The standardization of Widget-APIs as an approach for overcoming device fragmentation

Since Apple released the iPhone in 2007 the conversion into a mobile web has accelerated strongly. This paper discusses the challenges resulting from that shift.

The diversity of platforms and device specifications put a heavy burden on developers. While each platform offers an own proprietary API for developing applications it is often desirable to develop applications platform independently. One possible way today is to use web technologies. Although this offers a platform independent API many commonly used system APIs are not accessible. For most applications this is not acceptable since the use of sensors and file I/O is a premise to build modern user experiences.

But now another interesting part of mobile development begins to merge into the sphere of web technology. This is the use of widgets. Widgets were originally designed for desktop use as small single purpose applications but were quickly adapted on the web. Those applications are written using web standards like HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

The widgets we see on the web today can only use the limited JavaScript APIs that is provided by the browsers. Also the W3Cs current widget specification fails to deliver on device APIs, where only packaging and a widgets configuration is specified. That is why new specifications are about to be made and standardized. They describe Widget Engines and their APIs that wrap around modern handsets system APIs.

During the last two years mayor telecommunication companies founded joint ventures like JIL and BONDI to fulfill this goal. Both JIL and BODI have worked out specifications on device APIs and security as well as reference implementations for at least one mobile platform. These results are the input for a new round of widget specification within the W3C.

While there are neither standards nor implementations around today
developers have to handle platform diversity themselves. This problem is tackled by some frameworks of which Phonegap and J2ME-Polish are introduced in the conclusion of this paper.