What devices feature WAP?

What devices feature WAP?

Devices that feature WAP

Nowadays just about every phone that has been sold within the past five years is WAP enabled. Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and phone.com were all part of the initial WAP Forum so all their products are certain to be WAP enabled. Apple products are also WAP enabled (e.g. iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, iPad2) but if they are using the mobile Safari browser, pages will not be displayed properly because mobile Safari is not WAP capable.

There are Apps that can be downloaded to the iDevice that address this issue if it is a problem for the user. Blackberry also has WAP but they recommend use of their own bespoke wireless gateway as it compresses and optimises wireless transfer of data more than normal WAP. Users can still use WAP as their default on their Blackberry if they like though.

Why bother with WAP if I have internet access on my modern smart phone?

WAP is supplied as a service by most mobile phone operators. When WAP launched, it was available from browsers that dialled up a special WAP number. Today, WAP access is available over GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), allowing faster browsing via an always-on connection. With GPRS, you are billed by the amount of data you send.

Some UK operators offer an inclusive GPRS WAP allowance. WAP content is optimised for use on a mobile phone. This means it doesn’t become cluttered with Java, large images, or banner ads. With standard dial-up, you pay by the minute to access WAP, and with GPRS, you pay for the amount of data you download.

As WAP is optimised, the costs for either method are fairly low. WAP has evolved over time so that you no longer need to key-in specific pages any more. Good browsers are now available that take on the job of ‘go to’ that was standard on the early WAP phones. WAP can be very useful when there is no 3G connection available or the 3G signal is poor.

What else uses WAP?

Not surprisingly, there are many other devices on the market that are WAP enabled or make use of WAP to function. WAP is not confined to mobile phones or hand-held pocket devices.

NetFront, for example is widely used in devices and equipment ‘beyond the PC’ and is the most common WAP micro-browser and is particularly suitable for items that have restricted capability for accessing the internet. Examples of items where a microbrowser might be used are:

-          Multifunction printers

-          Digital TV’s

-          Set-top boxes

-          PDA’s

-          Web Phones

-          Games consoles (e.g. DSi and PSP)

-          Email terminals

-          Pocket PC devices e.g. Psion Organisers

-          Mobile phones

-          Tablets e.g. iPad, Archos, Xoom, Acer Iconia