You already know the result, don’t you? Everything will take longer the second way. Retrieving the weather bulletin happens in three seconds by newspaper, perhaps 50 seconds by Web-enabled mobile phone. Finding the film listing is a 20- to 25-second task by old media, but takes at least two minutes by new media. “WAP stands for Wrong Approach to Portability,” usability researcher Jakob Nielsen told analysts, after releasing a report last month in which he found that 70 percent of trial users of WAP phones said they wouldn’t go on to buy the technology.
Despite breathless promotion (“the connectivity of your desktop when you are on the go”), WAP phones are not catching on. Overall, the mobile-phone business is exuberant. About 420 million handsets will be sold worldwide in 2000, according to a forecast by Dataquest Inc. But it’s unlikely that WAP phones will amount to even one in 10 of those. There are currently no firm statistics on global WAP adoption, but the market-research firm IDC thinks that by the end of this year, only 7.7 million WAP handsets will be in use in the United States. Europe, with its far greater mobile-phone penetration, has higher numbers: about 16.5 million subscribers to WAP services, according to the research firm Datamonitor, but that is still a tiny percentage of the mobile market. Japan, where NTT DoCoMo offers a popular rival Web-access technology called iMode, has only 3 million WAP users.
It’s easy to see why the numbers are low. WAP phones offer nothing like the connectivity of a desktop. There is the time factor: today’s mobile phones transfer data at an average of 9.6 kilobits a second, the same as dial-up modems back in the Paleozoic Age of 1992. Simply establishing a Web connection by mobile phone can take half a minute. Then there’s the price. WAP access is a premium service. At Sprint PCS, for example, it adds $10 to the bill of anyone signed up for a basic plan costing at least $29.99.
The display space for information? To describe it as cramped would be generous. The typical mobile-phone screen can show between 120 and 150 characters. That’s enough for a news headline or a stock quote, but not for most e-mail. A Forrester Research report issued last month argues that the creators of most WAP interfaces have yet to adjust to the unique needs of mobile users who want content in bursts suitable to the phones’ tiny screens.
Also, the alphanumeric keypad is a clumsy input device; to enter the letter C in a data request, say, a user must switch to text mode and then tap the number 2 key three times–slowly. Finally, WAP designers need to recognize that telephones are designed for vocal exchanges, says Michael Hawley, an expert in networked appliances at MIT’s Media Lab: “I want to be able to ask what the weather is in Boston and get a forecast by voice.” The verdict on WAP? “Not ready for prime time,” says Hawley.
All these obstacles could be overcome if only consumers had better reasons to make a mobile-phone connection to the Web. E-mail? That works better on the larger screens of pagers like the BlackBerry and communicating PDAs like the Palm VII and the Handspring Visor with its new YadaYada wireless modem. Online stock trading? A potentially compelling application, but WAP poses a security problem. When the Web server at DLJdirect or Youtrade transmits information about a buy or sell order to the customer, the data must be translated from a Web-standard security protocol to one created for WAP. It’s not a seamless transition. There’s a brief moment when a hacker could intervene to redirect the data. That’s why a small Swiss company called Ergon has developed a Palmtop system that ignores WAP to establish a more direct connection between the handheld device and the trader’s Web site. “I have to know I’m talking to the right server,” says Patrick Burkhalter, the CEO of Ergon. His system also uses Java technology to support features not currently seen in WAP interfaces, such as color, checklists and drop-down menus. Credit Suisse is using Ergon to enhance its Youtrade service.
WAP phones can be made to work better; WAP is an evolving standard. A deal last month in which NTT DoCoMo agreed to take a 16 percent stake in AT&T Wireless could bring iMode to the United States–or produce a convergence of the two standards. But in the meantime, you might think twice before signing up for WAP service. Unless you don’t mind waiting for the weather forecast.
