Google Maps for Mobile – Not AJAX?

Dietrich Kappe, Wednesday, August 2, 2006 @ 9:00 am

I've been using Google Maps for Mobile for a few weeks now and find it rather useful, especially when I'm in a strange city driving a rental without a nav system. OK, what does this have to do with Ajax? Nothing. And that's precisely the point. Google, arguably the pioneer in all things Ajax, is distributing their Maps application -- the Ajax app that first made people sit up and take notice -- to mobile devices as a Java application.

Now maybe under the covers it's actually a custom web browser that supports Ajax, (if anyone has taken the time to test this theory out, please let me know) but I somehow doubt it. What does this say about the state of mobile Ajax if the big dog on the block puts their money down on a custom Java application? I think it means that we're a long way away from practical mobile Ajax and even further away from the winners being picked.

That of course doesn't prevent Nokia and Opera and various other players from claiming that they've solved the mobile Ajax puzzle. Until they solve the problem of direct manipulation, though, they haven't convinced me. Once Opera Mobile allows me to drag Google Maps (the non-mobile kind) around on my phone's screen, they haven't passed the Ajax version of the Turing test.

There are just too many interfaces for mobile devices now to make this practical. How do we support in an Ajax capable browser the buttons, pens and wheels that make up the beastiary of mobile device user controls? It's not just about filling out forms anymore. Some phones may never be Ajax capable for this reason: their controls are just too limiting.

So, don't hold your breath on mobile Ajax. By the time everyone has upgraded their phone, it'll be 2008.

Update 1: I guess some people didn't get the point of this post, and I do admit that I might have burried the lede. So let me try again: Google isn't placing a bet on mobile Ajax. Mobile phones continue to have diverse user controls unsuitable for direct manipulation, which seems necessary for the Ajax version of Google Maps. The next generation of phones (RAZR, etc.) may not have the kind of pen interfaces to support that style of interaction. Therefore, mobile Ajax won't be a reality for quite some time, maybe not even 2008. It's not the software, but the hardware, and that's why google is crafting a seperate app for each phone.

Technorati : ajax, gmm, google maps, java, mobile

Related posts:

1. New ZK Google Maps Component
2. Google Maps Component for Echo2
3. OpenLayers – Google Maps for the Rest of Us
4. BJAX – Hacking Google Maps with Bookmarklets
5. Mobile Ajax and Predictions of J2ME’s Demise

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