org.osgi.remote.publish", Boolean.TRUE);

bundleContext.registerService(MyService.class.getName(),

instance, props);

Using Services from Widgets

and get a proxy service object

var so = RSR.bind(“MyService”);

so.doSomething(“param”);

Easy enough!

Web Widgets increasingly seen as a

potential

Android-based devices supporting Web

Widgets are shipping now

Web Widgets are empowered with rich device

allow dynamic APIs for Widgets

Additional resources:

www.prosyst.com dz.prosyst.com mobileosgi.blogspot.com

s.djukic@prosyst.com