Programming Mobile Devices: An Introduction for Practitioners

7

Networking

7.1 Introduction

The fundamental purpose of a mobile device is to liberate users from restrictions of place. Therefore, it is only natural that the connection to a fixed network is gaining more and more interest in the domain of applications, and the role of a mobile device as an execution environment for local applications only is becoming less attractive. Furthermore, assuming that it is the contents and data that users are consuming, it is obvious that they should be loaded over the network in some form or another, as communication is the main purpose of many mobile devices.

An obvious consequence of the above is that one can propose the use of mobile devices as extensions of any networking system. For instance Pernici (2006) proposes a number of aspects that enable, allow, and support such extensions. Moreover, communications facilities associated with mobile techniques, discussed by Schiller (2003), for instance, have gained interest. In the scope of this chapter, however, we place the focus on the internals of a mobile device, and overlook the design of services that may be located in the network but can be specialized or extended for mobile devices. Therefore, while addressing the properties of networks and services, the viewpoint is that of an application developer for a mobile phone, not that of a service provider or service developer. Another consequence of the above is that in many ways, networking features appear as yet another resource that is capable ...