Le blog du Lab GFI

WidSets is a mobile runtime technology, and a mobile service powered by the said technology, based on the Java MIDP 2.0 platform, from the Finnish mobile giant Nokia. It is both a widget engine and a widget deployment service where mini-applications called widgets can be uploaded to WidSets servers to be compiled and then automatically deployed to MIDP 2.0 compliant mobile phones running the WidSets client software. The widgets are created using Extensible Markup Language (XML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Helium scripting language.^[1]

WidSets was officially launched on October 2006, it worked on all Java MIDP 2.0 phones, including non-Nokia ones, and was regarded as a mobile counterpart to Netvibes.^[2] The current version as of May 2008 is version 2.0.0 for both the client and the SDK.

What can Widsets do?

In essence the widsets application allows the vast majority of mobile phones currently on the market to request information from web services and the web. Tiny applications can be downloaded to their handset which can perform functions ranging from getting the news from their favorite media source via RSS feeds to accessing their email easily on the go. Clients can use either their mobile handset or login to the widsets homepage and add widgets to their own dashboard which is then downloaded the next time they load the dashboard on their mobile handset.

One innovation of widsets is that it requires the dashboard to connect to a server that is controlled directly by Nokia. This could be seen as a negative aspect but really it is a fantastic benefit for portability. The users’ dashboard is saved on Nokia’s servers so it is easy for the user to access their own personal dashboard using any phone they wish.

Also the server process the information sent back to the client and removes any that is un-viewable not needed or not wanted by the user. This reduces the cost of sending the information and also enables the client to properly view the information they request. The user can also specify type of information they do not wish to download such as images and therefore save money. This allows non-3G phones to browse the internet without being overwhelmed with information, navigate the internet in an effective manor as well as reducing the time needed to access content over a GPRS network.

Another aspect of widsets that is very intriguing is that it uses XML for portability and accessibility. In fact any website that has its information in a RSS or ATOM feed fashion can be easily retrieved and view by the user. What’s interesting here is that many large business applications such as ERP systems (SAP, PeopleSoft) utilize XML for transferring data between their various modules. In theory a widsets widget could access information from ERP systems and deliver it to a mobile handset efficiently. Individuals could simply launch a widget from their dashboard and be able to view all sorts of statistics and information from their systems in real time on their mobile handset.

There are several limitations of widsets however. Nokia will not sell, lease or loan any of their servers that the dashboard connects to.

While the widsets API contains a lot of functionality, many aspects of it is either not implemented yet, unable to implement effectively due to restrictions on J2ME or not implemented very well. This limits some applications for the widsets framework.

Another aspect is that in order for widsets to be available to the majority of handsets on the market, limits were placed on the framework. These include not being able to save information on the phones internal memory(however an external memory card can be used for the applications to save information), no access to the phone book for privacy purposes, limiting the memory size of widgets and some graphical limitations. These was done as many phones still currently being used have limited internal memory and are not able to render some aspects of the UI effectively.

Interesting feature coming in the near future is video integration with video mobile handsets.