March 16, 2001

4:24 PM

Ready To Go DoCoMo?Big in Japan (holding 60% of the wireless audience), NTT's hugely successful i-Mode phones bring the Internet to millions in Asia. They bought a chunk of AT&T Wireless to hit North American shores in time for Christmas. Will it be a dream, or a dud? And are you ready to start building the wireless web?
posted by honkzilla (7 comments total)

Wot no JPEGs? They can't be serious.

Does anyone know if there's a page size limit (or some other limit?) on these types of devices - the page doesn't seem to say. I mean a slashdot discussion might reach a meg, easily. Can one of these handle it?

And HTML 2.0... excellent.
posted by holloway at 4:45 PM on March 16, 2001

i-mode is coming, which is cool and sucks. Yet another corporately-controlled "standard" we have to deal with. That said, the i-mode experience blows away WML.

It won't be a dud and we will be cajoled into making i-mode compatible pages because of the convenience and attractiveness of surfing from cell phones everywhere.
posted by fooljay at 4:46 PM on March 16, 2001

They've got Picture Symblos!

Oh yea! It supports <BLINK>!!! :-
Images should be in the GIF format.

Should? Isn't that subjective? They didn't say "shall"... Hmmmm
posted by fooljay at 4:52 PM on March 16, 2001

"It won't be a dud and we will be cajoled into making i-mode compatible pages because of the convenience and attractiveness surfing from cell phones everywhere."

i don't think this is entirely true. you won't HAVE to create i-mode compatible pages unless the content you're delivering is the kind that people want to or need to access from a mobile device. i-mode is not an alternative to the web nor is it intended for casual surfing.
posted by centrs at 8:14 PM on March 16, 2001

"Will it be a dream, or a dud? And are you ready to start building the wireless web?"

i think as with anything, the technology will develop and the expense level out to the point where wireless is an accepted way of life and not given a second thought. remember paying by the minute for long distance internet access at 14.4 kbs?

anyway, yes, i'm ready.
posted by centrs at 8:23 PM on March 16, 2001

btw, honkzilla, the "millions in Asia" that DoCoMo serves are all in Japan -- I was kind of hoping that they'd come and do South East Asia first, but I guess they figured North America would be an easier nut to crack since wireless services are already insanely popular here (like they are in Europe) and competition would be harder.
posted by lia at 9:35 PM on March 16, 2001

i-mode is definitely cool, but you gotta keep in mind that the Japanese use i-mode cause most of them don't have broadband access or even dial-up accounts. While the wireless web has been a long time coming in America, and i-mode is a lot more attractive then, say, WAP-enabled Internet, it won't have the same market penetration simply cause Americans don't need to view the web on their wireless phones. Unlike the Japanese, we've already got our Internet connections at home.
posted by rklawler at 4:35 AM on March 20, 2001