Nokia Mobile Web Server - the future of smartphones or a geeky blind alley?

[slitchfield]

"Would you like to preview Nokia Mobile Web Server?", I was asked. "Not really my cup of tea", I said, "but I know someone else for whom this would be extremely interesting." And I was right. Our own Rafe Blandford gets to grips with Mobile Web Server, shows what it can do, demonstrates a real live phone-hosted micro site and then points to a possible smartphone future.

Read on in the full article.

[Ratkat]

It's a great concept, but at the moment I'd settle for a half decent FTP client and HTML editor, both sadly unavailable for S60V3.

[Sebhelyesfarku]

For me an SSH tunnel app would be more important. S60 PuTTY doesn't do it.

[luarvique]

I'm not quite sure what to say about this... Maybe this question will be the most humane way to talk crazy inventors out of their ivory tower:

Just how much memory is still available on an average S60 phone, after you load Apache web server, several modules for it, the Python interpreter, and whatever else needs to stay resident for this wonderful idea of theirs to work? =)

[gotan]

If you want to build a server for a mobile phone, that server should be an LDAP contact server interface to the phones contacts.

LDAP as a standard is not worth going over, but suffice it to say that its already an enterprise standard (Active directory is an MS LDAP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_directory).

If you had an LDAP server for your contacts running on your phone in Bluetooth PAN mode, you could conceivably log into and use the contact database on your phone with any LDAP enabled email/pim client. This is without having to sync/disclose personal contact details on a work machine. The contact information is served from your phone over your PAN-local network.

As Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook (to name but a few) are all LDAP enabled applications, then suddenly your next generation Nokia phone can be the canonical repository for your personal contacts.

Just my 2p worth.

[tomsky]

Taking some of Rafe's hints further, you could use this to set up your phone like you set up a router - use a web browser rather than the pc suite software, so it makes it that much more idiot-proof to set up additional features on your phone.

I know plenty of people who own expensive phones, but don't know that the PC suite exists. This could eliminate that problem. Just sign on to home network, bang the IP address into a browser and voila! No PC suite required.

It's all very google, and very web 2.0, tho. Give me a browser and a place to stand!

Tom

Steve, I have a mobsite too, but tell me please, "using the 'Users' section of the S60 software" what do you mean?, I have raccoon running, python running, and now Open C running, wich s60 software do you mention?, that screenshots.... I have not them, neither a s60 software about MWS.

[Rafe]

luarvique - that's definitely a good point. I was able to run the standard apps but it doesn't always survive if you have both Web and Camera open. That said I personally think most use from this sort of thing is for the user not for the wider world and as such it likely you would activate it when you need it. Of course more RAM is needed all round for future smartphone use...

As I said in the article interesting concept but there are real world limitations.

Gaston - yes that's true although it would be useful, however its more limited I feel

Unregistered - this software is not publicly available yet. It will be shortly.

[Rafe]

Its now open for everyone - check out mymobilesite.net

[tnkgrl]

This... Is just completely awesome!

[luarvique]

All right, by its very definition, a web server has two qualities:

-- It is always on
-- It serves multiple clients

Given that this thing can neither be always on (memory limitations) and cannot serve multiple clients (low performance, low bandwidth, huge traffic costs), you can't really use it as a full-fledged web server. For this kind of a job, it would have to be a publishing system rather than a standalone server, with data being published to a stationary web-connected system with a lot of cheap bandwidth.

So, if this project is not good as a web server, what is it good for? First of all, it looks like a perfect replacement for the Nokia PC Suite. That dreadful program which runs several background processes all the time, periodically hangs, refuses to install things, and can't even recognize my phone half the time.

Secondly, an ability to use a standard web browser from anywhere to configure your phone, use its camera, microphone, read its GPS location, and maybe even look at its screen would be truly priceless.

Finally, when combined with a media server, it may be a good tool to serve MP3 files stored on the phone to other devices in the house.

This kind of mobsite has been possible for quite a while. I developed my own mobsite a while ago with similar functionality at:

graham.brown.at.openlaboratory.net (graham.brown.at.openlaboratory.net:8080 if it throws up a permissions error)

But it also has an improved visual calendar, todo list, text message filter, database driven sections such as news and external links, system information and a secure area for sending messages, managing contacts and adding / ammending / deleting calendar entries / todo items.

It is true that you can't have your mobsite on all the time due to memory restrictions and more importantly data rate charges from mobile phone operators but the concept is still rather intriguing and it will be cool to see how the technology develops.

[Rafe]

The mobsite referenced in the last comment is impressive. Nice to see what's possible I'm assuming that's Racoon, MWS seems to be the consumer friendly(ier) version of Racoon.

luarvique - its true its never going to be a traditional web server, but because its on your phone you can do some interesting stuff. Its an enabler. You'd be bonkers to try and run a public information website off it, but as you said there's scope for plenty of things all of which could be built on top of this.

[luarvique]

To Rafe:
True, it will make a very nice remote administration tool. Here is an approximate list of features that I would include into this thing (some of them are there already, forward it to whoever offered you to test the MWS first):

-- Remote access to message box
-- Remote access to calendar
-- Remote access to configuration

-- Remote desktop access (i.e. phone reacts to simulated buttons and sends its screenshot as a .GIF)
-- Remote access to the media content stored on the phone, in a way compatible with current connected media gadgets

-- Remote access to camera, in both one-shot and video modes
-- Remote access to the microphone
-- Remote access to the GPS coordinates, with a stationary web application repeatedly polling the phone, storing trajectory, and plotting it against Google Maps

-- Sending SMS messages using the phone
-- Sending "note" messages to the phone itself
-- A "drop box" on the phone where files can be uploaded from the web

Ufff...I ran out of ideas.

Does somebody know whether streaming(accessing sound files from mobile phone) is possible through Mobile Web Server? Thanks.