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i-Mode Developer’s Guide

i-Mode is huge in Japan and are catching on in other parts of the world. What is it and why should you care as a Flash developer? Well firstly, i-Mode now does Flash...

Title: i-Mode Developer's Guide
Authors: Paul Wallace with Andrea Hoffmann, Daniel Scuka, Zev Blut, and Kyle Barrow
Pages: 760
Web Site: www.imode-guide.com
ISBN: 0-672-32188-2
Publisher: Addison-Wesley

Although web-enabled cell phones have been with us for a few years now, these devices are still more or less a solution looking for a problem, not a solution to an existing problem. At least that's the way things have been in Europe, where service providers have been pushing the WAP standard. Despite their best efforts, WAP did not manage to capture the hearts nor the pockets of users and developers, at least not to the extent that the original WWW did in 1994 and the years that followed.

There are many reasons for slow adoption of WAP:

WAP phones use a dial-up access model, which is slow and outdated

some WAP-enabled devices and their WAP browsers are very difficult to use

the cost of access is high, because it is metered using the same tariffs as normal phone connections, and the costs add up much too fast

there is not enough good content to attract customers.

(These are only a few reasons, but they are some of the most important, IMO.)

My personal theory regarding the slow adoption of WAP is that service providers failed to provide an easy and inexpensive entry to this potentially lucrative market for the small guys. You can create a simple 'normal' web site with Notepad, Internet Explorer, a good HTML book (like Designing Web Graphics by Lynda Weinman) and a free hosting service provider. Doing the same in WAP is more difficult, and selling with WAP sites is even harder. As a result, the market is cornered by service providers offering the same boring content (news, tickers, weather, etc.)

While Europe and other places have been struggling with WAP, Japan did not use WAP at all, but launched i-mode, an extremely successful service that does a much better job of integrating Internet, cell phones, and the Web in a small, inexpensive and easy to use package. What's more, it is much easier to create i-mode sites than WAP sites, and the cost of entry for the small guys (think one-man shop developers) is much lower. Also, the i-mode business model is much more friendly to small content providers.

OK, but what a Flash developer/designer has to gain from i-mode? Well, since you can now deliver Flash content on i-mode devices, you can use all of your existing skills to create content for i-mode. Think content repurposing, think new markets and new clients. The only problem is learning how to do it, and that's what i-Mode Developers's Guide will teach you very well.

The i-Mode Developer's Guide is exactly what its' title says. It introduces web developers, designers, and business managers to the i-mode service, its technical details, the i-mode business model, the cHTML markup language, Java programming, and designing graphics, animation, and sound for i-mode.

Unlike many guides to web development, this books does not shy from the business side of such projects, and reads like and ABC of doing business with i-mode with various tips on making money with i-mode scattered throughout the whole book. As such, it is as useful for a web designer, a server-side application developer, a sound designer, a Java developer, as it is for a manager making business decisions about investing into i-mode. If you have clients doing business in Japan, you need this book to help them repurpose their content and create i-mode versions of their sites.

The book is split into six parts. Parts I and II are a technical and business introduction to the i-mode service, and reads like a recipe for creating a successful (over 26 million subscribers) on-line service. The authors explain how NTT created the i-mode platform, how the i-mode network operates, and how it manages to maintain a healthy relationship with content providers and handset manufacturers while not charging the users an arm and a leg for access.

These first eight chapters, just like the rest of the book, show no trace of hype, but instead offer loads of facts. The readers will learn a lot about global networks, i-mode design, i-mode handsets, markup language choices, location-based services, and other features of i-mode, etc. There is also a very good discussion of global networks, location-based services, and a solid explanation of technical and business differences between i-mode and WAP services with a good explanation of why i-mode succeeds and why WAP fails. Clearly, the authors know their subject very well and can present it in a non-biased fashion.

Chapter 4 is one of those I enjoyed most, as it describes the i-mode business model and ways to make money with i-mode. There is nothing better than finding a clear description of the ways to make money on a new services, even though there is no guarantee, or no get rich quick recipes.

Part III is a guide to the basics of building i-mode sites: cHTML, images, forms, wallpapers, and ring tones. This is essential reading for any designer new to i-mode. Although i-mode's cHTML feels like early HTML, you need this material to understand how it is different from plain HTML and WML. Every chapter is filled with information on what, how, and why you need to use the recommended tools. Pure, raw meat. And very enjoyable to read! (BTW. You do not need to have an i-mode handset to develop for i-mode, there are emulators, just like those for WAP devices. The information is in the book, of course.)

Part IV will interest developers of dynamic sites. And no, you will not find here silly PHP examples of Hello, World pages, but a developer-oriented discussion of security and session management, i-mode device detection, serving content that matches devices's capabilities, XML, and so on.

Part V covers Java programming for i-mode devices, and Part VI is a set of appendixes: an XHTML reference, a cHTML reference, screen sizes of i-mode handsets, i-mode pictograms, and i-appli Java classes.

This book is a true gem. It taught me a lot about i-mode from technical, business, cultural, and creative perspectives and, as a book that claims to be a 'guide' ought to, it equipped me with so much knowledge about the subject that I feel confident now that I too can build i-mode sites. The fact that i-mode users are in Japan and I live in Poland does not make much of a difference to me. I may not know Japanese, but I have the i-Mode Developer's Guide! The Internet and the globalization of today's world, takes care of the rest.
Click here to read more/buy the book at Amazon