Customer Reviews

Mobile and Wireless Design Essentials

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am studying towards a Ph.D. in Information Systems. I was given an assignment to research wireless technologies. I decided to read this book to refresh my memory about the topic. The information in the book is better presented than any journal article on the topic that I have read to date, even articles from world renown researchers from MIT, Stanford, Duke and alike. The author takes a very difficult topic and presents in a crystal clear manner that can be understood by virtually anyone. Moreover, the information is not watered-down. To the contrary, it is the single most valuable resource that I have found on the topic after conducting a thorough literature review. I would recommend it to anyone who deals with wireless networks or wants to increase their knowledge about the topic.

This book is mostly intended for non-technical people looking for a gentle introduction to the wireless/mobile devices world with a comprehensive survey of the existing technologies.

Confused by acronyms like GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WAP, WI-FI, Bluetooth? This book will cover all that and much more. The author did a fine job by carefully and systematically explained the key wireless technologies in a high-level manner that appeals to a broader audience. Engineers and developers will be disappointed though by the lack of code samples, mobile development strategies and discussion of current mobile devices specifications

Anyone dealing with mobile and wireless computing needs to have this book on their desk. It is a great reference, providing a comprehensive and non-biased overview of the different facets of this market space.

It is uniquely written in such a way that it can be read, understood and enjoyed by a wide variety of readers. From any IT sales staff needing to understand the competing technologies - to project managers needing to implement optimized mobile and wireless solutions - to the hard-core techies looking for an introduction into new technology - this book will apply...

Read this book if you want a competitive advantage in mobile and wireless computing...

Anyone dealing with mobile and wireless computing needs to have this book on their desk. It is a great reference, providing a comprehensive and non-biased overview of the different facets of the mobile and wireless space.

It is uniquely written in such a way that it can be read, understood and enjoyed by a wide variety of readers. From any IT sales staff needing to understand the mobile and wireless market space, the latest technologies, competing technologies and buzzwords, to the project managers needing to implement real life mobile solutions, to the hard-core techies looking for a introduction into new technology, this book will apply...

It is appropriately titled and provides exactly what is says.

Read this if you want a competitive advantage in the mobile and wireless space.

The author seems to be quite articulate to cover a lot of interrelated topics. For each topic, the book provides a nice review of the background information to bring readers to the same page, and then discusses the real issue in load balance context and presents the solutions. The book is also very easy to read as it is concise and to the point.

Mobile and Wireless Design Essentials is clearly organized and perfect for folks looking for a sweeping overview of the mobile and wireless space. I provides a great overview on a wide range of topics, giving readers the ability to begin on the path which is most appropriate for their project or interest. For those without current projects or with a desire to understand the industry in general, it does a good job of explaining the different application architectures, standards, and all of the buzzwords of the mobile industry. The diagrams and resources are great and help to explain a lot of the concepts, or provide a way to start digging deeper into topics of interest. Also, the depth of each topic is perfect for the intended audience. I recommend this book as a very current, thorough and invaluable resource for people beginning mobile projects or just interested in the space.

I currently work for a wireless infrastructure company and was very impressed by the coverage of each chapter in Martyn Mallick's book. Not only does it cover wireless protocols and devices, Martyn's book also includes hot topics like data synchronization. In my field, data synchronization is my bread and butter. I honestly believe Martyn took a very unbiased approach to smart clients, thin clients, messaging, webservices, XML and etc. On top of that, Martyn compares the pros and cons to programming in Java, .Net, BREW, and etc.

The bottom line is; I highly recommend Mobile and Wireless Design Essentials for senior architect level programmers all the way to first year computer science/MIS students. This book certainly cleared up the gray areas in my understanding of mobile technology.

I am writing wireless applications for about two years now so I am not new into this programming category. I wondered how complete this book is in describing all the standards/tools out there at the moment (and I have to say I did not know all of them). It gives you an insight on what is possible and what tools you could use for mobile development. It's a good buy if you want to have a reference on what standards and techniques are out there and what is possible in mobile development. I will use it for my mobile classes and recommend it to my students as a *must read* if they are going to write robust and secure mobile or wireless applications for the enterprise.

For people looking to get a handle on designing and developing mobile applications I highly recommend this book. It covers pretty much everything you want to know about mobile application architectures, wireless networks, mobile devices and even voice applications. It takes you through the common issues that you will encounter, and provides helpful information on how to design applications to get by them. It is not however a book that will teach you have to actually program the applications themselves. The focus is more on application and architecture design than it is on low level programming.

I didn't end up reading the entire book though. There are some chapters on things like location based services that weren't really of interest to me at this point. The way the book is organized allowed me to read seperate chapters on there own without having to read everything in order. In this way I can now use it as a reference when I come across topics that I want to learn more about.

All in all Mobile and Wireless Design Essentials is really unlike most book on mobile computing. It provides a great overview of the technologies that are available, and in addition to the vast information in the book itself, there are hundreds of links to valuable websites that can be visited to learn more about any given topic.

I am not sure how to classify this book! Is it a book for a manager? Maybe! Is it a book for a developer new to mobile application development? Not quite! Is it a book for a hardcore technologist (architect, sr developer, product manager, etc)? Definitely not so.

The content of the book is definitely dated (as of 2006). But, I wouldn't blame the author for this. The field of mobile apps is moving very rapidly. There is a lot of confusion, but, a lot of the smoke is also clearing up. Interesting initiatives like OMA are taking center stage in "clearing up the smoke".

The book is way easy to read. But, that's because it has zero technical content. The book touches a lot of interesting technologies, but doesn't provide details on any. It is my belief that the author could have summarized most of the book in maybe 50 pages, or even less!

The book's biggest value is for somebody new to the field. Its a very quick read. There are tons of web links (again dated, but, some very relevant even today) to consortia, forums, companies involved in mobile application development. I was really hoping that the author would put this list online. But, I haven't found anything similar after searching on the author's name in google.

I usually don't read books word-by-word, line-by-line. I try to grasp the big concepts on the first read. This makes me the worst person to find grammatical mistakes in documents/books. But, even I could find grammatical mistakes on the first (and only) read of this book. The editors need to do a better job next time (if there is a next time).