PDAs as mobile WWW browsers

Abstract

In this paper we present a WWW frontend for Apple's Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) Newton. At the Telecooperation Office (TecO) we carry out a project researching information retrieval by mobile hand-held devices. In this context we are investigating impacts of PDA architecture (e.g. limited storage capabilities, small display) on the usability of these devices to act as WWW browsers. As a result of these activities, we developed a WWW browser for the Apple Newton PDA. Currently WWW access is restricteted to stationary hosts. It would be a very promising approach to have access to this global information system via mobile devices. PDAs are the pinnacle of modern computer and communication technology and supposed to be in everybody's possesion in a few years. These hand-held systems offer wireless communication and advanced integration: You can carry computer and communication services in your pocket. They can be used as mobile information browsers not only in hospitals or libraries but also in future offices and everyday life where all kind of information access are to be combined in one device. We demonstrate the feasibility of providing access to WWW via mobile hand-held devices. Based on our experiences we will report the special requirements for PDAs as WWW clients. Those requirements are, e.g., pre-processing of graphical data and reflection of small bandwidth wireless communication. We will present the architecture of our PDA WWW browser based on the concept of distributed clients and discuss desirable PDA specific features of the WWW service. Finally we want to present first experiences in using the browser and give an outlook on future developments.